'S T U F F'
Concerning the etheriality of 'stuff'
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Droidworx CX4
I thought I'd add this retrospectively, as she's already built.
A slightly chaotic image on the left, just really to show off the new Afro ESC's (30a).
Chequered History...
In fairness, this was my second multi-rotor, and a kind of knee jerk reacion to my first, a cheap aluminium & GF creation called an X525, with all parts, including the 5.8 Ghz VTX & VRX obtained direct from China. I think, It transpired that I got exactly what I paid for, and it was only really my lack of experience that made it slightly less than succesfull.
Actually, I really knew very little about the things back then, and it was only later that I dialled into the internet for access to resources. This I have found has been a double edged sword, for although I think folk are well meaning, they do tend to get immersed in a kind of dogma, which I always find tends to kill creativity somewhat. For this very reason, I tend to steer clear of the vast array of internet forums that abound on the subject.
As I say, I went from one extreme to another! For those of you finding your way here (probably by accident) who may not be versed in the practicalities of flight controllers (the 'brains' of the outfit) There are basically two paths to tread, proprietary, or open source.
If you did fancy a bash at getting one of these things into the air for whatever purpose (do we need a purpose?) then I for one would not wish to enter the gladiatorial arena by suggesting you follow one path over the other.
The fact is, I now use DJI flight controllers exclusively, and have always had very good results. However, I have been keeping an eye on the open source market, as some kind of deep rooted impulse seems to be becconing me to at least try something non proprietary.
That said, I have had in the past a couple of KK boards, with limited success. I find them too basic for my needs. I've been looking for a long time at the Multiwii family of boards, and more recently the 32 bit CC3D (Copter Control) from Open Pilot.
This seems to give some promising and reliable results from my internet gleamings.
If nothing else it's nicely packaged!
So, the shiny new CX4 arrived, (along with the mighty 'Wookong M' flight controller) all bristling with 'aerospace grade' carbon fibre and anodised aluminum (or was it titanium, yes probably).
I should add, that this was at least three years ago now, and the Wookong M was the defacto Proprietary FC of the day, it has now been replaced by the A2. Worth noting also, that the infinitely cheaper 'Naza M V2' has virtually replicated the performance of the WKM (in my opinion anyway) so saving the punter many hundreds of pounds! But hey ho, that's progress for you. ;-)
The CX4 was enjoyable to put together (I seem to remember) all the parts seemed to fit were they should, at least. When completed, with full polycarbonate body shell freshly sprayed with Tamyia car body paint, it felt amazingly light. In fact, that was one particular feature that I continually refered to when attempting to justify the extortionate cost from the UK dealer. I'll just get the majour niggle out of the way here and now, namely the landing gear, which was, in my opinion, woefully weakly made. It was the first thing to break on the first 'heavy landing'. Other than that, I must say, it is a 'decent bit of kit'.
As I mentioned in my blog, the body shell and underpan have been removed, as I felt this was in some way contributing to the instabillity of the quad. Now I have replaced the esc's with the Afro's, stability has returned in bucket loads, so may have been an unnecessary operation, but actually, I much prefer it without the bodywork, as not only has it aided accessibility to the working components, it has the added benefit of providing unhindered airflow , so reducing the operating temperature of the components, which could get quite hot before (over 35 degrees c.) particularly in summer.
On the right, you can see the final orientation of the frame and its constituant parts. I took this pic to show the H3-2D gimbal mount, with the Spektrum AR8000 8 channel Rx mounted directly on top of the mount itself. Again, regarding camera gimbals, there are the proprietary and open source routes, the open source ones seem to provide more options for 'fiddling', but the DJI ones 'just work', with no calibration to do either. I have used a low cost 2 axis gimbal on another frame, and I must say, for the money, it was very good.
Again, I got what I paid for, in that there were several inadiquacies to the design, like the actual way the gopro was mounted, which left a deal to be desired! The other feature that scores high with the H3, is that for the first time, I managed to get a decent vga signal out from the GP to use for the fpv cam, whilst simultaneously capturing footage, something I had struggled with from word dot. I did however note, that with the original 'White' version I started out with, there was a delay of a half a second or so, which has disapeared with the 'Black' version, so must be a processor thing.
So far, I have had no blackouts (as the pundits have cited on the forums) and everything connects together with proprietary cabling, and integrates with the osd (mini) which I am using on all my multi's.
Ready for flight...
Well, it started out as overkill, and has undergone a total metamorphosis, but my original (if I recall correctly) remit, which was to have a reliable, stable platform for aerial photography, has been achieved. It's not been an easy road, I'll admit, but it still gives far better results than any of my other attempts.
AJW.
Cheers!
