Autoquad M4 meets NYLON-quad (RCTimer Spider)

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

Hey guys,
a lot of moaning could be heard during the last weeks about 'unflappable' TBS Disco frames or other stuff using DJI nylon quad arms.

Well, due to that these I had a look in my spares box and here's what I found:
- an RCTimer Spider frame with nice black and red nylon arms (DJI style *yeah*)
- worn out Turnigy motors (due to various crashes when flying with MultiWii or Naze32; don't laugh! I never told you I can fly!)
- unbalanced GemFan 10x45 props in green and black
- a sweet 'lil red M4V2
- a nice purple M4CAN expansion board (I love my little vampire BAT)
- some ESC32V3 prototypes, connected by PWM to the expansion board
- latest Autoquad FW for external ESC
- some screws, a 35x35mm GPS antenna, Bluetooth, zip ties, PDB and some other bits & pieces

Taking this, throwing it all together, adjusting the PIDs to my 'starting points' and 'out to the garden we go'. Well, need to mention that I just grabbed my DX8, so control is not that smooth as with the long sticks on my DX10.

What do you think? Does it blend?? *oh shit* wrong serial! O.K. ... bak to start ... DOES IT FLY!

Grab your balls and check back here....
to be continued

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

video from maiden flight

P.S. still uploading at the time of writing ...

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

M4 + RCT Spider (picture extracted from video)

Ingredients list:
RCTimer Spider frame - http://rctimer.com/product-1252.html
Turnigy L2215J-900 Brushless Motor - http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... 200w_.html
GemFan 10x45 - green http://flyduino.net/Multikopter-Propeller-CW-CCW_4 and black http://flyduino.net/Multikopter-Propeller-CW-CCW
Readytoflyquad PDB - http://www.readytoflyquads.com/power-distribution-board
GPS antenna - Taoglas AGGP.35F - http://www.digikey.com/product-search/e ... s=AGGP.35F
ESC32V3 - coming soon
M4CAN - viewtopic.php?f=40&t=3857&start=70#p30957 (you can also use a N4, M4BLCD, or your DIY expansion board. You simple need to have access to 4 PWM for external ESCs)

Clone DJI nylon arms with motors and ESC32V3. Note the PWM wire (servo wire) to the ESCs. The cable with the Spektrum connector is for CAN (not connected!)

Overview shot. 5V for the ESC32V3 is supplied from the DC/DC on the M4CAN.
On the first picture you can see that I've used zip ties to fix the cables next to the ESC32V3 to hold them in place. I've also added a layer of tape around the arm to prevent them from vibrating.

CAN wires were not connected - just PWM

Autoquad flight controllers like it hard! Note the white standoffs; the total height of the stickup is 37mm --> exactly the same as the DJi arm! This will make your floppy spider frame stiffer!

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

Pretty bad vibration level - as expected! (z-axis not shown for clarity; believe me, it's even worse ..)

That's the combination of soft frames, bad motors and props. Vibration level is very high; maybe I will balance the props ... o.k. ... maybe later (tomorrow , never ...)

Motors were clipping - need to fix this

Calculating right throttle factor

[brat002]

Could you show your PID`s?

[brat002]

And, may be you can answer, WHY all these people https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... overy+naza are flying on flappable TBS frames without serious visible issues? It is just practical interest for me.

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

Hi,
this are the PIDs from the maiden flight - so from the video shown above. They need further tuning (i.e. throttle factor, etc.).
I will post all parameters (ESC32V3 data, M4 parameters, motor thrust curve for Quatos (will test later with QUATOS too)) when tuning is finished.

PARAMS_RCtSpider_25062015_1138.txt

(14.83 KiB) Downloaded 1350 times

I'm sorry, but I've never flown a NAZA! Sorry, can't comment on this.

[chschmid]

[Max]

Wow, flies surprisingly well, Joerg! Even with all the vibes, the motor outputs are barely clipping, so you still have decent control. I'm sure the CAN interface and fast ESCs are helping a lot here. You can probably get those motor outputs even lower by damping down the attitude controller PIDs some more. Also will be very interesting to compare to Quatos controller.

Cheers,
-Max

[aBUGSworstnightmare]