Got all my motor's mounted up on the longer, 500mm, booms. I ended up re-drilling the stock CS8 motor mounts to fit the new motors. Everything fits perfectly now. I mounted all the ESCs to the center hub. Man they take up a lot of space! I am going to be cutting down all the main power wires to the ESCs to make more room. I am also going to re-build the power distro harness that I built. I used the wrong type of wire. I have some of the 10awg silicon stranded wire in the mail. Should be here Wednesday (I REALLY HOPE!!!). I did however get everything powered up for the first time. The I2C--->PWM converter works with the MK FC right out of the box! Didn't have any issues with it communicating with the MK FC. I am really anxious to see how it flys! Here is a quick little video of everything running: Josh
Awesome Josh. These little tidbits of info are great! Good information for others looking to do a similar build.
For all those converting to these motors, a trick to drill the two holes is to use the motor mount that comes with the motor and screw it on to the CS mount using longer screws into a press nut of another CS motor mount, (or any other flat piece with a press nut, one for each screw) so that it aligns the two properly spaced holes and gives your drill a metal guide that won't drift into the existing hole. If this isn't clear the sandwich is -> Metal motor mount on top, CS motor mount you are drilling in the middle, and flat plates with press nuts on the bottom for each screw.
Another Update For You All! Last night I rebuilt my power distro. I feel much better about this one then I did the first version. I also went and shortened the main power leads going to each of the ESCs. It helped clean the rats nest of wires up in the center. Before it was impossible to fit everything in there. I also started playing around with mounting options for the I2C Converter. Found the best spot would be attached to the underside of the battery plate. I did this so I can easily see the lights on it (they are extremely bright) and I can easily check to make sure all the PWM cables to the ESCs are firmly plugged in. I then mounted all the booms with motors and plugged them all it. First thing I noticed is this is going to take a lot longer to take apart and put back together if I need to travel. So not looking forward to that now... but oh well. I also mounted the batteries to the plate just to see how they fit. This thing is massive and so awesome looking! It's also way WAY heavier! It weights almost as much now as it did with the gimbal and camera mounted to the old copter! I am hoping to have it flight worthy tonight. I don't think I will have it ready to fly before it gets dark though so that will have to wait till tomorrow. GRRRR Enjoy the pictures! Josh
Scary at first I bet! It'll take a bunch of flights to rid the shaky knees! at least for me it would. Looking forward to a 1st flight update!
Yeah I am going to be nervous flying this the first few times... Trying to come up with a way to tie it down for the first test to make sure it doesn't get away from my in the event something bad happens... Any ideas? Thinking about just putting a stake in the ground and using rope... Josh
Andy, for a new, bigger and heavier build it'll take at least 2 days averaging 5-6 test flights per day before shaky knee syndrome subside and this is without a camera mounted! add an additional 2-3 days with camera mounted
Duct tape to a couple of 25lbs dumbbell plates..this is my lazy method. or you can run the motors with only one prop installed to one motor, get a feel of the thrust from that single engine. do this 8 times to each motor. time consuming but you could do this in your living room without the fear of the beast coming alive and tearing a hole through your ceiling. hold it down while testing so it doesn't flip!
Ask a trustworthy friend to hold it above their head holding on to two booms, then start the motors and experiment with the thrust. Stop the motors and then tell the friend to lower it -- brief them not to lower until you say so. Tell them to wear a jacket as the prop wash is quite fiece. Andy.
It flies! And it flies great! Very stable and responsive. I need to add weight to it now to see how does with that. It has a little jitter in the flight but I think it's due to it being so light. It's really efficient too! Had it in the air for 16 1/2 min and ran the batteries down to 19v. Low voltage is warning comes on at 18v. Ill post video soon. Heading to a football game. Josh
Haha nope. Possibly will still have a good number when I have the 5d on. Ecalc says I should get about 15-16min. With the epic probably about 6-7min. Josh
Nice! That bird is screaming for payload! Now load up some bricks to simulate the weight of a fully ready to film Epic and gimbal with all the necessities. I'm curious about throttle stick position in hover. Looking great Josh.
I will be doing weight testing Today. Starting with weight of the 5d setup then upping it to epic weight status! I also found out that one of my ESCs didn't get updated and was actually running on the default settings and firmware. I'm guessing that is why it had the little twitch. I've updated it to the same settings as the others. Should work better now.
So I threw some weight on the copter and it flies beautifully now! Did two tests. One using a 6lbs payload to simulate the 5d and a second with a 12lbs payload to simulate a heavy epic setup. The 6lbs flight was awesome. Flew well and was very smooth. The 12lbs flight was a little different. I had trouble getting it to take off. I had to adjust the max throttle setting in MK tools in order to get it to fly. I knew something wasn't correct because I was at max throttle on my tx but the copter wasn't lifting off the ground. After the adjustment it took off but I was around 95% throttle on the tx. I looked at the logs and the ESCs are only running at 90% output so I need to figure out what is going on. After all flights though nothing was even warm. The 6lbs flight was about 6min in the air and everything was still cold after landing. I'll be doing more weight tests tomorrow. P.s. the total flying weight at the 12lbs mark was 25lbs or 11.8kg (if my math is correct). Josh
Reading another member's experience made me very curious about your setup, 400kv, 5s and 15x5 props lifting big payloads. I think you would have better results going 6s with your setup or running 5s with 600-650kv motors (kw10 or tiger 600kv) Currently my AUW is 16-17 lbs and my hover stick position is 50% with 13" props and 700kv motors. Another member who is testing a big lifter (above 20 lbs) also hovers at 50% running 600~kv on 6s (I believe) I think you should aim for 50% throttle in hover when fully loaded. You're already ahead of the game. I think you have two options, switch to higher kv motors and stay 5s or keep your motors and go 6s. Others may have better optons for you. What's your flight time with the 5d?