Tarot FY 680 and a bit Hexacopter

[Coyote]

I love the frames, that`s why I decided to do the Quad as well, they are very strong, my only dislike is the carbon on the bottom of the landing gear, I have replaced the Hex`s, the Quads new piece is on its way over

[g.collins]

Looks sweet Ian, The only reason I fly quads, is that I can't afford X6 T-Motors and props  :laugh:
;) G

[dogzilla]

Does your quad support coaxial configuration? Been hoping to get a Y6 or X8, that being said the foldable T810 looks sweeeeeeet.

[Coyote]

You could configure it as a x8 and the Hex as a y6 yes

[Faffer]

Looking good ..

so not upgrading the hex any more then ?

I need to work out what frame to get and plan a nice upgrade from the DJI 550


Richard

[Coyote]

Oh yes, the Hex is just waiting for its new gimbal that should get delivered in the next few days. Then it will be carrying my Nex camera

[Coyote]

Seeing I have ploughed a bit more money into this Hex I figured it could do with looking a bit better. One of my pet hates are the cable colours being all over the place so I have replace none matching cables including the Vtx cables with JR style Orange/Red/Brown to match the rest of the system. I have now also relocated the video switcher to the rear of the Hex.



I made up cables with connectors for the DesireRC prototype gimbal board



Now my new favorite toy :) The Kamkop.de gimbal for the Nex 5N, it really is a work of art this gimbal, not cheap but so solid, so well thought out, it`s not going to be replaced, it works brilliantly



Those huge looking motors really are ! They make my RCTimer 5010`s look tiny even though RCTimer class them as 5010`s lol They have bags of torque so now I can actually use it to film with ( kinda handy I know :) )



The IMU goes on top above the camera which is then neatly hidden and protected with a plastic cover also supplied with the gimbal, nice touch ! Also a nice touch is the camera tripod screw they supply for securing the camera. It is a nice touch, but secure maybe a strong word, I will be adding some rubber webbing to the camera base to make it more secure.

With the new gimbal though the balance had shifted right forward, to sort this out I have now took to mounting the main flight lipo to the top of the Hex and using a separate 2200mah 3S for the gimbal and FPV equipment, for balance and very clean power for non flight related equipment.

[Dizzy]

That looks so expensive to fly now i would be getting nervious  :D

dizzy ;)

[MarkLincs]

I think I'm going to get that gimbal set up....

limits my cameras a bit but I need a decent gimbal....

[Coyote]

Well after a few flights now I really like the setup, I have judders on the roll axis when trying fast forward flight, but Ill get rid of that.

What I am not happy now with is the flight times, she now weighs in at 3.5kg in weight ! The RCTimer 4215`s 650KV motors do lift it, and it seems to fly OK, but my flight times are now down to 6 mins max. What`s noticeable though is the lift off and hover, it now does not lift up at 50% throttle and altitude hold doesn't work very well anymore, this will be down to the motors now being overstressed / under rated for the task.

I`ve been chatting to Hase about motor choices and he is sending me up some T-Motor MT2814`s 770KV to try out instead.

T-Motor MT2814 770KV

From the numbers we were running we have broken it down like this :

Weight of frame = 3.407kg
Max thrust required = 1156g ( Each motor )
ESC`s max rating = 30 Amps
Hover thrust required will be around = 578g each motor

With that in mind, 10x3.8 props on 4S gives :
50%  throttle - 4.1 Amps - 550g of thrust
65%  throttle - 6.8 Amps - 770g of thrust
100% throttle - 20 amps - 1440g of thrust

So at just over 50% throttle I should have enough thrust to hover at say 5 amps per motor, that`s great, 20 amps max, good also and 284g more than required thrust per motor at WOT. At around 5 amps hover that should give me a very decent 10 mins flight time per lipo, much better !

Option 2 is using 12x3.8 props
50%  throttle - 6.6 Amps - 810g of thrust
65%  throttle - 10.5 Amps - 1060g of thrust
100% throttle - 29 amps - 1950g of thrust

This means at under 50% throttle I have enough thrust for hover, brilliant ! Slightly more amps used though, 29 amps which is still OK for ESC`s and 794g more per motor than required at WOT.

So which would you go for for the best performance / flight times ??

[MarkLincs]

I have those motors but have gone 11x4.7 gen  props

I know the Vulcans slightly heavier overall but I recon 10 mins should be possible

[Coyote]

That`s another option 11x4.7`s

[Coyote]

Better update progress while I`m at it :)

The new IMU turned up, no noise now on the GUI which is good, that meant I could also now mount the IMU under the cover not on top of it making it look much better :

The problem I had with the gimbal after some experimenting was down to vibrations. So I whipped off the original Tarot dampeners which are great for lighter cameras and put on the base plates and dampeners from the useless Goodluckbuy gimbal I have now sitting around :

Right now the camera is cable tied to the base, the base cable tied to that Tarot, yes ........... I cable tied a Nex 5 on :) :) :) Its working remarkably well so I will replace the ties with drilled holes and nuts n bolts soon :)

I had also ordered the Quanum 2.4 telemetry system from Hobbyking. As I have been having unreliable results from my lipo alarms and inconsistent performance from my lipo`s I wanted a system to monitor in real time all the cells so I can have a clear and informed reading of the state of play.

It turned up today, so the receiver went on my 9X :

The transmitter is yet to be fitted onto the Tarot, but I have had the system setup and working fine. The receiver is a tiny unit that could go on even the lightest of multi`s or planes for that matter and I have a feeling, for $50 this is going to be a very good investment

Still waiting on Tarot spacers for the gimbal board ( yes its just hanging off the back ) the right HDMI cable ( ordered the wrong frekkin one :) ) and the motors / props swapping. Then, eventually, I think I`m done with it and ready to actually get some filming done................ Bring on the drifting !

[hase2]

Just use 2 batteries. with the 2814s you have plenty of lifting power.

[Coyote]

Two lipo`s is do-able, but wit which props ? :)