ZMR180 [BUILD]

Hi , after a long time watching the cool youtube videos of the amazing mini quad, wanted to get down to building a quad myself. This is a cheap mini quad build, with decent parts and as builds go, this was my first and it was more of an exercise in teaching myself to actually build this machine. The parts used are here:

ZMR180 frame

1303 3100kv motors

DYS BL20A 

Frsky D4R-II CPPM

Naze 32Acro

Gemfan4045(3s) / Gemfan 3030(4s)

Tunigy 1300mah 3s 

Dinogy 1000mah 4s 65C 

As you can see these are not the high end parts you would find on the pro racing quads, but its a tidy setup. The build was a learning process for me, although you can find so much information on the internet, its different to when you are building something yourself. These are just some tips when building these things:

• Insulate the electronic parts from the frame, proper carbon fibre frames conduct electricity 
• If using heat shrink never shrink the casing before testing everything. 
• Use a clean soldering iron, and move quickly with high powered ones.
• Loctite all screw and nuts.
• Don't apply loctite before finishing the build, otherwise you will have a bad time trying to open up the quad again.
• When ordering parts , always order some spares just in case.

The final quad was not so bad, even if I was not entirely happy about the result. I have done basic programming and tried it out on hovering. Unfortunately one of the motor did not last long and , during bench testing it was already showing bad signs, and after a couple minutes of flying it gave up. Lesson learned, always buy spares, otherwise you will get stuck just  when things are getting good. 

On another note, the ZMR180 frame is not so bad, but it has some thing that I do not like very much. It does not have an adjustable fpv camera mount, it is fixed inside the frame. The anti vibration mount for the recording camera, is a bit flimsy, the carbon plate is enough but rubber mounts will be ineffective in my opinion. also it comes with a flat mount and no option of changing the angle again. those are the only real grumbles about it. 

The good points are, its very cheap to buy, it has different motor mount holes for larger motors if needed. The carbon parts are clean cut and seem quite tough which is good as its my first mini quad and I am still trying to learn multirotor flying properly. For a frame this size, there is enough space to place all the component onboard without any issue.

Later on I will update this with some maidens and my programming experience, this is the first time tuning these boards. Until then Happy Flying!!

FPV Finally [BUILD]

Hi everyone, here's a little update of what I have been doing lately. Starting off with good news.  I have finally used a setup for FPV that works for me. After many failures in building a good reliable FPV setup, I have found a good setup that works incredibly well. The components that I am using right now are:

• AOMWAY FPV 5.8G 200mW AV Transmitter Integrated 700TVL CMOS HD Camera
• Quanum V2 FPV goggles and RC832 Vrx
• PNP Skysurfer plane(changed to 6x5 propeller)
• Cloverleaf antennas 

Simple FPV setup

That's it , incredibly simple, but the joy of it, is, that it works so well. I am quite pleased with the video quality, the weather was not at its best here very cloudy, but the camera is more than workable, the colours are still visible and the image is very clear. although it is a 700tvl Cmos camera, it can handle low light conditions decently. Flying is not an issue at all. Its also a very light system, 20mins fpv flights are easily achievable from a single 2200mah battery powering both the plane and the FPV setup.  I am quite pleased with that. 

Some other parts that worked but I am not using right now.

1. Tarot300 OSD, this was used on some of my failed FPV setups, it offers enough information to help with flying FPV, it offers basic information such as Engine and video voltages and home position, speeds and altitude. which is enough to fly in my opinion and for less than €30 I think its works well.
2. NTSC HD 700TVL Sony OSD CCD D-WDR, this is a basic board camera which cost less than €15. Came with all necessary cables and that's it. It has the option of connecting a control board to change settings, but I bought mine without it. The thing that I liked about this camera is it excellent low light video quality, and the clear image is amazing. I will use this at a later stage for sure. This was not used because of the issues I had with the Vtx I had.

Now for a low point in this, I started out using the TS832 Vtx. I don't know but I never got to use these properly, here are some issued I found on my units. To be clear, I have bought this unit 3 times from 3 different online shops. 

• Sensitive to vibrations, for some reason these units are sensitive to vibrations from the airframe, even slight ones. I have tested these extensively, and they suffer badly from this, using multiple types of  vibration insulation and so on, at a certain point they start loosing video, which is not good. 
• They heat up more than you think they would. I understand that these unit will heat up  when they are on. Yes I have checked for proper antenna connection and all the usual suspects, in just a minute or two of operation they become very hot. 

I am posting these because they what I have have experienced and it is frustrating, when things don't work one time after another.

One last thing, my simple Tricopter has met its end, while flying aggresively, I made the mistake of flying through the direct sunlight, at which point I overturned my tricopter into an unrecoverable fall from a good hieght, this is what I managed to scrape up. Lesson learned. Onto the next build. 

Remains of my tricotper

Blunt Nose Versa WIng FPV [BUILD]

Hi everyone, I will cover the build of my FPV Versa Wing.  These wings are very popular for FPV and for good reason, they are easy to build, there is a lot of information on the internet and they fly quite well. The excellent Flite Test plans allows for a very easy build. The electronics used are as following:

Motor : Emax GT2215 950KV running a 10x6 prop

ESC: Plush 30A 

Servos : generic 9g servos

Radio system : FRSKY D4R-II receiver

Batteries-  Zippy 2200mah 40c Batteries / Video Battery Turnigy 1300mah 30c

FPV setup:

TS-832 Video Transmitter 600mw 5.8Ghz

Tarot 300 OSD

Eachine 700 camera

Braided/ twisted cables and ferrite rings

The first part was easy, trace out the patterns and cut the parts, I added 4 inches to the bottom part of the wing so as to extend the wing and form the blunt nose part. 

Extended bottom wing panels

This allows a lot of space for the FPV setup as well and space for batteries. Running two 2200mah batteries takes up a lot of space. The wiring setup was than spaced out to keep the Video TX away from other components. As you can see from the next photo you can see how much space this small wing has.

Placement of componenets inside wing

the batteries are placed far forward in later photos you will see the final placement of the batteries. the video signal wire is passing in front of the spar or wing shaper while everything else is spaced out. a simple hatch with magnets is used to cover the components but also allows good access to the inside of the wing. On a later date the batteries were moved far more forward with the video system battery nestled between them like this.  

Battery Positions

This allows for the CG to move forward, reducing the amount of ballast needed to get the CG right. Two wooden spars were glued in , the front one is used to stiffen the middle section of the plane, while the rear one is glued to the top of the wing thus joining the upper parts together increasing the rigidity, and thighs the motor mount to it as well, reducing the twisting from the motor and prop. 

Basic layout and wooden spars

That is basically it, a very simple wing to build, using the FT center section would have been cleaner of course but this allows better access. The wing was painted using oil based paint thinned with spirit to allow better spreading . This allows the surface of the wing to be watertight and a little bit more durable. also it is much easier to spot from the ground. At this point the Wing has been flown for about a minute or two and found it to be just a touch tail heavy, I will perform another flight soon. The FPV system worked quite well without any noticeable issues. For the wing itself it still need to be dialed in, but I think it will be a good flyer. 

Just after paint

After the small flight and landing in wet muddy grass

In the following week I will basically setup the cg again, change the camera angle a bit and try again. Thats it for now and Happy Flying.

FPV Big Delta [Update]

Hi everyone, I started working on fixing and modifying my scratch built delta wing. The damage to the center section was very bad and left the wing incredibly weak.  The middle 8 inches were removed and a new section was glued in.

Stiffeners were crossed across to ad strength to the wing as I want the this new section to stay open totally giving me very good access to the internals.  As this is an FPV wing the space is a bonus. The camera has been placed in Front used a small 9g servo to give me a pan function. The following pics are a work in progress, the wiring is slowly getting sorted as work goes on. The batteries are place staggered so they actually fit and balance better ( I think).  So Far So Good. All I have left to do until the remaining parts(motor and Video TX) arrive:

1. New Control Horn and linkages
2. New Motor Mount
3. Wire up RX and servos and ESC
4. Start cable management

Thats it for now and Happy Flying.

Cross braced stiffeners add torsional rigidity lost when wing was cut

The PAN servo thing and 700TVL camera

Hatch in Place fitting snugly

Staggered battery arrangement

FT Spitfire and Next Projects

Hi There, my FT Spitfire has been flown with the now much more powerful motor, and it flies great, the 3000mah battery is a good performer but flight times only last about 10 minutes, something I learned the hard way unfortunately, as the low voltage cutout shut off power to the motor and had to land behind some tree, no mayor damage, all fixed and flown again. The characteristics of the plane are very good. It tracks very well, its very responsive not to mention it looks the part. The video shows my friend Joseph Mustang as well as my Spitfire flying around one of the fields.

For the moment the Spitfire will remain as it is, until I get the airbrush and try to paint it.  The next project will be to fix a wing of my own design. This was a scratch built wing, roughly designed using the Flitetest Versa wing as a base. It is much larger than the Versa wing. It has seen few fights, and a lot of crashes unfortunately, hence the need to fix this. Below you can see the wing as it is now without power pod or fuselage. 

The main damage is:

• Motor mount area heavily damaged due to broken propeller striking the wing
• Under wing area where fuselage was mounted, damaged due to several bad crashes

I did not have any idea how to get around fixing it, until yesterday night when while watching a video on you tube saw a blunt nose Versa Wing which was made exceptionally well, the video is enclosed at the bottom.

So basically now 8 inches from the middle of the wing will be cut out and a new part will be made to that a blunt nose will be formed into it, which will allow my to run two 3s 2200mah batteries in parallel, and FPV gear.

Thats it for now and Happy Flying.

Back at the Bench

Its been a while since my last post, I got busy again, first off FPV. I will be building testing and flying FPV for the first time, I bought all the parts for the basic FPV setup, 5.8Ghz system, 600tvl camera and Hobbyking V2 goggles.

I have set the system up, but I am still having issues with the system. Motor + esc interference was a problem at first, but by using ferrite rings this was quickly eradicated. Problems are still present in the system. As the Video Tx is subjected to any vibration, it starts to scramble the signal. Its is baffling me But I will get round to fixing it up somehow.

Next thing is I started to build again, which is nice, this time around I downloaded the free FT Spitfire plans from the Flite Test website. They are excellent and clear to use, also there are build videos of the planes which help a lot. The following photos are of the progress so far. As it sits now its "ready" to for the maiden flight , I will try to airbrush and paint the plane on a later date. The electronics in the plane are:

4 x turning 9gram servos
1450kv Turnigy Motor (165w) and 7x6 propeller
Frsky V8R4-II reciver
Zippy 2200mah / 3000mah Mystery Battery


Its not the prettiest of things right now, especially with the masking tape, but it will do for the maiden flight. I will be covering the fuselage with tape and then panting it completely.

Thats it for now and Happy Flying.

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