6 month evolution of the Bixler 2

It's been a while since I last posted. Much has happened, especially with the Bixler 2. Previously I had just FPV'd the Bixler and had been bitten by the bug of fixed wing FPV. Especially the flight times and overall more relaxing experience.

So my first mod was to add a better way to mount items for experimentation.

This turned out to be a really clean look, and worked very well for FPV, even holding 3 cameras.

Until I got cocky... Inverted flight, stock motor, improper balancing... A recipe for a new challenge -a rebuild!

The laser cutter and hot glue gun made the rebuild so much more fun!

With new options for mounting, I decided to experiment some more as well..

After another great landing I had stripped the servo gears for the camera tilt, but pan still worked and flights were generally good.

Eventually I decided I wanted more information on my ground-station as well as to experiment with a flight controller on a plane. So I purchased a cheap APM clone and redesigned the fuselage mount to allow easy access to the room inside.

Adding and moving things around really changed the CG, so I created a lower deck for the battery. This increases my options for larger batteries as well as extra room in the nose.

I have yet to fly this setup yet due to the recent crazy wind. With all this extra drag and weight it'll be interesting to see how it handles. Though I think it would be cool to get up above one of these dust storms..

I plan to squeeze as much life out of the Bixler 2 as I can. In the near future I can foresee a motor upgrade, moving the servos back, and heavy modification of the tail boom (steerable, CF arrow shafts?).

More LED's are definitely on the list too!

FT Versa Wing

In the last month I have built a Flitetest FT Versa Wing. I had gotten the rear motor mount as part of a promotion on the kit, but chose to build it as a swappable as well so that I could just pop a power pod from my crashed FT Cruiser on.

I had my maiden flight at our club meeting last month. All went relatively well, I flew it for about 5 min then brought it down. I had it at about 5 foot, stalled it, and plopped it nose first into the ground, breaking the prop. Not too bad!

The plans/kit have an optional pusher prop mount. I could potentially use both a pusher and tractor configuration...

Here's how I packed my electronics in.

I've now moved the motor/prop to the back and am readying everything for FPV. My goal is to modify Flitetest's swappable power pod design to protect my battery and camera.

I had to use extensions to get my servo wires to reach my receiver. I wish I would have considered this a bit more prior to constructing the wing so that I wouldn't have to run the wires out, under the spar, then back in.

There's also a bit of a spacing issue with the vTx. I've cut the foam to fit over it, but I'm not sure how well that will allow for cooling, and may not be final..

I also cut a hole in front of the vTx to hopefully catch a little more air.





I finally got time to fly it, but it was so windy I was only comfortable flying line of sight, though I also had the video equipment up and running for whoever wanted to watch. It was probably too windy even for that...

Y6 additions, quick FPV, and cutting weeds

The y6 had been built and test flown, but the real purpose was to do FPV flying. To test out the vibration isolation of the foam sandwich electronics bay/controller mount, and give the awesome fighter jet like minimOSD a try!

I recently got a new dedicated FPV camera that seems to have a ton of adjustability. It needed a mount and some protection so Blender and the Replicator saved the day.
Files on thingiverse

After strapping my old GoPro 960 on and quickly mounting the power filter, OSD, and 5.8 GHz vTx, I needed a spot to mount the rc rx.

I had envisioned a streamlined roll cage of sorts to protect the flight controller, but measurements and guestimations were a bit off and what came out is more of a hump-back. It did give me a decent spot to mount the rx, as well as a nice carrying handle..

Indoor hovering was all I could do as I waited for the weather to cooperate and to get time fly.

I took my groundstation over to my parents' where I had previously flown my quad from their house across the street from a neighboring empty lot. It's a small lot, but its not bad for testing, nice practice for FPV in closer quarters, and it's fun to get a new perspective on the neighborhood.

Recent rain has caused the natural green stuff to shoot up though, and the lot was in need of a good mowing. I had joked about using the y6 to chop the weeds down, but in zooming around I lost it on the throttle control and the landing gear got snagged.

From what I remember it was a fairly graceful flip, but the video shows it to be a little fast. I'm thinking the twist when the front arms hit first caused the most stress for the break. Ah well, this was one of my design goals, make it easy to swap in a new part.

I really, really, wanted to fly longer so I brought out the quad, but I stuck it in the weeds causing a prop and nut to fly off. Ugh... Besides that, cutting through the weeds coated the camera with plant guts.




Flight seemed nice and smooth. Not sure if this is the flight controller or the Afro ESCs or what. The camera also did very well when looking into the sun. Now I need to rebuild and give it another shot..