Monday, February 13, 2012

KAP: Aerial Sunset w/ Skydivers!

I was out on Lake Mendota in Madison yesterday, doing some recreational ice sailing, and decided to end the day with a sunset Kite Aerial Photography session. The light was fading, and we noticed Skydivers jumping from a plane and landing on the ice in front of the Edgewater hotel. Since I was only using a GoPro HD Hero 2 camera, without any panning capibilities, I wasn't sure if I caught any of the divers in action. Luckly, the GoPro is really wide angle, and I did get a few of them, although they look really small. Must have been a fun jump to come down over the Madison Isthmus!

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Friday, February 10, 2012

Y6 MultiWiiCopter: Part V - Wiring the ESC's

This is my journal of the Y6 MultiWiiCopter build process. I do not claim to be a technical writer, nor an expert of advanced model engineering, and my goal for this blog post is to post images of my copter through construction and attach some notes of my successes and failures along the way, in hopes of helping others as they put together their copters. Please use my techniques and decisions at your own risk.
Having a "helping hands" for soldering is essential. Please note that the instructions for the Y6 assume that you do not have the MultiCopter Distribution board. This power board was included with my kit, so the pictures below show how I wired power for all my components.
This is the wiring of the XT60 connectors that will connect to the lipo battery.

I am not an expert on soldering, so will not presume to try and teach it here. Recommendation is to use flux paste so that you can fir and solder the connections properly.

The XC60 connection dongle attached to the power distribution board.

I originally decided to use the quick connectors which would connect to the ESC's, but eventually changed this and connected the ESC's directly to the board, and thus shortening the wires creating a cleaner install.

The gold connectors on the motor wiring are sealed with heat shrink.



I realized that this was just a big mess of wires, and not necessary. I also saw the methods used by other Y6 users on the RC Forum, which enlightened me.

Here is the updated and final wiring to the Power Distribution board with wires organized.

Put the copter together to get a feel for how big it was, without the props.



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Y6 MultiWiiCopter: Part IV - Motors and Arms

This is my journal of the Y6 MultiWiiCopter build process. I do not claim to be a technical writer, nor an expert of advanced model engineering, and my goal for this blog post is to post images of my copter through construction and attach some notes of my successes and failures along the way, in hopes of helping others as they put together their copters. Please use my techniques and decisions at your own risk.


You will be drilling additional space for you mounting screws as well as using Cyno glue, so the tip of using Waxed paper is very recommended. The carbon does make a mess, and having the paper to catch that for easy clean up is nice too.




After drilling the mount holes deep enough to hide the screw heads, but not all the way through, I also strengthened the carbon fiber with some Cyno glue in the new hole.

In order for the boom holders to fit properly, some of the nuts needs to be dremeled down on one edge. I used a vice grips and a dremel tool, but you could also use a workbench vice.

Please note that I wouldn't recommend having you motors sitting close to the area that you are filing down your nuts. Since the motors are magnetic, there is a chance that your could get metal shavings into the motor housing. A tip for later while shaving down the shaft to a shorter length is to keep your motors in a plastic bag, while only having the shaft poke through.


Both motors mounted, and you can seen the nut that was cut down and with that side sitting flush to the motor mount.


All 5 motors with the attached Carbon Fiber booms.


Motor Wiring:

Each boom will have a 2 motors, each with 3 wires. I used some colored heat shrink to be able to identify which wires belonged to which motore after you funnel your wires through the boom arm.

You solder the quick connectors to the wires and use heat shrink to cover the connection.

Here are all the connectors after snaking them through the booms.

Tighten the boom holders to the carbon fiber boom arms.


Ready to go!

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Y6 MultiWiiCopter: Part III - Reversing the Shaft

This is my journal of the Y6 MultiWiiCopter build process. I do not claim to be a technical writer, nor an expert of advanced model engineering, and my goal for this blog post is to post images of my copter through construction and attach some notes of my successes and failures along the way, in hopes of helping others as they put together their copters. Please use my techniques and decisions at your own risk.

The instructions indicate the "You may need to reverse the shaft" for 6 engines. I believe that it should state the you do indeed have to reverse the shafts. Maybe there is a way to do this without reversing the shafts, but I unknown how to do this. So, this means that for the mount holes for the brushless motors to bee on the opposite side that the shaft is sticking out, you have to reverse it. It is not that difficult of a process, and you'll need a nail tap and a vice. My vice was out in the garage so I came up with a different solution involving a 4x4 scrap piece of wood drilled with a big and deep enough hole to secure the motor on, but have the ability to tap the shaft out.

You can see from this image that the shaft is sticking up on the same side of the motor as the mounts. We need to pull the shaft out, and mount it on the other side of the motor so the mount points will sit flush against the carbon fiber mounts.




Remove the prop shaft connector. and the small metal clip that will be reused.

Remove the set screw.

Separate the top nd bottom halves of the motor and place the outer housing with the shaft pointing down into the hold drilled into the wood.

Use the nail tap to push the shaft down into the hole below until it is free. If you are using a vice, just have something to catch the shaft as it falls. My method, the hold is deep enough into the wood to catch the shaft, and the wood is soft enough not to scratch my motor.

Place the shaft back into the hold on the motor housing the opposite way it was removed. Place the housing over the other half of the motor, reattach the clip to the short side of the shaft motor and tighten the set screw.




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Y6 MultiWiiCopter: Part II - The Gimbal

This is my journal of the Y6 MultiWiiCopter build process. I do not claim to be a technical writer, nor an expert of advanced model engineering, and my goal for this blog post is to post images of my copter through construction and attach some notes of my successes and failures along the way, in hopes of helping others as they put together their copters. Please use my techniques and decisions at your own risk.


Index:
Having had experience building many different camera gimbals for use within my Kite Aerial Photography rigs, I was excited to put this one together. The concept is that a secondary PARIS controller board is used to control the gimbal to help keep the video stable while in flight. The parts match the color of the rest of the Y6 copter, and are machined with the same detail. I got both the APS-C Mirrorless camera mount, as well as the GoPro housing pivot mount.

I personally do not own a pair of calipers to exactly measure the 28.01mm gap between the bearings. Having a vice along with a rubber mallet was essential to getting the appropriate distance correct, and took a few times moving the bearings each way slightly to get it perfect.

I used the boom holder to test the shaft assembly and the fit. The instructions say to have a 0.5mm gap on the inner sides between the bearings and the shaft assembly, and this is how I tweaked the distance between the 2 bearings correctly.

The servo didn't quite fit into the carbon fiber bracket, and used a dremel and file to shave off some material.

The corners around the servo flange need to be reduced to allow the pan heads to sit flush. I used a dremel tool to grind down the corners appropriately. (Maybe a touch too much)

Here is the servo mounted to the carbon fiber plate, which is mounted to the boom holder which is surrounding the shaft assembly. Then the servo arm with ball joints are attached.

Here is the final gimbal with the APS-C Camera mount.

Here is a test fitting of the gimbal to the deck of the Scarab with the GoPro mount.

Here is the GoPro mount.

The shaft for the GoPro mount is shorter than the staft for the APS-C Camera platform mount, and there really isn't a good way to exchange these without taking the entire copter apart. I decided to use the longer shaft for both, and use a set screw on the top to make an easy way to switch back and forth in the field. I just drilled a small hole through the shaft and each of the different mounts. Here is the gimbal attached after the copter has been completed, adn you can see the set screw in the red aluminum arm.

Here is the GoPro attached. You can see the camera tray along with the 1/4" knob that I use to attach the camera. They can be found here. (Brooxes better camera keeper)

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Y6 MultiWiiCopter: Part I - The Parts

This is my journal of the Y6 MultiWiiCopter build process. I do not claim to be a technical writer, nor an expert of advanced model engineering, and my goal for this blog post is to post images of my copter through construction and attach some notes of my successes and failures along the way, in hopes of helping others as they put together their copters. Please use my techniques and decisions at your own risk.

Index:
Everyone knows that Carbon Fiber is light and strong, and that helps sell the copters from the MultiWiiCopter site. However, it's difficult to appreciate the craftsmanship and the beauty of the parts until you get one in your hands. The decks are cut from 3K Weave Carbon Fiber plates at 2mm thick, and include the signature Scarab logo.

The boom holders fit perfectly into the decks using metric M2 screws and stainless steel shafts.

Naturally, I wanted to see how all the pats fit together, so I did some construction out of order from the build instructions, but recommend that you get familiar with all of the parts and organize everything.




The engine mounts are also Carbon Fiber, and they instruct you to use CA glue to strengthen the bond by running a bead of Thin-Cyno along the edge of the carbon to have adhesive seep into the fiber.

My kit came with the new version 2 engine lock and heatsink, and their purpose is to secure the engines to the booms. The aluminum design combined with the carbon fiber engine mounts create a solid platform for your engines. I think that the red adds to the look of the copter, and the design is very secure.

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