Rebuilding The Flying Flower Pot Quadcopter - The Six Million Dollar Man

Partially Rebuilt Flying Flower Pot (Pot removed for clarity)

One of the advantages of building your own quadcopter is that you know how to fix it if it breaks, and you can make improvements at the same time.  It is kind of like the Six Million Dollar Man TV series:   "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster."  The Flowering Flowerpot, after its last flight and crash (see previous blog post), needs this treatment.

First, I got rid of the battery monitoring module, which might be causing problems and I cannot figure out how to use it.

Second, I rewired the control module (APM) to receiver wiring to get rid of the servo extension cables and labeling.

Rewiring, receiver is on the left

Third, I repaired the damage to the quadcopter - a broken arm and a broken motor mount on the end of another arm using 5 minute epoxy, which smells like crap and gets everywhere.

Broken motor mount

Break in arm

Fourth, I got rid of the structure holding the GPS and compass and mounted them using nylon standoffs on the third level.

GPS remounted

Fifth, I removed the long landing gear and mounted the camera on top.  The long landing gear seem to cause a lot of damage in crashes.

camera mount

I also ordered a bunch of spare parts (arms, motor mounts, landing gear..).  Stay tuned for more updates as we get the Pot ready for its next adventure.

Quadcopter Build - Photos of Finished Drone

The flower pot was the best cover I could find and the bungee cords hold it to the drone

Note the hole so the Controller LEDs are visible

You can see the Vuho camera beneath the drone

Bottom view

Battery mount and USB extender connector which also protects against controller USB damage

Camera mount with battery behind

Love that flower pot!

Lessons from First Quadcopter Build

I learned a few things from building my first quadcopter drone.

1. The USB port is very fragile, attach a permanent short extender cable to connect to your PC.  Otherwise, you will be buying a new controller.
2. You need to take time to think as you assemble the drone.  There are lots of ways of attaching components and taking some time to think will yield a better result.  Spending time with the Mission Controller application will help you set up your drone, understand how it will work, and allow you to test some of the functions before flying.
3. The best places to get pieces are online stores like Amazon and Hobbyking, Home Depot, and your local hobby shop.
4. Nylon cable ties are a great way to attach things to the quadcopter frame.  Why use bolts when a simple tie will do?
5. Learn how the controller works before flying.  There are some modes like "althold" that sound useful but should only be triggered after flying.
6. Make a tethered test setup to test fly your quad.
7. Use the Wiki, google, youtube, and manufacturers sites to find solutions to problems or helpful tutorials.
8. Get a good soldering iron and learn to solder.

Building Quadcopter Part 10

Further Progress.  I reloaded Mission Planner onto my laptop and it seems to work with the controller now.  The rats' nest of wiring is somewhat tamed and the receiver and controller are mounted using double sided foam tape (get it at Home Depot where they call it "mounting tape").  The extended landing gear are installed and I found an appropriate non-metallic shell to cover the electronics.  Yes, it is a 6 inch flower pot, and it is perfect for the job.

Building Quadcopter Part 9

The build continues.  I temporarily wired up the controller, receiver, speed controls, GPS and connected to Mission Planner using my desktop PC.  It is not easy to figure out exactly how to wire it as the new controller had no documentation!  I found some useful information on the Ardupilot Wiki and found a basic pinout here.  Hooked it up by USB and it seemed to work, but...I had the controls all wrong.  After playing around with the radio calibration screens, I got the rudder, throttle, ailerons, elevator mapped correctly to the controller.  I could then calibrate the compass, accelerometers, radio, etc.

The I had a brilliant idea (uh-oh).  Since I would be programming things in the field, I should use my laptop with Mission Planner to set up the drone.  Well, for some reason the laptop did not like to calibrate the compasses so after a few hours of frustration, it was back to the desktop where everything worked.  There was also the issue of the compass being off by 90 degrees due to no markings on how to mount it, but this was easily fixed.  The compass is mounted with the GPS on the wooden tower in the photos above.

Next steps are to tidy up the wiring and mounting, calibrate speed controls, attach props, and do some testing with the unit tethered to make sure it is set up properly.  Stay tuned.

Building Quadcopter Part 8

Photo 1

Photo 2

Back to the drawing board.  I am still trying to repair the broken USB connector on the flight controller but the parts are taking forever to arrive.

In the meantime, I ordered a new flight controller from Amazon which cost $30 less, is a little bigger, and comes with a case.  This required a new mounting setup which is shown in photos 1 and 2.

The next step will be to wire it up and test it.

Building Quadcopter Part 6

Photo 1: ESC (speed control) and motor mounting

Photo 2: More detail on the ESC and motor

Continuing with the build, I attached bullet connectors to the Turnigy 25A Plush speed controls (ESC) using the soldering technique mentioned in the previous blog entry.  The motor leads were shortened to 2 cm to make the wiring tidy and to reduce latency.  I then used heat shrink to insulate the bullet connectors.  The Turnigy Multistar 2216 motors were also mounted on the frame.  The speed controls are connected to the motors under the frame arms and the connections to the power distribution panel are also underneath.  This is shown in Photo 1 and 2 above.

Building Quadcopter Part 5

Photo 1 Controller and GPS Mounted on quadcopter

Photo 2

The electronics need to be mounted on the quadcopter and there is no easy way to do it.  Therefore, I combined some old model skills with some new model skills to come up with the mounting arrangement shown in photos 1 and 2.

I used a scrap piece of 1/8" aircraft plywood to make a mounting base, used some wood dowels to make standoffs, and mounted the controller and GPS unit.  The GPS/Compass is mounted away from the controller to limit interference.

Let's see how well this works.