Project Wyvern has been fun, maddening, and a hell of a learning experience......it is doing well in its role at the facility that is testing it, and has been improved upon by them........but that's all you get from me on it now. So, my latest build, "The Dragons Talon" is not going to go on the same path I took "Project Wyvern" (PW in the rest of the text). Its going to go further, and be something I can share. Warning, this is not a beginners aircraft by any means. Later on you will see that the building of The Dragons Talon is going to require extreme care on mounting of certain parts. In particular the flight controller, this will have to be vibration damped and the mounting plate design for it has to be done properly. More on this later. The air frame I used on PW was a mass produced tri-copter frame. Folding arms, carbon fiber, fairly decent.....main reason it was chosen, easy to get. The frame for The Dragons Talon is based upon that design. I am a mechanical engineer by trade, so this one is my design. I have designed this frame to be folding arm and it uses common carbon fiber parts found at a local hobby store. The frame plates are custom cut for me at a local shop that has a laser cutting machine. the aluminum clamp / "hinge" blocks machined by the same place. All hardware (screws, nuts, etc.) bought at a hardware store. Motors are Hacker A30-52S-UAV, designed for 4S lipo Multi-rotor use. ESC's are Hacker UAV Control PRO 30 Opto, 30 amp ESC designed for muli-rotors as well. 10 X 4.7 propellers are going to be used as well. I have found a different flight controller, ArduPilot ( http://ardupilot.com/ ). Along with the ArduCopter ( http://copter.ardupilot.com/ ) soft / firm ware this multi-rotor is going to be able to do just about anything you would want. Please go to those links and read about what it can do. The APM 2.6 ( http://store.3drobotics.com/products/apm-2-6-kit-1 ) is the version of flight controller I will be using. Along with APM Power Module with Deans Connectors, 3DR GPS uBlox LEA-6 with Compass, and 3DR Radio Telemetry Kit - 915 Mhz (US) Believe it or not, I will be using the Spektrum DX7S radio........I found out why I was having so much trouble with it on earlier use. The receiver I was using was not made by Spektrum, it was one that came with the MiruMod on the AR Drone 2.0...........needless to say, cheap knockoff products from a large Asian country will generally fail at what they are supposed to do. Once I used the receiver that came with the radio set all the issues I was having went away.......live and learn, admit when you are mistaken. Dragon Link will also work with the DX7S, but may not be necessary with the ArduCopter gear. I told you to read the links.......if you did you know about the way point stuff................ More later, here is a teaser picture.............
Its killing me waiting for new parts, But I am not wasting time while waiting..........lots to read in the ArduCopter manual, and a little redesign to the flight control mounting. I am building a mounting board that will be silicon damped and four corner suspended to eliminate any of the vibrations that can effect the APM. Most of the information found at the links below are being used. Anti Vibration link-----> http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/VibrationControl and http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/very-good-anti-vibration-results-with-following-apm2-5-mount-quad
Finally got the anti-vibration mount designed....it is being 3D printed now and I should have it soon. If all goes well with it I will have it as a product for sale. I made it "universal: and will fit medium to large UAS's and will work with all flight controllers / electronic packages (the Flight Controller, Radio, Telemetry, etc will all fit on it if needed) I know its takes me a while to build each bird.........but I blame "Project Wyvern" on that.............
