Heavy Lift Quadcopter

[3rdeyepro]

I am hearing a lot of reports over on Commercial links not allowed of these heavy lifters "flipping" for no reason
http://www.Commercial links not allowed.com/forums/showthread.php?p=35364#post35364

Also sounds like the MK BL 2.0 can't stay cool when running them with big motors/props. DJ at PS1 has given up on heavy lift MK's for the time being.

Sounds like there is a lot to work out between the hardware and software. My impression is that Holger made this platform for a certain type of use (hobby and light AP). Now everyone is trying to push it to what larger single rotor helis do. Hope it all gets sorted out before too many more people crash their hard work and $$$ 

[Crash]

Oh I'll be shipping out the power boards to those that ordered this weekend.  There are 2 problems with the board that will need to be reworked but its no big deal.  I'll have documents online this weekend including new parts list (similar to old parts list actually.)

andy

Hey Andy, that quad is looking nice.

I got my boards today. OMG, are they tough! Thanks again.

[andyman]

I have a feeling the heavy lifters are flipping because of a spike or drop in voltage on the ESC due to feed back from the bigger props OR voltage demands.  I also have a feeling its because the 2 330uF caps are not sufficient at leveling those out, especially for the 2.0 brushless controllers.

I'm replacing my caps with a pair of 680uF low impendance caps and see how that works out.

[rav]

Hi all,

You guys are amazing.

I´m new to this world and i have been learning a lot during last weeks reading like crazy in rc group, ap landing mikrokopter and lastly here cause I really want to build a Quadcopter to lift my canon 5D.

I have seen Aj quadcopter in Commercial links not allowed and then I arrived here.

I know now what is lipo, esc, prop ..... and i decided to try to make a quadcopter Aj style using:

Board: Flight Control v 2.1 ME
Frame Center:  Dragon Plate 0.75" Square Tube Carbon Fiber Gusset 90° Cross Aluminium frame
Arms :  aluminium  square tubing 2 foot  section cut in half
Motor: AXI 2820/14 GOLD LINE Sailplane
Prop : APC 13x6.5 EP
Esc: 1hoch4_BL V1.0 30A max.
GPS: ?
Lipo: ?
Transmiter: ?

Are my specs ok or i am missing something (think that everything is almost completely new to me).

I would like to place an order if possible of the board andyman have designed if suitable for my needs, but i will need simple instructions for soldering things up as I´m very bad at electronics.

Otherwise I will be happy to pay someone to preassemble the electronic staff to me.

I hope i made myself clear as english is not my first lenguage.

Thanks in advance.

Best Regards.
 

[Crash]

I would like to place an order if possible of the board andyman have designed if suitable for my needs, but i will need simple instructions for soldering things up as I´m very bad at electronics.

Rav,

MKs are all about Electronics. At a minimum you need to be good at soldering, good at following directions that are scattered everywhere and being a good guesser sometimes helps too.

With all due respect to Andy, his board is not one that you should learn soldering on. IMHO. It does look like it can take some serious soldering abuse though.

Your best bet may be to get your feet wet by buying a prebuilt MK. If you go that route, get a known flyer, not an abandoned kit. There may be something in the For Sale section here. Either way, good luck.

I bought two of his boards and I'm only going to need one.  If anyone is interested, PM me.

[rav]

Hi Crash,

Thanks for your reply.

I´m interested in the board, please tell me via PM how to proceed for buying you the board.


I will at least have to try to do it if i´m not able to find anyone more experienced who would like to do it for some money, cause standard kits will be useless as i need it for lifting the canon 5d.

The main problem is not soldering as i have some tech people i work with that can do that.


Would be possible to find a diagram conecction for all the parts involved in the process?

Is there any good tutorial around for an unexperience man?

I´m ready to become crazy and make a big effort to reach it.

Thanks very much.

Best Regards.

[Crash]

Andy's notes are here: http://www.andyman.org/megaquad/

Andy, are they up to date with the current board?

[andyman]

Yup thats the one and its up to date.  I also have a few extra left if anyone is interested.  You should definitly not try to learn to solder on my board. 

andy

[rav]

Thanks Both.

I´m interested in Getting all the information you can give me.

Please Crash tell me how to proceed for the board thing.

Best.

[Crash]

Thanks Both.

I´m interested in Getting all the information you can give me.

Please Crash tell me how to proceed for the board thing.

Best.

Good or bad news depending on how you look at it.

OK it happened like this. I looked through all the info and got out all the parts bags and then I nudged the microscope with my right foot ever so gently. Somehow the soldering iron got turned on by doing that. I don't know how.  Then my Wife brought the afternoon coffee. I started with the larger caps and guess what. If you turn the board upside down the caps also need to be reversed. I caught that after the first two.  ChipQuik to the rescue and problem fixed.  I soldered the larger caps, the smaller resistors,  the two sockets and the transistors.  Then I got to C12 and I said to myself, '0402s? Andy you gotta be sh*ttin me'.    By this time the caffeine kicked in and there was no way I was going to try.

I'll solder the rest tomorrow if I have time.

Andy: I looked at your other web pages. Nice darn Toys!

[rav]

Thanks man.

It seems like good news  .

Let me know how is it going.

Carefull with the caffeine 

Best.

[andyman]

Hahaa sorry about that.  C12-C15 are required.  Didn't I mention you needed tweezers?  Just use chipquick and it'll be easy as cake.  It really isn't a big deal.  It was the only one i could find at 0.01uF.  Ok I didn't look very hard and I already had them. 

Do me a favor DO NOT solder those BIG FAT caps yet for the brushless.  Trust me once you start down that path it'll take a lot of heat to remove it so thats the last area you wanna mess up.  Are you soldering 1hoch4 or BL 2.0?

For heavy lift I'm testing a set of Low ESR 680uF caps at 25v.  2 per brushless.  Thats a total of 1360uF per motor.  I've learned through trial and error that with only 2 330uF , the voltage swing almost kills the 5v supply causing i2c drop outs (5v required for the microcontrollers). 

Also MAKE damn sure those caps are soldered on the brushless controller side and NOT on the power board side.  VERY IMPORTANT!  I'll post pix once I've tested my quad tomorrow.  My quad died this week due to a bad fuse bit so I had to swap out the Atmega.

andy

[Crash]

Hahaa sorry about that.  C12-C15 are required.  Didn't I mention you needed tweezers?  Just use chipquick and it'll be easy as cake.  It really isn't a big deal.  It was the only one i could find at 0.01uF.  Ok I didn't look very hard and I already had them. 

Do me a favor DO NOT solder those BIG FAT caps yet for the brushless.  Trust me once you start down that path it'll take a lot of heat to remove it so thats the last area you wanna mess up.  Are you soldering 1hoch4 or BL 2.0?

For heavy lift I'm testing a set of Low ESR 680uF caps at 25v.  2 per brushless.  Thats a total of 1360uF per motor.  I've learned through trial and error that with only 2 330uF , the voltage swing almost kills the 5v supply causing i2c drop outs (5v required for the microcontrollers). 

Also MAKE damn sure those caps are soldered on the brushless controller side and NOT on the power board side.  VERY IMPORTANT!  I'll post pix once I've tested my quad tomorrow.  My quad died this week due to a bad fuse bit so I had to swap out the Atmega.

andy

So let me get this straight, you solder the small parts with ChipQuik?

I don't have any direct plans for the board. I'm waiting on the folding KK frame and then I'll see how things fit together. I'll likely use 1hoch controllers though.

I don't think I like the idea of surface mounting the current sensor. If I was to drill a hole between the existing holes and carefully file an oval would that work with a proper solder job? I did see your warning.  Another way would be to loop a wire around the legs and through the holes. That is safer. Either way, those holes should be filled with solder right? Otherwise the through hole plating transfers all the power.

Hey something just occurred to me. Have you thought about a I2C to PWM converter. Something like that on a distribution board would allow us to use any ESC.

I'll finish the board up on Monday. Taking the Ham test tomorrow and I should probably look through the book again.

BTW, R1, R2, and C25 are missing on the parts list.

[andyman]

I'll update but all resistors are 10k.  C25 is a 10uF cap.  Same as C25 is a 10uF also. I updated parts list.

You could theoretically drill the hole for the current sensor.  But the output of the current sensor needs to feed layer 3.  If you drill it you are reducing the surface area for the current to travel and you would actually make it worst from a total amp delivered perspective.

I've already surface mounted mine and let me tell you , it ain't going no where.  In fact its pretty hard to desolder too due to the amount of copper sinking the heat.  But if you do choose to drill, you could run a wire from IC1 to VCC just to be safe.

As for the PWM converter.  Boy I could do that but that would mean more headers and more complications.  (header for an SPI interface).  Definitly possible tho but then I'd have to make room to allow both i2c AND pwm depending on what people want. 

Frankly I don't think I'll be making another board.  No demand and I just made it because I needed 1. heh.

andy

andy

[andyman]

Hey I just noticed.  The 5 pin header for the flight controller might be inverted.  The means pin 1 is pin 5 and pin 2 is pin 4.  Before you plug in your flight controller double check that.  The cable harness is easy to fix.  But just be aware of that.  It appears that Mikrokopter or my program has different understandings of which pin is pin 1 - 5.  Not sure who is correct but obviously i want to maintain what Mikrokopter did. 

If I am incorrect can someone confirm?  I've already fixed my schematic to match.  Just need additional confirmation.