Pearl EPO Glider 800 - First Flight / Crash

For my 50th blog post i decided to post videos of the crash of the Pearl EPO Glider 800. The crash happened on our first try on the 18th of December. I would have posted the videos on that date but we had recorded the videos using a sony handycam and it took some time to extract the videos (I hate sony handycams and their non standard USB's and Memory Cards). Anyway i did manage to get the videos and here they are. Enjoy

First Try Second Try

Ill fix it up and have it up as soon as i have some free time.In the mean while enjoy he pics of the broken plane:

Perl EPO Glider 800

Recently (by that i mean about 2 months ago) brought a glider from www.rchobbyaddict.com. Have finally managed to assemble it.  Here are some pics and a video of the glider. It uses a brush-less DC motor, 4 servo motors, and a 2S1P 800mah battery. Will give detailed specs in a post in one or 2 days after the flight.  

Ferrari Italia 458

Undoubtedly the best looking Ferrari in the world. Made in 3Ds Max 2011. Rendering time: 55 mins/per frame @1080p

Update : Last 3 images took 9 Hours at 3840x2160 ..

Quadrocopter - Part 8 - Failure

The quadrocopter project was going fine till i decided to start soldering the circuit for the flight controller. I've burnt my hand countless times while soldering - frankly speaking im lousy at it - but this was worse.

I was powering the circuit from the BEC (Battery Elimination Circuit) on one of my ESCs. As it happens due to the genius of my soldering technique i accidentally shorted the GND and the VCC of the BEC together and as soon as i connected the battery there was a crack sound and the inevitable distruction of the ESC. Thankfully we did have a spare ESC at home that was being used in a hovercraft project that my flatmate was working on so that got sorted.

The Burnt-Up ESC.

After that things got worse. The maiden test flight - not conducted by me - of the quadrocopter (done just by connecting the ESC's to the RF receiver with no gyros and no control circuitry) did not go well - as expected - and the entire thing just flipped over after going about 8-10 feet in the air and came down in a less than controlled fashion (Damn gravity). The damage was minimalist - the lower acrylic sheet got a crack on it and 2 of the propellers had light scratches on them. After this i decided to replace the acrylic sheets with something less brittle  some time later decided to make the entire structure - this time with a few changes.

Then that someone accidentally sat on the flight controller board for the quadrocopter (also called Luke) and broke it into 2 pieces. Thankfully i had spares for all the components for the board so i will be re-soldering it and this time i will be careful.

I will write a post as soon as im done with the new structure and the new board but that could be some time.

Quadrocopter - Part 7 - Updates

Its been about 2 months since I've written about anything on the blog. This was mainly because i got lazy and partly because i had nothing new to report. So now for the updates on the quadrocopter project.

Firstly i got the pyramid ready and fixed on top of the quadrocopter.This is how it looks:

Note:The RF Remote in the pic is not the one im using now. This was just a temporary 9ch radio that the people at RCHobbyAddict.com sent me until the ones i ordered arrived. It was freaking awesome though.

I also added some acrylic sheet pieces to be used as landing gear which was not a very good idea so i replaced them with some foam pieces - they work extremely well.

I also measured the weight of the quadrocopter and it was about 1.7Kg (including 2 batteries).

I then finally received the the RF transmitter and receiver that i ordered (Hobby-King 2.4GHz FHSS 6Ch Tx-Rx - Mode 2) from RCHobbyAddict.com at a reasonable price.This worked rite out of the box and all i had to do was plug it in. I've done some testing and was able to get about 600 meters range (Line of Sight) after which the limitations of my testing area came into play and so i left it as it is.

PS: I just bought an apple keyboard and by-jove its comfortable to type on so i hope there will be a lot more blogging.

Quadrocopter - Part 6 - Bringing Balance to the Force

Its been about 2 weeks since i posted anything.So here are a few updates.The quadrocopter design is finally complete(well sort of) and so is the flight computer. The sensors (Wii Motion+  and Nunchuck) are here. They seem to be working. The ATMEGA328 (Arduino based) which is the main component of the flight computer also arrived about a week ago and worked flawlessly.

This is all pretty cool but the main news is that I've finally ditched the name CPUV because i realized it sucked and now im going to name (Warning : Star Wars reference coming up) it "The Force". The flight computer is called Luke as it shall bring balance to the Force. Any more Star Wars references are welcome.

Ok now that my moment of insanity is over , here are the designs:

Right now I'm building the pyramid (reminds me of my very first blog post) on top of the quadrocopter.I might try to change the ring i used for the base to something smaller when i actually start building the landing gear but this render took an hour and i was not really in the mood to edit it and render it out again. 

The assembly instructions for everything except the landing gear are here in this animation which i made with some horrible light and shadow settings (Who cares as long as the basic idea gets through).

Note: The animation shows the motors being mounted straight. This is fine if you have 2 clockwise propellers and 2 counter-clockwise propellers. In-case all 4 of your propellers are of the same type (as is the case with me) then you need to tilt 2 of the motors slightly at an angle (between 5 to 10 degrees).

The circuit for the quadcopter is actually the same one being used in the www.multiwii.com. I'm using the one in the X configuration (link and link). The front of the quadcopter will be the part between the arms having the white and blue LED's. Here is a pic of my circuit. Arrow marks the front of the quadcopter.

Right now my quadrocopter is almost ready to fly. All i need to do is connect the RF receiver (for which the order was placed about 12 days ago but i still have not got it. I expect a further delay of 4-5 days). Once i get  that component we are gonna fly. If you are looking for some material on the various RF modules available go here.

Links to part 1 ,part 2 ,part 3, part 4 & part 5

Quadrocopter - Part 5 - Paisa Ye Kaisa

 Here go a few updates on the quadcopter (CPUV) project. As mentioned in my previous post I will be using the Wii Motion Plus and  Wii Nunchuck for the IMU of the quadcopter to keep it stable.I ordered both of them recently from eBay and they just got delivered. Also i needed a micro-controller to manage the quadcopter's movements so i ordered an ATMEGA328 with an Arduino bootloader on it, again from eBay. I also ordered a spare battery , and a Hobby-King 6-Channel 2.4GHz FHSS Transmitter and Receiver from RCHobbyAddict.

I shall explain i detail all these component choices in detail once i get the quadcopter to fly and write a complete build log along with the schematics and components.

Now that i have purchased almost all the major components required for the quadcopter i just wanted to give the estimated cost of the entire project for someone looking to build one:

Item	Price/Piece	Quantity	Price
Brushless DC Motors - EMAX 2822	505	4	2020
Brushless ESC - EMAX 18A	889	4	3556
Prop Savers	61	4	244
Propellers - 9x6E	112	1	672
Adapter 12V 5A	450	1	450
Li-Po Balance Charger	2212	1	2212
Connectors(Bullet,Berg etc.)	-	-	250
RF - 2.4GHz FHSS 6Ch Tx & Rx	3250	1	3250
Materials(Aluminium,Acrylic,Bolts)	-	-	350
Wires	-	-	100
LED Strips (RGBW) - 12 LEDs in Each	120	4	480
ATMEGA328 - Arduino	335	1	335
Wii Motion Plus	1075	1	1075
Wii Nunchuck	490	1	490
Lipo Battries 3S1P 2200mah 20C	1225	2	2450
Small Electronics	-	-	200
Misc(Glue,Tape,Shipping etc.)	-	-	500

Total : 18,634

Links to part 1 ,part 2 ,part 3 & part 4