Tarot FY 680 and a bit Hexacopter

[g.collins]

Nice platform bud,  its going to be some setup.
:) G

[Coyote]

Thanks Diz,G its getting there now :)

[Shikra]

Looking good mate. What's the fight times like now? Any better?

[Coyote]

Thanks Gary, now I replaced the Nano`s with Zippy`s the flight times are sorted. 8 - 9 mins with a bit of juice left with the Nex weight on. I have not timed it with the Gopro back on yet though

[Coyote]

Here are the first two flights in its new configuration :

Maiden :

Tarot Gimbal Test

Testing my Tarot gimbal for the first time.

No stabilization used, raw footage, no gimbal tuning. This is how it is, straight out of the box !

I tried hovering still, to prove the dampening was good - It was
I tried jockeying the sticks to throw the gimbal or initiate a wobble - It did neither
I tried fast forward flight which has previously made the roll axis shudder - It held rock solid
I tried fast forward flight yaw turns which has made the other gimbals loose their horizon - It kept the horizon perfectly level throughout

I am very impressed :)



High wind test :

Windy Test

Very windy this morning, but tried the gimbal anyway to see how it copes in very high winds and at full speed forward flight.

Not 100% perfect, but if you could see the Hex struggling fighting the wind I thought the footage was going to be terrible at best. Instead I was happily surprised instead

[g.collins]

WOW!

[Gundummy]

The Quad came with white arm holders / locating clips on the front, why ? I have no idea, they look pants too so I ordered replacement black ones.

I read somewhere that the black ones had a tendency to snap as they were a little brittle, so the white ones came out which had more flex.... 

[Coyote]

So far I have had no clips break at all after 100`s of folding up`s :)

I don`t see a problem with them, the initial reports I think were from people being simply too heavy handed IMO

[Gundummy]

Well it did say they broke in cold conditions..... when the wind blows east and between the hours of 1800-2000hrs .... so you're probably right there bud!

[Coyote]

The evolution continues :)

The Vtx was moved down to on the leg, this was handy that it was away from the receiver, but in fact did not pay off at all. Every time the Hex was at 90 degrees to me I would get a bad picture from the carbon leg blocking the transmission.

So I did this :)



This is a Bignose13 LHCP Skew with a nice long tail and no SMA. I then got some spare alloy tubing and cut it to length, threaded the tail through the alloy tube and made off the end with a 90 degree SMA. The result is a Skew that now sits way above the frame, which clears absolutely everything.

I have flown a few times now with it and I am very happy with the results, no matter how low, what angle, how far away, perfect picture all the time :)

The camera is now fixed to the front brace of the Tarot gimbal, its a better position for flying but it does pick up some vibrations. I might revisit this very soon and improve that some more. I had a problem with my first gimbal board, the tilt started playing up but this is the new board fitted and working fine again



The next change was taking Chainlink UHF off the Hex, with the noise on the Hex from the cameras I was getting less range than ever before. I have now swapped it out for the FrSky X8R receiver to connect to my Taranis



You may notice a few other additions there. This is so I can connect a cell meter to my receiver. It should be a one plug affair, but right now that`s a no go :( Instead I have to connect the cell sensor to a vario, a vario I on`t need nor will use on a the Hex, then the vario plugs into a FrSky Hub, this then plugs into the receiver to send the cell data to the Taranis as telemetry. Mental ? Yes really, you have to buy two products you don`t need or want to get the only gadget you want to work to actually work ! The next gen cell sensor will apparently just plug into the X8R smart port so I can ditch all the rest of it, cant wait !

Anyway, here is the Cell Sensor, cool little display :)

[hase2]

Nice mod Ian.

2 thoughts:
Is it worth supporting the sma connector on the VTX to reduce the strain the antenna puts on it?
The FrSky Cellmeters plug into their current sensor as well. No need for hub and stuff and you get a fairly good current/mAh used reading as well.

[lupowarrior]

Wow this is a very nice build  :)

[Coyote]

Nice mod Ian.

2 thoughts:
Is it worth supporting the sma connector on the VTX to reduce the strain the antenna puts on it?
The FrSky Cellmeters plug into their current sensor as well. No need for hub and stuff and you get a fairly good current/mAh used reading as well.

Sorry Stefan, totally missed the two replies

The antenna is holding up really well, no stress relate problems so far and comes off easily for transportation. The picture though that was the whole point of it is great now, no drop outs, no interference or anything, very happy.

The current sensor could be an interesting choice, I like the idea of that, providing they do them with a high enough current rating

[Coyote]

Thanks Lupowarrier :)