DJI Phantom + Tarot2D Gimbal - Day One

Enjoy! Day One.

Flight of the Phantom!

Just finished up assembling the Tarot 2D Gimbal and getting all the wiring harness (power and pitch control) made for the DJI Phantom. Flew it quite a bit more tonight before that, trying out basic 2.4GHz FPV direct to my Fat Shark Goggles. It don't work very well to run Video and Control on the same Freq. :(

Figured I would link the Tarot 2D FW 1.3 here for reference. Wiring connections for Phantom are below to have absolute pitch control on F2. Video collage on YouTube.

Update (11/2/2013): Just put up video of Tarot 2D stabilized flight from this morning...
Second Update: Example of stabilization control on Tarot 2D...man, that is pretty amazing. No post processing of the video was done here...

New DJI Phantom Quadcopter

Just ordered a DJI Phantom and a Tarot 2D Gimbal control for FPV flight. Sportsman's Warehouse also just had a $50 off offering for any internet order over $250 with HLWN code...Bing, GoPro 3 Black just recently reduced from $399 to $329 with the new 3+ announced...plus another $50 off. Done. This thing should be awesome.

New Skywalker X8 FPV Wing

Just got a Skywalker X8 to load all my FPV stuff into. Seems like lots of people are getting 100km autonomous flights with >10Ah type lipos. I'm just hoping to get >30 minutes of cruise throttle to get up over my 2 mile record flight...should be easy with this flying wing compared to my cramped EZ*. I am putting 3x 4S 3300mAh LIPO's, 60A Turnigy Plush ESC, 715W 3548/6 Turnigy XP outrunner, with 12x7 prop. Should turn about 65mph max, which isn't the point, it is the 18A cruise and amazing payload/lift this bird will have.

New Ultra Micro P-51

Just got a Parkzone Ultra Micro P-51 that weighs all of 1.22 oz flying weight. It comes with a cheapo 4ch Spektrum DSMX radio. Seems very agile. Can't wait to fly it, but I think it needs REALLY calm days...grin. Some video of it...

New Ultra Micro E-Flight Sbach 342

Got an E-flight UMX Sbach 342 that flies on 2S 180mAh micro lipo and is all of 1.95oz total flying weight. It has a combo ESC and Spektrum DSMX Rx with 4ch control. Micro linear servos...pretty cool. Too windy to fly yet. Some video here...

SBach 342 30e

Picked up this 1323mm wingspan SBach 342 from Hobby King this weekend. I'm loving how my Duramax Corsair and Mustang is showing in the air (once I got the engine thrust aligned for better tracking in the air with the 2 blade props). And this SBach 342 is one of my favorite flyers right now on Real Flight 6 flight sim. Now this 53" wingspan version will only be about 50% of the size of the featured plane there (so call it 17% scale), and likely be about 4.5 lbs AUW (compared to close to 27 lbs for that 35% scale with almost 9' wingspan gasser), but cost is about 1/5th to fly this versus that on...plus, how do you ever fly it when you have to bring it to work with you in a trailer?

Will put a 620kV Turnigy 4240 in it, probably running around 800W on ~3300mAh 4S lipo's (maybe 2650mAh ones too for short light flights), drawing around 55A. Initial guess is a 14x8 or 13x10 prop. Again, 150w for sport/acro planes per lb, is a rough rule of thumb. Go with 175-200W/lb for extreme 3D player. If it gets over 5lbs AUW, I'm going to be a bit under powered...

Happy New Year!!!!

Just picked up a couple 1100mm Durafly F4U Corsair and P51D Mustang from Hobby King. They have full retracts, 4ch controls and LED lighting and come very highly praised...

I also took today to work on my broken tricopter and repair most all of it, as well as to fix my DW Foamies Yak 54 that needed a lot of gluing (stupid landings tear the gear out every time). And, I reglued my Park Zone T28 that took a harsh hit at the bottom of a loop that needed to finish out about -2ft AGL. Grin.

So...I guess I'm ready to go flying. Yay!

Tricopter FPV

Got my eagle eyes system mostly back up and working, including a new addition, the guardian stabilization module, which should fix a lot of my questionable RTH functions. But in the mean time, I wanted to begin getting just basic video FPV only working with my tricopter. Finally seem to have a pretty good setup working with the copter, and it seems pretty stable. I've been practicing on the simulator with heli's and quadcopters too, so maybe that is helping, but it seems a lot more predictable.
I tried to get my Fatshark 2.4GHz video with a 40mW VTx working on the copter, but it wasn't good enough to even go much over 60 feet without losing signal. Might be because I strapped it right on close to an ESC on one of the arms, but there are a LOT of ESC's...I also was trying to run 2.4GHz spread spectrum radio control at the same time, as I really dislike the 72MHz for servo jitter and interferance, and this 2.4GHz stuff is bullet proof. Anyway, it didn't hurt the control running them both on 2.4GHz, but I can't believe the VTx (which isn't on a rotating freq) was helped having to compete. 72MHz didn't help it much though, and I've just got in a 500mW VTx along with some matched cloverleaf antenna's from Tim at Ready Made RC...so we'll try that out and see if it helps... Lots to do!

First flight on Tri/Quad Y4 copter

Got it all finished up yesterday, in spite of minor board problems with my Hobby King v2. LED lights are really cool at night on it. I've gone through more props than I care to count right now. Been playing with different sizes, and I need to re-engineer my back motor mounts, because they are a bit flimsy and it has become obvious that running these motors with anything less than 10x4.7 is point less. The motors don't make any more thrust after about 60% throttle, and that is what is responsible for my rear swaying uncontrolled (like the gyro isn't responding...it is, the motors just aren't). alt