262's 4copter Adventure

[Cale262]

Six months ago I was in a traumatic accident racing bikes, I had gone into tight corner at about 50km/h and lost my front wheel resulting in a burst T5 broken back and the reality of never walking again. Fast forward...I was in quite the dark place and needed something ...to find a hobby or anything to get me interested in life again. I used to enjoy RC 4x4's so my wife suggested that I give that a shot and with her encouragement I started building them again but it just wasn't doing it for me. One day a family member sent me a link to an article about quadcopter FPV racing and I was quite intrigued... after watching hours of Youtube videos I was hooked, this looked like something that would get me out of my wheelchair if not in body but in spirit. For the first time since my injury I am actually truely excited about trying something again. Enough of that and on to my "First Build".

My adventure begins a little less than a week ago with a trip to my local hobbystore where I know there are a few guys working there who are into the quadcopter scene. After finding "the guy"...you know the one who loves his hobby, this wasn't hard I just went in and asked the first guy behing the counter about "Quadcopters" and a voice perked up from behind a row of shelves "Did somebody say Quadcopters?!" and I found "the guy". We talked about different thing, well all things quadcopter related and he sorted me out with all the kit I would need to start building my first...an EMAX Nighthawk 250 pro kit, Sony camera, mobious camera, Vid trans etc. etc.

What I came home with from my LHS...

Now I had a whole bunch of stuff and no idea where to start...the next couple of days I spent scowering the web for information and watching almost every Youtube video I could find on the NightHawk biulds.

More pictures in my Instagrams account @ CALE262

 

[Cale262]

A day after my trip to the LHS I stated actually building. Still confused as the included instructions were vague at best and I had watched so many build videos but not a single one was the same...I took me almost an hour just to figure out the soldering on the power board...I lost track of time but roughly 4/5 hours later I had something that started to take form but I wasn't very sure if it was correct.

That was the first day of actual building something and while I felt a little success I was super tired...my wife finally insisted that I take a break and get some sleep, I think it was something like 3am at this point.

 

[GJH105775]

A day after my trip to the LHS I stated actually building. Still confused as the included instructions were vague at best and I had watched so many build videos but not a single one was the same...I took me almost an hour just to figure out the soldering on the power board...I lost track of time but roughly 4/5 hours later I had something that started to take form but I wasn't very sure if it was correct.

That was the first day of actual building something and while I felt a little success I was super tired...my wife finally insisted that I take a break and get some sleep, I think it was something like 3am at this point.

Hahaha, my days are pretty busy so when I do builds I usually work between 11pm and 6am to do builds and finish things up. Most hobby shops seem to like deans, and some older ones will insist that everyone uses them, but we have generally moved onto xt60 connectors. For right now deans are fine until you start upgrading and buying things online. I also noticed that your goggles look a lot like some sort of fatshark knockoff. Try them, and if they are fine no problem, but if they are near impossible to use you might get some quantum v2 if you are on a low budget, or some fatshark dominator v2 if you have a little bigger budget. They seem to have diversity so they are probably not bad. What radio is that? xD It looks like an expensive one that is a bit older.

Nice frame, one thing you will probably come to notice is that the good carbon fiber is shiny and the cheap 'carbon fiber is dual and not cut very cleanly. The motors look pretty nice, and overall I'd say you have a great setup. If you need any help there are plenty of us ready to help.

 

[Cale262]

Thanks GJH, I'll look into those xt60 connectors as I'm already planning my next build. The Goggles are the Skyzone V1's, all the reviews I've read rate them very high and usually higher than the FS offering. The video looks very crisp, clear and sharp to me...but I have to admit I have never donned the FatShark goggles myself. The Radio is a Taranis-E which is the Euporean model, I bought it as it is a very upgradable platform, being in the wheelschair it fits very nice in my lap and it uses the same firmware as the regular Taranis X9D, it is their top end Radio. I did go cheap on the quad itself as I'm sure I'm going to be crashing a lot to start but spared no expense within reason on the other equipment without going crazy with the Zeiss cinemizer oled goggles.

 

[Cale262]

A few hours more work and I ended up with something that actually looks like it should fly and I think I made it to bed before 2am...or maybe not.

 

[Cale262]

In the morning it was straight to the computer and time to mash my way through some programming and more uncounted hours fiddling around...yes, I am wishing I had come here first but what fun would that have been >SMH<. Actually programming the board itself was somewhat easy.

More to come but I'm off to rehab, time to put on the robotic legs for a while and go for a walk...no joke

 

[Jackson]

Very clean work, nice.

I guess racing is your first love, but there is more to FPV.

 

[Cale262]

That Freestyle flying is pretty darn Awsome...I can certainly see myself getting down with that, looks like too much fun not to be doing.

 

[GJH105775]

Thanks GJH, I'll look into those xt60 connectors as I'm already planning my next build. The Goggles are the Skyzone V1's, all the reviews I've read rate them very high and usually higher than the FS offering. The video looks very crisp, clear and sharp to me...but I have to admit I have never donned the FatShark goggles myself. The Radio is a Taranis-E which is the Euporean model, I bought it as it is a very upgradable platform, being in the wheelschair it fits very nice in my lap and it uses the same firmware as the regular Taranis X9D, it is their top end Radio. I did go cheap on the quad itself as I'm sure I'm going to be crashing a lot to start but spared no expense within reason on the other equipment without going crazy with the Zeiss cinemizer oled goggles.

One good thing about a racer is that crashing cost less and does less damage then a bigger quad. Take a look at Jonathan Davis on facebook, he is the guy flying. He also goes by skitzo on youtube. Great guy too.

 

[Jackson]

The master of the micro has switched over to your radio.

Note he has wired the entire perimeter of his house with routers/antennas.

One of his creations.

 

[Cale262]

Inspirational! My radio skillz need a lot of work before I'm anywhere near that...

Some info on the Taranis-E

and "My Radio"...in my lap

and Goggles with the fun antennas...

and the first casualty of my new adventure, who knew you needed the antenna while it was powered up...seeing this as a "Pay-to-Play" hobby.

KIA video trans

 

[Cale262]

and a kewl picture (IMHO) prior to first flight and first crash under the bed which broke the antenna off and killed the Video Trans.

now gone to a little stubby...

 

[Cale262]

Well, I've been doing allot of flying and also a bunch of crashing so I'm glad I was using the plastic 5" props instead of the 6" carbon ones the kit came with and since I'm really not using the FPV kit yet I decided to pull it and save it from the abuse...hopefully soon I will be feeling comfortable enough with my flying that I can jump into FPV.

Here's a picture of little fella without the FPV gear installed (LC filter still there as it's soldered to the power board)...

 

[RGJameson]

Well if you ain't crashing you ain't trying hard enough. Ya gotta push the envelope to get better.

Good job and nice pics.

 

[Cale262]

Thanks @RGJameson ...right now, crashing's kinda my thing

Stopped by the LHS and picked up this little standalone video unit so the wifey can watch, she isn't so keen on the goggles...yet. Has a nice auto scan feature that I kinda like and a built in lipo so no other batteries to drag around.

a foldable, softish sun shade...

and all the cables I may need...

 

[Cale262]

Just coming to the realization that the next item I'm going to have to find is a large field box to go in the back of the Jeep!

 

[Cale262]

Burning packs...crashing...fixing...burning packs...crashing...fixing...burning packs...crashing...fixing...Burning packs...The current life cycle is unbroken!

 

[Cale262]

First pack this morning I broke a propeller, second pack and one of the landing gear legs fell off mid flight. While I was putting the little leg back on I noticed that a few other screws not fastened to a nylon lock nut were also loose...time for the loc-tite solution. Added loc-tite to everything but the nyloc bolts and the top plate which I have to remove quite a bit.

Loc-tite...vibration safety net.

 

[Jackson]

Great stuff, a must.

BTW you been doing any prop balancing?

 

[Cale262]

Great stuff, a must.

BTW you been doing any prop balancing?

I have not been...Funny enough I just read something about prop balancing about an hour ago, looks like my next purchase had better be a balancer! Thanks for bringing it up, I'm going to have to give the guys at the LHS a hard time for not mentioning it to me...jerks, lol.

Can you suggest a good balancer or are they all pretty much the same?