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A Yolo Wizard posted:150 is a little high; you can get hakko stations under $100 now, and the aoyue stuff is great for the price. I'll look at Aoyue. At some point I should bother with an actual soldering station. I tend to set up, and blitz through my solder joints so I don't have the overheating problems that usually come with a non-temperature controlled iron. The point I was trying to make is the variable wattage station isn't what made the difference, it was going "Weller" over "well it might be UL listed". Mister Sinewave posted:I live in a city with lots of oil money / young men with lots of disposable income. My last trip to the hobby store to buy some glue was aborted because even knowing what to expect (high prices) I just wasn't prepared. 14.99 for a 30ml bottle of CA glue and we recommend a 9.99 dropper bottle of accelerator to go with it gently caress you Cynoacrylate isn't cheap stuff, in general. The 20ml bottle I have on my desk was $9.99. It's some "special" stuff, in that it's foam safe gap filling. The 28cc bottle of thick CyA was $5.49, and the thin $4.99. And that's the normal "all foam will die" kind. For a oil town, that doesn't sound so bad. I've heard some really scary things about rent in a boom town that make me shiver.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 09:13 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 06:53 |
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As an occasional-use type of tool, I can recommend this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000AS28UC/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_R6JVub1EEGRME You're not going to be doing production-line levels of work with it, but it's light years ahead of the Chinese junk irons, and it's sub-$50.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 12:43 |
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Nerobro posted:I'll look at Aoyue. At some point I should bother with an actual soldering station. I tend to set up, and blitz through my solder joints so I don't have the overheating problems that usually come with a non-temperature controlled iron. The point I was trying to make is the variable wattage station isn't what made the difference, it was going "Weller" over "well it might be UL listed". Nowhere did I say the variable wattage made the difference, you added that to make some sort of point. I just said it was better than the cheap Radio Shack pens. Also: MrYenko posted:As an occasional-use type of tool, I can recommend this one: Yes, exactly what I said. edit: Landing gear should be here today, so I can mount the gimbal and finish up. Even though I'm impatient, I have to say that building a quadcopter has been a million times more fun that just taking a Phantom out of the box.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 15:52 |
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Nerobro posted:Cynoacrylate isn't cheap stuff, in general. The 20ml bottle I have on my desk was $9.99. It's some "special" stuff, in that it's foam safe gap filling. The 28cc bottle of thick CyA was $5.49, and the thin $4.99. And that's the normal "all foam will die" kind. For a oil town, that doesn't sound so bad. I've heard some really scary things about rent in a boom town that make me shiver. Maybe I'm wrong on this but I have used lots of CA in the past just for other workshop stuff and seeing 14.99 for some was just too much to take. Maybe I'm wrong about the size of the bottle or something though and it's not really as bad as it seemed to me. In my hometown (also an oil town, much more so nowadays) beef jerky at the meat shop is $50 / lb
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 18:34 |
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I bought a dumb thing yesterday butI'm really happy with it. The Litehawk High Roller: Usually costs something ridiculous like $90, but it was on sale for $60 so I had to. I spent a few hours loving THIS THING UP ramming it into walls, cutting throttle and letting it hit the ground from ceiling height, and the cage just bounces. Not even a little knick on the blades. It's like a bubble boy quadcopter. But I was curious how well it would perform without the cage so I managed to pull it off without permanently breaking anything and attached some skids from an old helicopter. The black bar is a little carbon rod that attaches to the cage, I didn't want to remove it since it is centred perfectly right now and adds a tiny bit of bump protection. It performs really well inside but I have nothing to compare it to. It's a nice size, not a nano but not a larger cheap quad either. Like a mid-sized cheap quad. Looking into buying a few 300mah batteries and a group charger so I can fly it a bit longer. Litehawk is a pretty cool company too, they sell all the replacement parts and have teardown diagrams on their website for all their models. bring back old gbs fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jan 20, 2015 |
# ? Jan 20, 2015 18:44 |
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Nerobro posted:I'll look at Aoyue. At some point I should bother with an actual soldering station. I tend to set up, and blitz through my solder joints so I don't have the overheating problems that usually come with a non-temperature controlled iron. The point I was trying to make is the variable wattage station isn't what made the difference, it was going "Weller" over "well it might be UL listed". http://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-937-Digital-Soldering-Station/dp/B000I30QBW mine they have a newer one, but its almost the same price as the hakko
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 20:12 |
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I use soldering poo poo professionally and I have no beef with the Hakko for performance, but the power switch on the side (not visible) + heating indicator LED that slows down as the iron gets hot and stable (so not useful as an ON light) = very very easy to accidentally leave it turned on.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 20:17 |
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I'm pretty sure that Aoyue is just a knockoff of Hakko's soldering station, since it uses the same tips and accessories. Not that it's a bad knockoff, mind you; I picked up the 937+ a while back and it's been the most used piece of equipment in my tool cabinet for all sorts of different projects. Being able to fix or make your own electronics is friggin' awesome.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 20:32 |
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Is there any way to get rid of the waypoint limit for the dji ground station (the standalone, 2.4ghz version) - the hard limit of 16 is bullshit, and i know the p2 vision has an unofficial app that disables the limit for its version of ground station , so there isn't necessarily a technical reason for it.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 23:37 |
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I saw this video of the IR-LOCK being used to drive a 2D gimbal to track an IR beacon on the top of an RC car. Neat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZBZQt6AbxA The IR-LOCK is custom firmware for the CMU Pixy camera which can be used to track IR sources.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 23:48 |
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Ok, cheap quad update: It can carry 5 Canadian nickels and still maintain good lift and maneuverability. 6 nickels and it starts to lift sluggishly, but will still lift. 7-10 and it just hovers an inch above ground. checking wikipedia a Cdn nickel is 3.95 grams, so I can hold roughly 19-20 grams max before it becomes unflyable. I could probably lift a tiny bit more if I took off the skids and foamcore spacer. I think it could take a higher capacity battery like this 500mah: http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=66925 from what I can gather with basic research the 300mah currently powering the quad weighs 7-8g so subtract that from the battery weight in the links and the new battery should add 4-5g. Well within the 20g I have tested. After that the next bit of weight added would be this: http://www.fpvhobby.com/220-rtf-58ghz-1-gram-camera-combo-set.html and maybe this: http://www.fpvhobby.com/231-8-ghz-micro-cl-antenna-.html so ~5.5 - 6g(4.8g camera/tx + .08g antenna) 6g battery + 6g fpv setup means I should have 8g of play room left before it can't lift off anymore. The gaudy LEDs in the top canopy aren't soldered directly to the board they have a connector, so the idea is to adapt that to power the camera+tx, and not use the top LEDs anymore. That's why I wanted to add the 500mah battery. Any unforseen issues I might run into here? Anything I missed that might add weight? I just want to stream video to a little screen I am going to bolt to my controller. bring back old gbs fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Jan 21, 2015 |
# ? Jan 21, 2015 18:37 |
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:Ok, cheap quad update: You're doing everything right here. I can't wait to see it fly with the FPV setup.
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# ? Jan 21, 2015 22:43 |
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Yeah, seems sound. I'm excited to see pictures of how it turns out for you.
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 00:08 |
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Thanks guys, thats a confidence booster. I had an embarrassing realization after watching a youtube video that explained Lipos today. Seems so obvious now. 3.7v = 1s 7.4v = 2s 11.1v = 3s 14.8v = 4s etc. you're just adding 3.7v cells on top of other 3.7v cells. I was concerned about accidentally buying a 2 cell 3.7v battery but it seems that isn't really possible these days. So going by that logic as long as the quad can handle the weight will any 3.7v battery do the trick? I can't imagine a little brushed quad like this will be hampered by a poor discharge rate, but I am new to this so maybe it can be EDIT: small update, tested the LED plug and it looks like I am good to use it to power the FPV transmitter/camera. EDIT2: Anybody seen this yet? http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/22/drone-drug-mule-us-mexico/ A hexcopter crashes into a Mexican Supermarket near the California border with 6lbs of meth strapped to it. bring back old gbs fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Jan 22, 2015 |
# ? Jan 22, 2015 00:17 |
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Here is the FAA's James Williams pulling off his best Michele Leonhart of the DEA impression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVimXNPue1g
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 15:33 |
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The Trappy case just settled, not a great outcome, but kind of what I expected, given the costs of him coming back to defend it: http://www.team-blacksheep.com/docs/pirker-faa-settlement.pdf
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 22:45 |
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how worried should i be about lithium batteries that swell up after charging? they're teeny 600mah 1s for my Syma x5c, bought on ebay. i've used them once.
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# ? Jan 23, 2015 07:51 |
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Elendil004 posted:The Trappy case just settled, not a great outcome, but kind of what I expected, given the costs of him coming back to defend it: http://www.team-blacksheep.com/docs/pirker-faa-settlement.pdf Can't really expect him to keep going with it for as long as it would take. Especially seeing the FAA switched to relying on a statute passed after his incident happened. His case could easily have lasted years longer and gone through multiple layers of courts.
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# ? Jan 24, 2015 00:51 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bX4aOfs1co under 400 w/o transmitter, some sort of naze clone. I like how low profile is. I dont understand the demand for foldable quads though. moron izzard fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Jan 26, 2015 |
# ? Jan 26, 2015 17:01 |
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Some idiot crashed a drone into the grounds in the White House...goddammit this is exactly the bad press we don't loving need.
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 17:24 |
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Do you guys have any guidance on picking a battery size? I got a 3000mAh 3s battery to start with, and my flight time is around 5 minutes at best. Initially it was like 2 minutes, but I remembered seeing voltage alarm settings in the Naza software and brought those down to 3.6v/cell, which helped. I assume the cold weather isn't helping either. I also got a 2200mAh battery, but the low voltage warning light starts immediately after takeoff. I'll just use that battery for the transmitter. My quad is 1350 grams without a battery (is that crazy heavy? Do I need to find excess weight on it somewhere?). It's a 450mm quad with a gopro and gimbal. The 3000mAh battery is 162g, so it seems like the battery is a small percentage of the overall weight, and I could probably bump up to 4000mAh or maybe 5000mAh? Do I just get 1 of each and see what happens, or is there a way to make a reasonable guess as to which is a better fit? Once I pick a size I'll probably get 3-4 of them, but I'd like to see 10 minutes of flight time if possible. I also notice a lot of vibration on the video, even with the vibration balls on the gimbal. If I fix that by balancing props and/or motors, do you think I'd see more flight time? Not sure how much energy is lost due to fighting unbalanced props. Second question: I have it set up so that I can control the camera tilt with one of the dials on the Turnigy 9x controller, but it works like this: when the dial is centered the camera doesn't move. When you turn the dial clockwise and stop at say 75% (where 50% is centered), the camera tilts down and continues to do so until it hits its stop. To stop it at a specific angle, you have to return the dial to 50%. This means half the time the camera is either all the way up or all the way down because I bumped the dial by accident. I'd rather have it where turning to a specific dial position tilts the camera to that relative position. I know this is possible because I've seen people on youtube show this functionality, but they don't show how to set it up. The worst part is that I clearly remember watching a video of someone setting this up before getting all of my parts, but now I can't find that video. Any ideas of which settings need to be changed? Maybe it's a gimbal setting and not a controller setting?
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 17:37 |
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Thought I'd post a question here from the R/C thread in AI as I am sure some of you guys are more knowledgeable about batteries/chargers than I am. So I bought a new "B6" charger for my R/C car, Yeti XL, exact same charger as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YgKmcL7DEU I ran my R/C car on my brand new 3S 5000mah batteries for about 10 minutes. I then wanted to charge the batteries, but the charger is only taking about .25A (it's supposed to be a 5A charger). I left it for about an hour and no difference. Battery stays stone cold but charger itself gets slightly warm. I hooked it up to my kill-a-watt to confirm what it was doing with power consumption. Same thing with the other battery. Any ideas or do you think the charger is screwed right out of the box? I'm starting a return with Amazon but I wondered if I am forgetting something super simple. The instructions just say to plug in the battery/balance lead and it should automatically start but it doesn't so I don't trust the instructions right from the start. According to the youtube vid above you have to hit the button to start which actually makes the most sense.
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 18:22 |
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Erwin posted:Do I need to find excess weight on it somewhere? Found it
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 19:39 |
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Nooooooooo the gimbal is life.
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 19:44 |
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Erwin posted:Do you guys have any guidance on picking a battery size? I got a 3000mAh 3s battery to start with, and my flight time is around 5 minutes at best. Initially it was like 2 minutes, but I remembered seeing voltage alarm settings in the Naza software and brought those down to 3.6v/cell, which helped. I assume the cold weather isn't helping either. I also got a 2200mAh battery, but the low voltage warning light starts immediately after takeoff. I'll just use that battery for the transmitter. Your batteries sound way undersized. I'd be looking at carrying triple the watt hours you're carrying now. How much throttle do you need before you get off the ground? 20-30%
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 19:47 |
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Erwin posted:Do you guys have any guidance on picking a battery size? I got a 3000mAh 3s battery to start with, and my flight time is around 5 minutes at best. Erwin posted:Initially it was like 2 minutes, but I remembered seeing voltage alarm settings in the Naza software and brought those down to 3.6v/cell, which helped. Erwin posted:I also got a 2200mAh battery, but the low voltage warning light starts immediately after takeoff. I'll just use that battery for the transmitter. Erwin posted:My quad is 1350 grams without a battery (is that crazy heavy? Erwin posted:The 3000mAh battery is 162g, so it seems like the battery is a small percentage of the overall weight, and I could probably bump up to 4000mAh or maybe 5000mAh? Erwin posted:I also notice a lot of vibration on the video, even with the vibration balls on the gimbal. If I fix that by balancing props and/or motors, do you think I'd see more flight time? Not sure how much energy is lost due to fighting unbalanced props. Erwin posted:Second question: I have it set up so that I can control the camera tilt with one of the dials on the Turnigy 9x controller, but it works like this: when the dial is centered the camera doesn't move. When you turn the dial clockwise and stop at say 75% (where 50% is centered), the camera tilts down and continues to do so until it hits its stop. To stop it at a specific angle, you have to return the dial to 50%. This means half the time the camera is either all the way up or all the way down because I bumped the dial by accident. I'd rather have it where turning to a specific dial position tilts the camera to that relative position. I know this is possible because I've seen people on youtube show this functionality, but they don't show how to set it up. The worst part is that I clearly remember watching a video of someone setting this up before getting all of my parts, but now I can't find that video. Any ideas of which settings need to be changed? Maybe it's a gimbal setting and not a controller setting?
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 19:59 |
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Nerobro posted:Your batteries sound way undersized. I'd be looking at carrying triple the watt hours you're carrying now. How much throttle do you need before you get off the ground? 20-30% That's a good question. I haven't taken off in manual mode yet (though I've flown in manual mode a few times after takeoff), and the Naza seems to have some weird takeoff throttle control thing going on where I can't tell at what point is enough throttle - it does this controlled ramp up on its own. I'll try a manual takeoff in a day or two when it's not snowing. CrazyLittle posted:What gimbal, and how do you have it hooked up?
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 20:12 |
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slidebite posted:So I bought a new "B6" charger for my R/C car, Yeti XL, exact same charger as this: Quick note about C ratings. The C rating has two basic functions, C for discharge and sometimes C for charging. When discharging the battery the C rating will tell you the maximum amperage draw you can pull out of the battery before you're making the battery heat up / puff / catch fire. Max amp draw = (x)C * Amp-hours So a 3000mAh, 25C battery works out to: (3000mAh = 3.0 Amp-hours) 25C * 3Ah = 75 amps maximum output. Similarly when charging, you can charge the battery faster than 1A, as long as you're not exceeding the maximum charging C rating. For most flight batteries you can charge them at 1C, or Amps * Amp-hour capacity. For the battery above that would be a 3A charging rate for charging at 1C. Larger capacity and higher C-rating batteries often allow for higher C charging cycles, so if the 3000mah 25C battery allowed 2C charging you could cut your charging time in half by charging at 6 amps.
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 20:14 |
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Erwin posted:Tarot T-2d. I have channel 8 of the receiver connected to the tilt of the CTR pin row on the gimbal board (and to ground on the gimbal board). The transmitter is configured with one of the dials on channel 8. There's a setting to switch the dial between INH and ACT status, but I have no idea what that does, and I can't find it referenced in the manual or through Google searches. INH works as I described, and ACT does nothing. You're going to have to play with the firmware and configuration of the gimbal controller in order to set it into "positional" mode apparently. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1988607 https://www.dropbox.com/s/57lqnvb7d...0by%20JCLin.pdf
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 20:53 |
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CrazyLittle posted:You're going to have to play with the firmware and configuration of the gimbal controller in order to set it into "positional" mode apparently. Ugh, my Googling has failed me. Thanks!
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 20:55 |
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My Accucel-6 is now very underpowered for my purposes. I now require a minimum of ~90W capacity, although I'd like double that for when I eventually build a 4S camera-carrying gizmo. Any recommendations for much higher wattage battery charger/discharger/balancers?
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 21:20 |
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Odette posted:My Accucel-6 is now very underpowered for my purposes. I now require a minimum of ~90W capacity, although I'd like double that for when I eventually build a 4S camera-carrying gizmo. What are you charging? (or what do you plan to charge?) More considerations: A higher power charger will require a higher wattage power supply too. Charging batteries at higher C ratings can shorten the battery's service life. You can always parallel charge batteries in order to charge multiple packs at the same time.
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 21:32 |
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I feel like bragging a little. I flew all of my helicopters this weekend. And they are all just as functional today as they were last week. I also got some "indoor FPV" time with my X-Factor. So.. what flew? MCX MSR MCX2 MSRx MCPX X-Factor Nano CPX Nano QX 130x 130x RedBull And I still have a few charged batteries left over.
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 21:58 |
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I am considering getting one of these frames and building my own FPV multirotor with it, for purposes of just FPV flying. I have no interest in acrobatics and don't need any drone bullshit like autopilot, gps, or so on. However I am all for stabilization of any kind to smooth out my orgrish flying. This will be just for flying around, pretending I am a tiny person in a tiny cockpit exploring another planet or something. With that in mind, what would you recommend as far as radio and flight controller go? I have no need to shoehorn in any existing radio or hardware, I'll look at buying anything that best fits my needs. I have built my own plane and flown it with FPV and junk and it's all but I don't know poo poo about multirotors and the finer (or broader for that matter) points about the various flight controllers. Like, would the KK2.1 and a Turnigy 9x do me or are there objectively better choices for my purposes? The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jan 27, 2015 |
# ? Jan 27, 2015 00:35 |
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Nerobro posted:Your batteries sound way undersized. I'd be looking at carrying triple the watt hours you're carrying now. How much throttle do you need before you get off the ground? 20-30% So I checked this inside because I like to live on the edge (in a large room, just pushed the throttle until it almost took off). Looks like it takes off at about 60% throttle Does that mean I need larger props? Motors are 980kV. edit: 9 inch props currently. Erwin fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Jan 27, 2015 |
# ? Jan 27, 2015 00:45 |
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CrazyLittle posted:What are you charging? (or what do you plan to charge?) More considerations: A higher power charger will require a higher wattage power supply too. Charging batteries at higher C ratings can shorten the battery's service life. You can always parallel charge batteries in order to charge multiple packs at the same time. I'm parallel charging 5x 3S 1300 mAh batteries at 0.6C because the charger's power limit is 50 W. 1C would be 82 W.
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# ? Jan 27, 2015 00:49 |
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Erwin posted:So I checked this inside because I like to live on the edge (in a large room, just pushed the throttle until it almost took off). Looks like it takes off at about 60% throttle Does that mean I need larger props? Motors are 980kV. edit: 9 inch props currently. Aren't 9 inch props huge? Maybe your motors aren't strong enough to spin them properly, or aren't getting enough current to spin them properly.
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# ? Jan 27, 2015 01:16 |
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Odette posted:I'm parallel charging 5x 3S 1300 mAh batteries at 0.6C because the charger's power limit is 50 W. 1C would be 82 W. Yup, that would do it. I just picked up the Turnigy Double Tap, which is a pair of 80W chargers in one unit, though you might consider the Turnigy 4x6s 400W which is 4x100W.
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# ? Jan 27, 2015 01:52 |
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Mister Sinewave posted:Like, would the KK2.1 and a Turnigy 9x do me or are there objectively better choices for my purposes? I am so tempted by that frame. I've been waiting for a good mini tri for a while now, but I've been scared of anything mechanical (Ahhh! moving parts!). As for that flight controller and tx combo, that is a great setup. A lot of people switch from the KK2 to the Naze32 eventually, but the Naze requires a bit more setup and tweaking. It also lacks a screen for easy adjustments in the field. I've use the KK2 on all of my builds so far and they fly great.
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# ? Jan 27, 2015 02:58 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 06:53 |
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I'm throwing together a waterproof/resistant quad dedicated to flying over and possibly down onto the surface of bodies of water (ie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTlwYwi-Uys) but I'm trying to keep the costs relatively minimal. Looking at frames I saw that game of drones "Hiro" frame they use in the video and it seems to do what I want for $150. Was just curious if anyone here has had any experience with that frame or some similar setup they might recommend?
PREYING MANTITS fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Jan 27, 2015 |
# ? Jan 27, 2015 07:03 |