Consultant for hire?

K

khstage

New Member
Does anyone on this forum offer services to finish a quad build that I simply am unable to finish on my own? I have a waterproof quadcopter drone body, ESC's and motors installed and a NAZA flight controller. I also have a nice gimbled camera and transmitter. At this point I simply am stumped as to how to finish this project as far as connecting everything correctly. I am in need of expertise so as to finally have my waterproof drone finished and ready to fly. Is this a project anyone might consider if I shipped everything I have and compensated a qualified builder? Any help or guidance to skilled quad building services most appreciated!
Key
 
wafflejock

wafflejock

Well-Known Member
Yah gotta agree with LoneRC here, better off just buy some prebuilt that is ready to go off the shelf than send someone else pile of parts to figure out then ship back and hope things don't get damaged in shipping or lost. Ideally just watch enough Youtube builds with similar parts to get things together and test the FC using a computer to monitor what data it's got going into it from receiver and otherwise configuring it for output to ESCs etc. (these steps really aren't too hard but understand it's overwhelming at first). Building yourself from scratch will develop the skills needed to diagnose and repair issues in the future but it's definitely a trade off in time and effort to get ramped up vs just buying something that does what you want well enough. I think if new to electronics and flying and all you are best off buying something like a tiny hawk 2 or if want/need something bigger than the iFlight ones are pretty decent (I mostly use iFlight frames for my custom builds):


Personally I always use Betaflight and therefore betaflight compatible flight controllers (ideally F7 based nowadays but F4 is okay, F3 based things feel too old to me now :D, still capable if some extra bells and whistles are disabled but I like all the bells and all the whistles :) ). If I were to build you a custom quad it would cost as much or more than any of the off the shelf things in just parts and then add labor which is a few hours (at least) and it becomes unreasonable unless doing it at scale where parts discounts would apply.
 
LoneRCRanger

LoneRCRanger

Well-Known Member
I'm electronic savvy, but not with the things wafflejock is talking about. That's why I rely on something pre-built and comes in a box. Take it out, set it up, charge the batteries, put them in, launch the quad, crash into a tree. Why build something that I will destroy on the first launch?
 
F

Franked

Member
LoneRCRanger said:
I'm electronic savvy, but not with the things wafflejock is talking about. That's why I rely on something pre-built and comes in a box. Take it out, set it up, charge the batteries, put them in, launch the quad, crash into a tree. Why build something that I will destroy on the first launch?
Click to expand...
Hi, brand new to the forum here. I just bought a DJI Mini2, and really like it. Ran it for 2 battery packs so far, not much experience. I started to gather parts to build a 300MM quad a long time ago, frame, motors, escs are already put together, it has a camera, but I know nothing about it .I bought a radio to go with it FRSKY I think, (all this stuff is in the attic) and I was not sure on the controller part. I'd like to put a DJI Naza in it, unless there is a better. easier way someone could tell me about. I want it to be able to hold position for a LONG time, recording events below. I race RC boats, and the plan was a LOT of battery reserve to just hover recording the event. I bought another house, quit racing boats, started working on hot rods a few years back, and now I want this quadcopter to finally fly. Not necessarily for the boat races any more. Any thoughts? Can you just take everything out of something like my mini and connect it to bigger gear (ESC and motors) and make it work?
 
wafflejock

wafflejock

Well-Known Member
To answer your question, in general what you said is totally true and fine. You can lift the electronics that do the flying (the flight controller/FC) out of one frame and disconnect the motor throttle signal wires from one set of ESCs and put that FC onto another frame with different motors/ESCs. The only issue with what you're asking is the DJI part... they are not really a "hobby grade component maker" instead they make fairly decent consumer/prosumer grade things but they are in general much more proprietary components and not made to fit more generic standards that have just arisen from various hobby companies working on similar products/components. Basically after you move an FC you still need to tune the FC for the given hardware, bigger props will generally spin slower and have slower response time so the amount of delay or extra power needed to make up for wobbles etc. is going to vary depending on the size and thrust to weight etc. etc. (this is where PID tuning comes into play). A tiny quadcopter with little power will need a different kind of PID tune than one that is massive and has far more thrust to weight or other different characteristics to the ESCs or motors.

I build all my stuff from scratch basically, so right now I have two 5" frames with busted arms and two 5" frames in the mail getting here tomorrow to rebuild. Since I'm using the same size stuff I literally just unscrewed all the components from one frame and lifted them all connected and will drop onto the new frame. The new frame will effect tuning a minor amount but nothing compared to changing size of props/motors etc.

So can you do it yes... would I recommend and expect it to work great with DJI FC, no.

To answer some follow up questions I'd expect and addressing the position hold, Betaflight does not do this... it is made for manual flight for racing or acrobatics basically and expects the pilot to be engaged in flying (or crashing as others indicated :D ). iNav is another alternative firmware you can run on many of the same FCs that will allow you to run Betaflight (or Cleanflight or Emuflight or other quadcopter firmwares). iNav is more geared towards autonomous flight and waypoint missions etc. so although it still requires you to know how to fly a thing yourself for tuning purposes etc it can be used to do more "camera in the sky I don't think about" type of work.
 
Dugdog47

Dugdog47

Well-Known Member
Franked said:
Hi, brand new to the forum here. I just bought a DJI Mini2, and really like it. Ran it for 2 battery packs so far, not much experience. I started to gather parts to build a 300MM quad a long time ago, frame, motors, escs are already put together, it has a camera, but I know nothing about it .I bought a radio to go with it FRSKY I think, (all this stuff is in the attic) and I was not sure on the controller part. I'd like to put a DJI Naza in it, unless there is a better. easier way someone could tell me about. I want it to be able to hold position for a LONG time, recording events below. I race RC boats, and the plan was a LOT of battery reserve to just hover recording the event. I bought another house, quit racing boats, started working on hot rods a few years back, and now I want this quadcopter to finally fly. Not necessarily for the boat races any more. Any thoughts? Can you just take everything out of something like my mini and connect it to bigger gear (ESC and motors) and make it work?
Click to expand...
Post pics and tell us what brand everything is we can give you free online consultation lol. Maybe start a new thread in the build log or first build section.
 
F

Franked

Member
Thanks for the reply, this comes right after I ordered the DJI Naza M Version 2 on Amazon, lol.

This is not the same as pulling all the little stuff from a mini and adapting it to a larger frame/motors/ESCs and props. Is it?

After looking on ebay and Amazon more, It looks like the frame kit setup with motors/props/ESCs is probably a 450 flamewheel or copy. I will probably get it down in the next day or so.
 
wafflejock

wafflejock

Well-Known Member
Hiya sorry for slowish responses here just busy with work. That FC can work and according to their product page has ability to "remotely adjust gains" so assuming they mean the PID gains there, but it may be difficult to get decent baseline to start with and/or may take a lot of guessing/checking during which components can get destroyed (still an issue if you use a betaflight/iNav compatible FC but is just par for the course the thing needs a good enough tune to not wobble out of the air or wobble out of control when trying to achieve some target position).

I wouldn't suggest anything this size for a beginner to building/flying really... my suggestion is always to go with something much smaller at first so can work out all the details of the control link, binding, protocols, ESCs, power draw, batteries, charging etc. etc. etc. Everything gets more dangerous the bigger you go and anything above a 3" prop size quad is stepping into dangerous territory if you aren't absolutely sure about your gear. Buddy I work with had like 15 stitches on his finger after gushing a bunch of blood all over when a DJI inspire didn't do what was expected (naive users mostly to blame there).

Regarding understanding what kind of power draw is going to be going on and what kind of thrust to weight you'll get for a given setup I suggest using this site: http://www.ecalc.ch use the quad calculator and find components close to what you'll use, if willing to pay for a license there (probably worth it before buying $1000 in components) then get larger list of options to choose from and can generally override the values on the input side to whatever specs your chosen components advertise.

For flight controllers anything with STM32F4 at the core is okay a STM32F7 might be better MCU (chip) at the core of the FC since it provides more UARTs for working with peripherals (GPS/Compass/other external sensors). I have and am a fan of the JBF7, also the have and like the Kakute F7 but there are other STM32F7 based FCs out there that are widely compatible with Betaflight or iNav firmware. The Matek 722 that I know @Dugdog47 has suggested here in the past to others too is on the supported FCs for iNav (have only flashed on my Kakute F7 here for a hexacopter):

github.com

Supported boards

INAV: Navigation-enabled flight control software. Contribute to iNavFlight/inav development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com github.com
 
F

Franked

Member
Ok, well thanks for all the info, quite a bit of that is going right over my head right now. The Naza V2 showed up yesterday, but it kinda sounds like I should return it through Amazon? I had a plan to tie this thing to the ground with a 20 (or so) foot rope or cable to see if it would lift off ok and set it back down. NO STITCHES HERE, I WILL STAY THE HELL AWAY. The alternate plan was just running it anchored to something really heavy to see if it thrusts somewhat evenly, and to have those guards on the props for tipping over.
So... do i return the Naza 2 or use it? Does anyone know if the Naza works with the DJI fly app? I kinda like how that works with my mini2.
I need to keep going with research on this , not opening the Naza yet..
 
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