Upgrade and mod a hubsan x4 h107d

[Xeon]

Hi.

I bought a hubsan x4 h107d should be delivered in a few days.

Been thinking of a list of mods that would be nice to add.

1. Paint job something military.
2. Upgrade motors. "something with a longer allowed run time.?"
Idk really what motors would be best.
3. Upgrade battery capacity. "I have a few ultra light 900mA batteries that I could use"
4. Upgrade transmitter video antenna and drone antenna.
:edit
5. Upgrade camera lens.
6. Try get into the radio via usb interface "later project"

Any suggestions or idea's?

 

[GJH105775]

I was experimenting with a method to paint my quadcopter frame The method I just used on some of my parts is commonly used to get patterns on guitars.

Fill a container that is large(r) enough to hold the item you are dipping with water
put oil paint on top in a thin design
if you are using two tones add a second and move the paint around into the pattern you want.
If you used more than one colour you have to remove the paint before bring the item back out of the water


Examples:

 

[Xeon]

cool

Two ideas that i found online.
Was thinking more aggressive and detailed with the paint work.

Ordered a set of these motors.
Dark Edition...

And i'm currently looking up a few sets of these props.

 

[Xeon]

Oh yeah something i forgot about.
Upgrading the camera lens.

 

[GJH105775]

Here is a mod that I'd suggest.

 

[GJH105775]

I typed the last message up almost an hour ago, and forgot to hit submit .

 

[Xeon]

G

Here is a mod that I'd suggest.

Good one.
Will need to dig out a 5.8 GHz mini omni and a 2.4GHz mini omni antenna.
Perhaps also try add better antenna's to the drone.

 

[GJH105775]

Yeah, the higher gain antennas are better than getting a higher MW output. I really hope you don{t crash in a wooded area if you go with camo colours xD.

 

[Xeon]

haha that would be problematic.

-Delivery status
The props and new batteries arrived today.
I got the new antenna's a day ago. "will take pics soon as I go thru the process"
Drone should be delivered soon.

--Contoller mods
-Battery
Another mod I'm doing is adding 3A 7.2v lithium pack and 200mA usb port on controller for charging drones from the controller.

-Av and FPV
I'm adding a av out port for recording from other systems or using av video goggles.
I got a pair of 480 x 240 3d video glasses that can be operated in visor mode that cover your eye's well and look great.

-Drone mods
-Lights
I have lying here a few ultra super bright red and ultra super bright led's.
Then I have the same led's "red, blue" but brighter as smd's.

I'm putting the new led's to replace the normal ones.
Then on the back side I'm putting a long blue strip of smd led's
Then on the front I will be putting a array of ultra bright smd infrared led's. "to help it see at higher range in the dark"

-Camera mods
The lens 120* lens I'm savaging from a old dead cannon camera. "i dug out 2 guides that deal with this process"

-Add some more buffer for landing. "nice extended rubber foot pieces"
-Water Seal everything

-Building a landing pad.
Contains a large coil and a power supply. "wire charging base
station

-Wireless charging.
Coil on drone "bridge rectifier with storage cap then small 4.2v, 100mA rectifier on copter"

Sorry for my wall of text.
but yeah my plans are big.

 

[GJH105775]

Haha, I'd like to see that wireless charging. I have yet to do anything with it, but have thought about making an converting the extra battery iPhone case to do that. It seems less then ideal on efficiency. You do have a lot of plans, I'll be really interested in seeing the finished product haha good luck. I got some stuff in yeasterday for my FPV that I need to mount and design a few things.

 

[Xeon]

I noticed a mistake alot of hubsan modders make when modding the antenna.
They use the wrong trace on the radio.
the thinner trace is the 2.4Ghz antenna.


See matched trace on flight controller.


So yeah this will be the hubsan mod to remember as being the right one.

Like this dude and many others.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=30833799&postcount=220
I feel sorry for him since his setup would have rocked.

 

[GJH105775]

Do you just lightly sand the solder mask off then tin it?

 

[Xeon]

yes but most people are wring up the wrong antenna.

 

[Fuzzlybot]

Wow, I didnt really think that the Hubsan X4 (I have one myself.

)

I didnt even think it was that customoziable, but I did think about increasing the antenna length to give it a better signal hopefully without much extra weight, how would the experts here advise I go about something like that?

 

[GJH105775]

You could really improve the signal with something like a high gain antenna. I don't know weather it would be heavy though.

 

[Xeon]

yeah that's basically the best way to go.

 

[Burntcarcus]

Any updates on your mods? Wanting to do a few myself mainly increase range and wide angled or fish eye lens. Oh and new paint job too to make it easier to see from the ground when there is clouds.

 

[patricks]

Hi, made an account just for this mod.
As i'm just an electronics hobbyist i'm confused about where to solder the antenna leads and wich traces should be cut.
Please, is someone willing to upload a photo with the correct traces marked clearly?
Thanks in advance, as i'm experiencing heavy loss of signal..

 

[GJH105775]

Hi, made an account just for this mod.
As i'm just an electronics hobbyist i'm confused about where to solder the antenna leads and wich traces should be cut.
Please, is someone willing to upload a photo with the correct traces marked clearly?
Thanks in advance, as i'm experiencing heavy loss of signal..

If someone could find a schematic, or maybe with pictures of both the front and back of the board, I might be able to figure it out, if you don't already have it figured out.

Welcome to the forums @patricks , that is how I got into quadcopters, I am mostly a electronics hobbyist and have done a lot of electrical work for people, but joined quadcopterforum last year.

 

[patricks]

If someone could find a schematic, or maybe with pictures of both the front and back of the board, I might be able to figure it out, if you don't already have it figured out.

Welcome to the forums @patricks , that is how I got into quadcopters, I am mostly a electronics hobbyist and have done a lot of electrical work for people, but joined quadcopterforum last year.

Thank you for your quick reply! Was about to sneak out of bed into my hobby room but got caught in the act by a whispering girlfriend: 'hey! Stay in bed, you have to get up in six hours!' So for now i'm unable to make pictures of the board.

http://quadcopterforum.com/attachments/20150219_122256-jpg.517/

I have tried the same as the above picture, it didn't work (right wire = signal, left wire is ground). After that I tried to connect the signal wire to the right arrow as mentioned above. This got me confused because according to my multimeter this trace is also a ground. With both wires connected to ground, i wasn't surprised this also failed. Well, actually, it gave up on me when flying further then 30ft, while stock configuration gave me a solid 300ft. I just don't know what to do and where to cut/solder.

Good you've already helped this much people with your hobby - im just in an exploring phase. Trying to find out how things work. For now, electronics like microcontrollers are just too hard for me. Biggest achievement so far: running a sensored 3 phase bldc motor by amplifying hall output with opamp, wich drives 6 transistors attached to the bldc. While I was pretty proud i achieved this all on my own without any study in electronics, I do realize this isn't exactly the cutting edge. Lot more learning to go.