AH-6Z Littlebird Night-Ops build project

[Zeeflyboy]

Back to my roots for this post - Backyard shed style bodge-it-engineering.

So, Looking at my pilot, the legs don't go far enough up for the rudder to work properly because they hit a mechanical stop at 90 degrees. So poor Juan's suffering isn't yet over, I mercilessly hacked off his legs.





I then used some epoxy putty to shape shoulders and add hinges to his legs that will allow the legs to move up a little with the rudder. The right shoulder has embedded wire which will effectively form the arm controlling the cyclic stick. I needed more degrees of freedom here than a simple hinge could provide so I've gone for a flexible wire instead. the left shoulder has a flat edge and will then have an arm attached which will be free to rotate fore/aft only. Combined with an elbow joint this will then allow the arm to move nicely in line with the collective stick.





Next up I need to shape some foam segments to replace the missing leg and arm sections... should keep things nice and light.


edit - the right arm is almost done... just need to drill and attach the hand. The foam in between the segments helps stop the sleeve material from collapsing inwards when the joints move... I've done a quick test and the arm can reach all 4 points of the cyclic stick extremes, but is also the right length to fit inside the sleeve which is good!

You can also see the small 3mm carbon shaft in the left shoulder which will act as the pivot point for the left arm and allow it to rotate backwards with the collective stick.

[Zeeflyboy]

So, A slight geographical snafu has occurred....

I have some leave coming up at the start on november and will be in the UK, and when I ordered my FLIR pod the ship-by date shapeways gave put it firmly during my time in the UK. Accordingly I got it sent to one of my UK addresses.

Shapeways however completed it well before the target date and sent it on thursday.... so I'm currently separated from my creation by about 700 miles.

Girlfriend to the rescue however! she has taken some pics for me to share with you - apparently It all fits and locks together well, the eagle eyed may notice the pod is slightly loose in the cradle - this is due to the bearings not being installed. I have to say it looks to have come out exceptionally well, I'll reserve judgement until I've been able to examine it myself but looks like my love for shapeways is on the up and up.

The only reservation I have is that the thing might be a bit humongous, if so I'll have to consider redesigning a new one for a smaller camera... we'll see how that goes when I can actually install it in the heli.


All parts separate (FLIR pod, cradle, mount, retaining/control arm and replacement landing light surround)





liiike a glove





Pod fits :)

[Zeeflyboy]

couple of detail shots to show the quality... I'm pretty impressed with this for their basic material!

[Zeeflyboy]

So some good news and some not so good news...

Here's a few pics of my pod going together, works quite nicely (no servos yet to try making it move) but I think it's too big. It really dominates the front of the heli (though the picture exaggerates it somewhat due to the perspective.
















Anyway, I'm nothing if not prepared and here's my contingency plan - a significantly smaller pod and cradle based on the 25x25mm cam here (original cam is 38x38 for an idea of size difference) http://www.securitycamera2000.com/products/DIY-0.001-Starlight-3D%252dDNR-Sony-CCD-650TVL-Super-Mini-Camera-FPV.html

While I was at it I decided to make a small change - the front panel of the pod is now quickly removable to adjust focus, change lens or access the camera. I added holes at the top and bottom for two tiny (1x2mm) neodynium magnets to hold the front cover in place.

[Coyote]

Superb work as ever :)

[wgt40w]

"Removable front camera panel"

Personally I would fix with screws, rather than magnets.

PS I am imagining one of these pods, slightly modified, being available to buy to use as a generic 'moveable' camera container on FPV planes and quads etc. - aerodynamic, keeps moisture off camera, would also protect a  camera from a 'heavy' landing.

[Zeeflyboy]

Cheers

I did think about screws, but having played with my current pod the friction fit plus magnets would be ample I would think... and it keeps the nice tidy look. If worst comes to worst then the front just falls off in a field somewhere, it won't affect anything. Of course I'll come back here with my tail between my legs and you'll be sat there trying not to say "I told you so"...

[skyscraper]

Amazing!

Cant wait to see a video of the camera panning n tilting.

regards
Andy

[Zeeflyboy]

Bit of hacking with a dremel and this is where I'm at:











It's already firmly mounted with epoxy but next up I'm going to reinforce the area with some extra fibreglass, including wrapping it just inside the mount to increase the rigidity of the whole section and well and truly lock the mount in place, then tidy up around the edges and make sure it's all nicely blended in. You can see the bottom where I had to deal with the old landing light location too, it's now patched and I just need to fill it up and smooth it out.

However I just picked up Halo 4 and I have some alien butt to kick...

[Zeeflyboy]

So, whats new...

Firstly I've done a bit more work on the nose... please excuse the untidy appearance! I'll tidy it up later, although I'm not sure why since it'll be hidden behind the floor/dash section anyway.

I fibreglassed the central section with a few layers of 25gm cloth and wrapped it around the corners of the mount. It's all very solidly locked in there now and is much more rigid than before.

I then added a riser section to the forward floor mounting block and created a fibreglass bridge panel. This serves two purposes - firstly it provides a platform for the pan servo and secondly it creates a totally rigid triangle that removes any play in the mount... The lower part of the block attaches to the floor section which is then also attached at two points either side at the rear. End result is a totally solid and strong mount for hanging a camera from.... jobsa.









In other news, Shapeways has finally failed me. I got an email today about my delayed EzUHF cradle and turns out the dying process didn;t work very well leaving it with inconsistent colour. They gave me the option of accepting as is, asking for a re-print or a refund with store credit... I have asked for a refund as I will then print again with a slightly updated design... means more delays but hey ho, I'm not in a rush.

They did however seem to come through on the other components just slightly late - The dash console, Collective stick, Rudder mechanism and vTX coolers should all have been delivered today to my GF's address in the UK. Hopefully she'll send me some pics later that I can share with you!

And lastly for this post, I have received some rather encouraging news that suggests I will be able to play with 16 channels. 16... muhahahahahahaaaaaa!!!! I won;t go into details just yet until the details are hashed out and finalised but I've already been thinking about allocations:

Ch1 aileron
Ch2 elevator
Ch3 throttle
Ch5 rudder
Ch6 Naza flight mode
Ch7 HT Pan
Ch8 HT Tilt
Ch9 - Pod Pan (joystick)
Ch10 - Pod Tilt (joystick)
Ch11 - OSD control (3 pos)
Ch12 - DElight controller (3Pos)
Ch13 - Pico switch nav light (2 pos)
Ch14 - Video switch (2 pos)
Ch15 - Sabertooth dual 5A motor driver (miniguns) (2pos)
Ch16 - HK multi switch (missile tubes) (2 pos) or RSSI/LQ

DElight controller:

Ch1-3 unused
Ch4 - cockpit roof lighting (on at 50-100%)
Ch5 - main landing light (on at 50-100%)
Ch6 - aux landing lights (on at 80-100%)
Ch7 - beacons (always on)
Ch8 - unused

I'm thinking now that I am going to separate my power systems too. The gryphon is rated for some serious current draw and would probably be fine but with all screens, nav lights, high powered landing lights, OSD + GPS, naza + GPS, cameras, servos, miniguns etc running from it I'm getting slightly concerned lol.

My thoughts are to break it down into the following:

Essential bus - powered by gryphon. All flight critical systems (servos, rx, Naza + GPS, cameras, OSD + GPS)

Non essential bus - powered by a second HV bec. All non critical systems (lights, miniguns, screens, vTX cooling fans)

Battery Bus (6S) - vTX direct connection to flight pack 1

Battery bus (12S) - Gryphon + other HV bec.

In addition, either a buffer pack or scorpion UPS back up for the essential bus. The scorp is pretty cool - a 2S lipo with built in regulator that just sits there and waits. When your rail drops below 5v it kicks in and starts supplying juice.... undecided which option is better for now.

[Zeeflyboy]

Haha, yeah well we have to make do with what we can have really.. I'm sure that software will do everything you want - I had a look at it and it seemed pretty good.

[Zeeflyboy]

Well the GF is refusing to take proper pics from me this eve (says she'll do it tomorrow... sigh, women) but she did send me these two from her phone. I apologise for the shocking quality but the girl is a stubborn one!

So, I present to you blurry bits! Rudder mechanism, collective mechanism, 2x 5.8ghz cooling cases, and one big purple dash console.

[Flyn]

All looking really nice mate!

Any news on those revisions on the ezuhf cradles?

[Zeeflyboy]

Well I was waiting to see how this one I ordered turned out but now that I've asked for a refund due to the problem with it, It'll be up to another 2 weeks until I get it in my hands to try.

I can whip up the re-design fairly quickly, I was just waiting to see if anything else needed changing too... would you rather wait until I've been able to test it or would you rather go on blind faith lol? If the latter I can try and do the re-design tomorrow and upload it (assuming I don't get called from standby).

[Flyn]

Fair play fella, bit of a shame they messed up, don't want to rush you, I'm cool with waiting.

I'd rather you were happy with your design before you send any out.

Might go for one of those TX antenna covers too. ;)