DJI Naza F450 Flamewheel Assembly
I can hardly call it a build log. The DJI Naza with the ARF F450 kit goes together in no time at all. The most time consuming part would have to be soldering the ESCs to the main board and that isn't very difficult with the well marked and laid out bottom board. The solder joints to the ESCs are bare and exposed so to prevent any inadvertent shorts, I used hot glue to insulate the connections.
- The kit comes with a couple of wires for you to solder your favourite type of battery connector to the main board with. Before insulating those connections, I also soldered the connections from the Versatile Unit (VU) to the same points.
- ESCs are cable tied directly to the frame. Just connect the three motor wires up any which way and test them for the righ direction later. You've got a 50/50 chance of getting it right.
- I mounted the Naza dead centre in the middle of the bottom board with the supplied foam tape. I ran the wires to the receiver through one of the holes and mounted the receiver on the bottom side of the bottom board. This was purely to reduce the clutter of the wires.
- I mounted the VU also on the bottom side of the bottom board. the idea here is that the VU LED displays important infomation by varying the colour and frequency of the flashing light. By mounting the VU there, as long as the quad is above eye-level and right way up, the light should be visible to the pilot.
- I didn't balance the props. I probably should but I stuck them straight on and I get great results anyway.
- Programming is fairly straightforward with the DJI Assistant software. One thing to take note of, initially I experimented with the X1 & X2 remote gain settings by assigning them to channels 6 & 7 on my Tx. I mistakenly increased the gains to maximum and on the first couple of flights, I was a bit disappointed with the vertical hold. It tended to drift up or down and compared to all the youtube videos I've watched, it was very disappointing. After checking the gain settings, I set them the same as "stockfoodpics" from youtube because he's using exactly the same equipment as me and getting great results with video from his GoPro camera. The settings are "Basic: 150 150? 100 120 & Atti: 70 70 "
Tricopter build: Mounting the motors
The base is cut from 1/4" ply and the arms are 12mm x 12mm Tas oak about 20" long. Excuse my interchanging metric and imperial units but thats what you get building from forums in the US. I'm using a method described on the mongrelgear.com.au site for mounting the motors which is simply cable ties and a bit of glue. I found with the spacing of the motor mount holes and the bend radius of the ties, I needed to insert some carbon fiber rods to take up the slack on the cable tie. By the time it's all finished, the motors are mounted securely, quickly and easily.
eHawk 1500 build
What a good week last week. The birth of my second daughter the day before my own birthday on which I get to unwrap my present, a Thunder Tiger eHawk 1500 electric glider. Reading up on the forums suggests a few modifications might be worthwhile, like putting the aileron servos in the wing and maybe even some flaps. With the default setup (1 aileron in the wing) I reckon having to connect the aileron pushrods every time would become tedious and probably lead to weakening the connector. I've seen photos of PC connectors being used in the wing and fuse to mate the aileron servo leads upon mounting the wing each time.
