Let’s design a multirotor together.

[coen 11]

Now that you are talking about this telemetry and other things about the taranis, ill have to also investigate this radio some more. I have two of the turnigy 9x radios, one that is running on the turnigy 2.4ghz v2 radios, and the other on a dragonlink. The dragon link system is hacked into my phantom v2+ system. <- different thread for that one.

 

Well, in the end I did go for the Turnigy 9XR Pro as well... the Taranis only comes via HK global warehouse currently, which demands a huge payment in shipping (€50,-!), with the added risk of 20% customs surcharge and €14,- administration cost... with all that calculated in it actually becomes a lot more expensive than the Pro with FrSky D8-IIR telemetry set.

For pricing reasons I also ordered some parts from RCTimer... which actually only asks for $2,- shipping... very strange... well, we'll see, it will probably take a lot longer too.

 

As for the size of the wiring that i used is as follows. The battery terminals are on the XT90 connectors with 14AWG wire, that should be sufficient for 32 Amps. That is the same size wiring that is used on my packs. Use this table for reference HERE

For my speed controller wire size i'm using 20awg for power and 22 awg for motor wires coupled with 2mm bullets. For my 250 setup this is perfect, use that link that i posted to figure out what you need. Bare in mind that you dont want to over kill too much as it will add weight!

You're actually referring to the exact same table I was using. However, you chose the Chassis rating instead of the power transmission that I was looking at. When you compare those ratings to the ratings you see mentioned on fora then people use them at much higher amps.

Could you explain the choices you made? The XT90 connector is suited for much higher amps (90A continuous) than the 30A you mention. The AWG14 is actually what I'll be using for the ESC-Motor part of my setup (30A esc, 22A max motor draw), with 3,5mm bullets. What draw do you have on your motors/escs? For my battery I go with AWG10 and the XT90 connector as well, so quite a lot heavier than yours (I'm expecting around 80A max).

@gr5 Could you elaborate on your wire sizes and connectors a bit perhaps? Now you only mention that people think they look heavy, without giving other people (me ) the chance to prevent doing the same.

[gr5 2,172]

Well I spent time looking at the wiring carefully.  I didn't know this when I bought all the parts but my copter hovers at around 20 Amps draw on the battery (includes all current - even camera gimbals).  Of course it draws much more when I give it full power but on average it should use 20A.  Obviously now I could have gone with 10 or 20A ESCs instead of 30A saving much weight.  If this wiring is good enough for 30A ESC then obviously I can reduce the wiring weight by quite a bit.  Immediately after a 10 minute flight my ESCs are hardly warm.  Motors are hot though.

The battery came with 10AWG, the power module came with 12 AWG, I added the next section (tree branching section).  The ESC came with 16 AWG both sides.  The numbers below are the average current draw.  4 tree leafs (power leads) go to ESCs and the 5th goes to the gimbal controller.  This just shows one side - this is duplicated for red/positive and black/negative wiring.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Guest

[coen 11]

Sorry for the long radio-silence... parts are in!

However, I've also landed a new job and girlfriend... so designing and building the multicopter has been moved to the evening hours/weekends :(. It'll probably be somewhere in August that I make some progress. How are you guys doing? Flying?

[gr5 2,172]

I have been flying.  Yes. This is from this past January. Maybe I'll post something else soon...

 

Edited July 7, 2015 by Guest

[gr5 2,172]

Here's from a few days ago:

 

[Labern 774]

The new gopro 4 session would be a good little camera for a quad

http://shop.gopro.com/APAC/cameras/hero4-session/CHDHS-101-master.html

[coen 11]

Well, I've finally found some time to work on the drone again... to design the outside of the drone... I guess it's finished, if you guys don't have any remarks that is.

A few suggestions:

'it's way too tight, create some space to fit stuff in!'

'The legs are too small, you'll snap those off!'

'And my first proper investigation: Move the motors higher up, you'll sink!'

Somewhere next week the gnarly job of subdividing it into 3D-printable parts starts. That means choosing printing orientations, bottom planes, hollowing the parts out, creating mounts, etc, etc. Lots of work, but it's great to make some progress again. How's it going with you guys? Any new designs? crashed drones? Working on other stuff?

Edited September 13, 2015 by Guest

[mrwong 5]

Woah! How is everyone's 3D printed flying creations going? Its been a while since there has been any activity in here! I have been working on some new frames and concepts from some inspiration drawn from the new star wars movie!

I was thinking about starting some youtube live streams for modeling training and tips when designing for nice prints. That way you guys can ask questions and help design our next ultimaker multi-rotors! I have some nice streaming hardware coming in the mail and would love to contribute some training in modeling. Let me know what you think or would like to see!

[LesHall 95]

I watched the Hak5 show and enjoyed it, cool technology stuff.

I am interested in following the progress here, especially if it leads to a new and interesting quad design. Maybe I can help a bit too? We will see, but in any case it looks worth following!

Les

Make history!