My First Quad (Flamewheel clone from RCTimer)

[Keith]

A while ago I retired my tricopter and have wanted another multirotor ever since. h0tr0d clued me in on the cheap frames at RCTimer, so I ended up order the combo with motors/ESCs. I still had the Openpilot CC board left from the tri, a spare Dragon Link receiver, and some various FPV gear. For the time being I settled on a 500mW 2.4GHz Immersion vTX and circular antennas. I do have some 1.28GHz gear I can swap to if need be though. So far I've build up the quad and hovered it around a bit LOS just setting up the board. Yaw is still a little anemic, but other than that it's pretty close to where I want it. Last night I made mounts for the gopro and the DL receiver, and made the cable to transmit the live A/V out from the GoPro. It's ready for a test run via FPV, as soon as it stops raining! lol Here's a few pictures...

[nkkromhof]

Cool, I've been eyeballing those frames for a while but was wondering about the quality or the lack thereof. What did you use to extend the legs, looks like CF or fiberglass rods?

[Keith]

It's some 5mm carbon rod I had laying around, RTRyder's idea: http://fpvlab.com/forums/showthread....l=1#post115608

[saucisse]

Keith, how do you like 2.4Ghz on your quad? I've tried it and wasn't please about its penetration when flying behind/through trees and behind barns... I find 1.2GHz way much better and would not change it now The only downside I find is the size of the antennas.

[Keith]

Can't say, I haven't flown it with the vTX working yet I had these antennas on my tricopter though and they worked better than the stock antennas on it. That said, I'm sure 1.28 with CP antennas (or even linear) would be better than 2.4 either way. I just wanted to try this because I had it sitting around. I may end up going to 1.28 later though.

[h0tr0d]

That looks sick man! Can't wait to see some video from it.

[Kevinv033]

Very nice, Keith! Can't wait to see your vids

[Keith]

Finally an FPV flight worth posting... lol This actually the 3rd FPV run with it, but the first two sucked! I'm still struggling but starting to get the hang of it now. There's still some vibration going on, the included prop adapters are not that great. One broke already, and the others wobble. I've got a couple of different kinds on the way to try out. Thanks to Kevin for helping me get the the CC board tuned better too! It might still need some tweaking but at least I'm flying! haha


View this video on YouTube

[Freshmint]

How you mount the gopro? Are those black spacers for vibration dampener?

[Keith]

Those are just some delrin rod I had around, they're not really soft at all, just the best thing I had to make standoffs with... lol I did add some rubber dampeners on the top plate later, but it's hard to tell if they'll work or not. I've still got some "jello" in the video, but my props are not running true with these crappy prop adapters. I've got more on the way, then once I've got the motors smoother I'll tackle the remaining vibrations.