AH-6Z Littlebird Night-Ops build project

[Zeeflyboy]

Can't it be both?

Lol, cheers Steve... Hope she looks good in the end!

Have to learn to paint properly next! I want to do some good weathering and whatnot.

[Zeeflyboy]

Some more details today.

Here is my new fuel cap with the SPS switch integrated. You can see the small red pin - when that's pulled out then the whole system comes alive.... with it in place it's all switched off.






And I've finished riveting the whole main fuselage now - underside and all. Wonder how many rivets I've done on this thing... Just need to fit a panel on the underside to cover up that big hole and then fit some door hinges to the main doors and I think that's the exterior work on the main fuselage body more or less done.

[dogzilla]

Absolutely bloody excellent. I cannot wait to see the finished result.

[Zeeflyboy]

So just some mods to the Futaba ready for the Channel wizard mods. I have added a bracket for the EzUHF so that I can slide it on/off for storage and transport purposes and the small grey jack is a 4 pole 3.5mm connector - the channel wizard will take the ppm from the transmitter, add it's own additional channels and multiplexing, then output the 12ch (plus multiplexed channels) stream to this jack connector along with power and ground. The EzUHF will then plug directly into this jack for it's power and ppm inputs.




And it's all about the little touches lol, I saw this and thought it had to be done...

[Zeeflyboy]

Oh, and I was giving some thought as to the problem of the Naza LED/USB doo-hickey.

I wanted easy access to it and to be able to see it when starting up the aircraft with everything buttoned up so that I can see the LED indications regarding satellite lock etc, but I didn't want the LED visible during normal flight or filling the inside of the fuselage with it's very bright output.

I came up with this idea - A small access panel that the Naza can sit inside... open up the panel door (small twist lock handle) and the unit is easy to see or even pull out for USB access, once sats are confirmed close the panel and away you go. Shimples.

[dogzilla]

where did you get the fractal UHF antennas or did you make them? are they dipoles? how do they perform?

[Zeeflyboy]

where did you get the fractal UHF antennas or did you make them? are they dipoles? how do they perform?

a) Mictronics kindly donated them to my build, I think it was his last set he had lying around but he makes them himself.

b) Yes, dipoles

c) Dunno yet. Theoretically performance should be almost as good as a traditional dipole but in more compact form... I think they are potentially slightly more narrowband.

http://fpvlab.com/forums/showthread.php?2001-Fractal-Antenna-for-433MHz-LRS&highlight=Fractal

[Zeeflyboy]

Sorry for the lack of updates, I only had two days off and I spent it with my new toy! Arrived to my door, built, tested and flown FPV within a day... I had forgotten what it was to have a quick build! Ignore my green props and "battery ballast" on the GoPro mount - I have some T-Motor carbons and a Hero Black to go on there but didn't want to smash them up on the first test flights lol (btw GPS position holding makes taking a photo yourself much easier!)

[Zeeflyboy]

So just a quick video update for you - the cockpit controls and Juan are in place and all running correctly from the PPM decoder. The cyclic stick is a little... well... sticky especially with left aileron, but it just needs a little tweaking with hand position/shape to get it working correctly... will wait until I have the final hands and arms built up etc before tweaking.


as an aside, I am massively looking forwards to trinity head tracking... cannae wait.



AH-6 cockpit progress

[Flyn]

Mate, that is very slick!!

Can you make me one for my 60 size corsair?? Am thinking of FPV'ing it!

Would be happy to chuck some antennas &/or cash money at you ;)

[Zeeflyboy]

Get back to me once I've sorted this build... Can't take on even more at the moment lol.

Does the corsair have a removable cockpit?

[Flyn]

No worries chap.

It's UHU por'd on, so I could remove it.

[Zeeflyboy]

so today I both primed and painted the interior so that I can now get on with some electronics installation and whatnot...








Printed up a little ET GPS case today, lined the bottom and lower sides with copper tape - what can I say, I've got meters of the stuff to use up lol.








Also installed a few more electronics - EzUHF at the back there feeding the channel wizard with ppm.. this will pull channel 12 and demux it out into the various auxiliary outputs while also passing through a ppm output to the decoder in the cockpit. Also think this is the best place for the vTX with the SPW going down into the belly... might re-design an cut the base plate to include a vtx mount.




So more stuff installed...

Designed a little mount plate for the vTX and made my 35v LC filter:




And here you can see it fitted along with one of Circular Wireless' faultless little 5.8Ghz SPWs - hopefully this explains the post about antenna positioning and you can also see how the room is there for a 2.4Ghz one day.




I also installed the Fractals from mictronics using some black foam tape...





Those of you with eagle eyes might not the small device on on top of the EzUHF, that's one of mictronics RSSI/LQ convertors which reads the output from the bus and gives an analogue signal I can use with the eagletree.

[DaveyLC]

That is INSANELY tidy!  :o

[wgt40w]

Picture above - tut tut - think I can see a paint run at the top left of the copper aerial !!!