Flighty's 330LF Build

[FlightyFishcake]

I've had a few flights with the 330LF LOS and FPV. It's great.  ;D

I got everything working with the Vector and once I was confident that the loiter and RTH worked did some FPV flying.

2200MAH on 3S seems good to have a reasonable turn of speed. With a 3300MAH 4S is was a blast. Pulling about 23A on 4S it was climing at 10m/S.  :o

I was getting flight time of 15.5 mins with the 4S with some zooming around. 10.5 mins on 2200MAH 3S, using 80% of battery capacity. Pleased with both of those results.

A couple of issues - still getting some jello on the video, so I need to balance the motors now too. Also the LEDs were impossible to see with the sun low in the sky. The distinctive shape was more useful for orientation.

I think it was one of the best days of FPV flying I've had. First time I'm run out of battery on the mobius and the ground station in one session!

The 330LF is great. Lots more to learn, but a great start.

[Sonicfury]

Looks great! ;D

[FlightyFishcake]

Some more mods to my 330LF.

I wanted to make it easy to have different cameras, gopro, mobius or a gimbal attached to the quad.

So I've bolted a gopro bracket to the bottom of the quad. I've an adapter for the mobius or can attach the gopro to it directly.

I used the bracket directly rather than the slide in bracket as it's lower profile and the thumb screw will work just as well to change the cameras.

[FlightyFishcake]

I wanted some smarter legs for my quad and having looked around ordered fixed CF legs that were for a 450/550 sized quad. I also ordered some light tarot retracts to check them out too.

The retracts were 80g per leg, compared to 80g in total for the the other legs. I saved about 10g weight by cutting them down to size. I saved 40g by removing the legs I had made from HK nylon legs attached to the ends of the arms. +30g for the CF legs with much better ground clearance seemed fine to me.

The retracts would have been heavier and OTT. Though they had a couple of useful features. They folded flat and they were all the same dimensions as the the other CF legs I bought. I wanted to make the legs removable and using the parts from the retracts made an extra set of legs. That means I have a short pair for mobius / gopro then a longer pair to use with the gimbal.

To make the legs easily removable at the top of the leg, where there would have been two grub screws I put the grub screws in to mark the tube in the right place, then drilled a 2.5mm hole through the CF leg tube. I made a pin from some 2mm CF rod, with a clevice glued on one end and a loop of elastic to hold it in place.

One of the back plates from the retracts was put to use making the gimbal mount. I now have two retracts for the toolbox to think of some future use for....  :+

The legs work well and keep the quad stable and the camera well off the ground. They're easy to remove and replace too.  :D

[FlightyFishcake]

I wanted to find a way of adding a gimbal that would fit on the gopro bracket on my 330LF. I chose the Xaircraft Stella 2 axis gimbal as it's really light, 120g, including charging for charging for gopro and all the wires integrated inside, including AV out from the Gopro. It can be powered by up to 6S, which is helpful as I run the quad on 3S and 4S. My tarot 2D gimbal with no charging was 200g.

I used a cheap gopro frame mount and a CF plate from the back of one of the tarot retracts I'd bought. The standard fitting was useful to keep all the spacings right. At bit of careful drilling and bolting later it was all together. I still need to tidy up the plastic around the CF plate, it's longer than it needs to be at the moment.

The gimbal fits well under the quad, the camera will have a clear view forward and down and the 'long legs' keep it well off the ground. I think the thumb screw hand tightened will secure the gimbal well enough and hold it level.

I'm sure with 4S power the additional weight of the gimbal will not be a problem, possibly even 3S. I wanted a flexible quad that would pack down small and could do lots of things from straightforward FPV, HD recording and the option to carry a gimbal for better camera shots. So far it seems to be measuring up to all of that well.

Looking forward to the chance to fly it and see how it works.   :D

[Andy Sayle]

That's looking great!  I'd be keen to see some videos/photos of it in flight ;)  As well as seeing how good footage you get from the gimbal mounted on it!

Andy

[FlightyFishcake]

That's looking great!  I'd be keen to see some videos/photos of it in flight ;)  As well as seeing how good footage you get from the gimbal mounted on it!

Andy

Thanks Andy, I'll get some pics and video up when there's some better weather for flying.

[FlightyFishcake]

Been busy and not caught any good weather for flying but have made a few more mods to the 330LF so I thought I'd share them.

I've fitted the spare plate as battery holder properly now with standoffs so it looks a bit smarter. I've also extended the arms so they're now half way between 330 and 450 length arms. That means I can now run 9443 props without cutting them down.

I've got a set of DJI 9443 carbon reinforced props and have balanced them as well as the motors. 

I've added a folding mount for the GPS puck too. It was a bit wobbly, but I put a piece of fuel hose round the stem under the screw that holds the mount upright. When screwed down that holds it in position well.

[FlightyFishcake]

Another thing I've done is buy a cheap gimbal and with a few mods mounted it on the front of the quad. It's still got the anti vibration mount, not sure if that's necessary, but it should help cut down on jello.

It's attached to the go pro mount I mentioned in an earlier post, so it can be removed and other camera mounts fitted. It's wired through a camera switch so I can see through the gimbal mounted camera or the flight cam. The tilt on the camera is also connected so I can adjust that in flight.

It's not quite a disco pro, but it was much cheaper!  :D

The gimbal works well and seems very steady when powered up. I'm looking forward to getting it out flying now!

[Andy Sayle]

That's cool!  I'm looking forward to hearing the flight report!

Andy