OPQ Frame Acro quadcopter with 3D Printed parts

OPQ Arco frame

So many months ago I got a OPQ Acro frame but just never had the chance to get it flying as I was busy with the FLIP and the gimbal setup.

Now that is 95% sorted I wanted to return back to learning todo flips. The OPQ frame caught my eye as I liked the simple one piece design and hopefully the strength.

I have already covered the 3D printed protectors I made for the arms, since I fly over tarmac I wanted some skid protection.

Below is the final version to date, set up with a NAZE32 Acro board.

Since I like to have a low / thin profile quad copter the first thing I designed for the frame was a set of legs / battery holder combo to bolt to the bottom of the frame. I wanted to add some protection to the battery as I mentioned I fly a lot over tarmac and wanted to add some protection from ... hard "controlled" landings.

They are pretty simple braced plates with a cross member for the battery to velcro to. 

Fresh off the printer

Assembled ready to bolt to the frame 

Legs bolted to the frame. I drilled 3.5mm holes in the frame.

The first version was with a KK2 board and a HobbyKing 20amp Qbrain. The motors are Turnigy SK3 1275kv motors running 8x4.5 HK props. I had all of this lying around and was quick and easy to get up in the air. It flew really well. I was very pleased. However it was a little heavy due to the QBrain. 

So after some debate I stripped the 12amp Plush ESC I had in my non used HEX. Stripped 4 ESC back and set about using these as the power system. This decision was also pushed along since the long wait for the NAZE32 Acro was over as I had 2 arrive in the mail ..... Finally.

Yes I soldered on bullets as I know I will damage motors while learning to flip, and wanted to easily swap in the field.  I also designed and printed a simple ESC cover to protect the ESC's and made it easy to attach to the frame with zip-ties. 

Abusemark power distro board getting the some extra length for the power leads, at they were 2 short once I cut the ESC's out of the HEX

I drilled holes to allow bolting of the power disto board and the 3D printed NAZE32 case.

Test fitting the ESC & power distro.

The current final product. It weights in at 700g with the 2200 Turingy battery. Its a hoot to fly and I am now in the process of tuning the NAZE32 and getting the flight modes and PID settings sorted to go out and learn to do flips.

The arm protectors are doing there job well.

Modular 3D Printed Gimbal Anti-Viration Mounts

So if you are a multi-rotor pilot and have wanted to take video at some stage you will have come across the dreaded JELLO effect that high frequency vibrations cause in today's action cams.

If you have not then you are very very luck. I have over the last 12 months tried so many different options and variations I have lost count. I was never happy and was always changing setups and trying different things.  Then to complicate things I threw a gimbal into the mix.

The most annoying aspect to this was that I didn't have a "goto" camera platform that I knew would be consistent in taking good video. This was evident in my time in Wellington when I was only able to get some good shots and others were impacted due to vibration and a gimbal motor dying.

The Wellington video

So with my new toy the 3D printer I set out correct this:

Goals I wanted to achieve

• Modular design (Used on any of my multi-rotors)
• Allow for gimbal and camera only mounting
• Easy to move between multi-rotors
• Easily move battery to get correct CG, even without any camera 
• Prop / Motor balancing not a requirement (Yes goes a long way but I didn't what it to be necessary)

So the first thing I did was decide that I wanted to do a dirty / clean plate design. I had a mixed bag of rubber anti vibration balls from Hobbyking that I could use.  

The only non 3D printed parts were 8MM OD fibreglass tubes from crab landing gear. You can get them from HobbyKing for 80c for a 330mm length and the rubber vibration balls, and a few 3mm nuts and bolts.

My design is very simple. The 8mm tubes are used as the rails and all other components slide onto the tubes. 

Here is one of the very early designs, the 8mm tubes are a friction fit in the holes as there is no real force on them.  

NAZA GPS mount

After an initial test with the GoPro and Mobius using 80g vibration balls I had success. Nice clean jello free video, from both cameras. The Gopro produced the better picture. But it proved that I was on the right track. 

Here is some video from that first tests. 

After successful tests I moved to the next stage which was to design my own gimbal. I made the gimbal specifically for the GoPro hero3. One of my concerns was to make sure I was able to protect the GoPro as best I could as I cant afford to replace it. So I made a lens cap that extended past the lens and then designed a case that completely surrounded the GoPro as well having the motor mount for the gimbal motor built in. The motor mount was designed to have the ability to move the motor up/down to allow CG adjustment. 

The GoPro case also had the gimbal IMU protected and built in. I crash a lot so wanted to make sure I could provide as much protection as possible.

I use Tinkercad to create the design. Here is the final design before printing. Once the GoPro is in the case its secured with a zip-tie. The design still allows easy access to battery and SD / video out.

A few shots of the final 3D print with the camera case and the IMU. The lens cover is also on.

Next part to be designed was the gimbal arm. It took me a few attempts to get a strong design. But that's the beauty of 3D printing is that you can changes things very quickly if you make mistakes. I make plenty.

Next up was to design the gimbal controller case. the case would be the main mounting structure for both the motors and camera as well as the mounting to the multi-rotor. I had more than a few goes at getting this right. But eventually got a design I was happy with. Some of the challenge is getting something that was easy to print.

Test fitting the gimbal controller

Full mock-up before getting fitted to the frame

All mounted to the frame with final arm design.

Did I mention I made a lot of mistakes and changed my design a lot through this process. This is the reject graveyard.

After more successful testing and a few redesigns I decided that I needed to get a decent frame to build my camera ship up on. I finally decided to go with a Hoverthings FLIP Gimbal Pro. I should have just got the Flip FPV as I discarded their clean plate system for mine. 

I transferred the electronic over to the FLIP frame.

After a few design issues I decided to increase the width between the rails. So I had to redesign all the the mounts.

New wider base mounts on the FLIP frame.

Mounting frame for the NAZA & Turnigy receiver. The Naza GPS sits on top.

FLIP frame all finished. I am very happy with the frame it seems bulletproof. All the power system is nicely contained in the bottom frame.

The final design for the gimbal module. Self contained and only need power connected to be up and running. 

Testing fitting on the Titan tricopter, I designed a mounting system for this as well, I will cover that in another post.

I had a bit of fun and made another gimbal controller lid with a skull on it. I plan to add some LEDs.. 

The final system on the tricopter and the flip. Also in the picture is a solid mount for the GoPro. It will be mainly used on the tricopter.

Now the proof is in the pudding. The video below show the video taken. This was also taken with brand new props on, that were not balanced. 

Over all very happy with the outcome. I now have a reliable camera ship, now I can focus on getting some cool video.

OPQ Quadcopter 3D print arm protectors

One of the many quad frames I now have is the OPQ. I have yet to decide on the flight control and motor/rotor combo that i want to use.

Its a really nice frame and the flying I usually do is in the private cul-de-sac I live in. However that is over tarmac and this frame was purchased to learn stunts on. So I wanted to create some sort of replaceable protection for the arms. There is a leg mounting hole that I was able to use to hold the protector on with.

So after some tinkering and printing I can up with the following design.

After a test print and a few changes, I was pretty happy with this design.  The white below is the test prints and the final shot is the final prints on the heated plate after printing.

This was a really goos test to get to understand printing in 3D. The end result is a OPQ replaceable arm protector. Also if you are able to print in different colours a great way to help with orientation. 

Once I got this simple design out of the way it was on to more complex designs.

New toy / tool

Sorry for the long time span with no entries, its been a very busy time. We moved cities for seven week while my daughter performed in the musical Annie. The show was not brought to Christchurch as we do not have anywhere for it to be performed since the earthquake. It was a big deal as it was an international show brought over from the Uk to New Zealand.

http://anniethemusical.co.nz/

Super proud of my little girl for making it through the tough auditions and getting into the cast. But it did mean that we had to move cities for 7 weeks. No mean feat and expensive. One of the causalities of this was the T-Bucket project, it had to be liquidated so we could afford for the family to move cities.

However there was some spare $$ left over and I invested in a second hand 3D printer. It can not do huge prints 110mm x 110mm x 110mm but I thought that will be plenty big enough to make multi rotor parts.

So over the last couple of months I have been learning to design and print parts. the printer is an !UP Mini shown below.

It has really enabled me to make some pretty cool parts for my multi-rotors.  Over the next couple of days I hope to add a few entries on the main things I have been printing. 

A great resource for cool stuff to print is http://www.thingiverse.com/

It has some great multi-rotor objects to download and print. 

As for software I am not a CAD user, and didn't want to spend a lot of time learning a program to just do some very basic shapes / designs to print. After a fair bit of research I decided to use Tinkercad

Its basic and you have to be creative sometimes to get the shape / object you want, but works well for me and the simple designs I make.

So what have I designed and printed:

• OPQ Quad Frame arm protectors
• Gimbal control case
• Gimbal for a gopro Hero Black
• Universal anti-vibration mounting system for all my multi-rotors (Flip FPV, F450, Titan Tricopter)
• Titan battery protector and leg combo
• Ublox GPS holder

There is alot of other stuff, that is jus the multi-rotor bits.

Look for the details on some of these coming soon.

SOLD !!!! :(

After a lot of soul searching and consignation the T-bucket was sold. This was due to changing circumstances and the need to help support my daughters wonderful opportunity to be involved in an international music in another city (Not an option in Christchurch since the Earthquakes) We as a family had to move cities for 7 weeks. This was not a small undertaking and a costly exercise. So something had to give, unfortunately it was the T-Bucket. But the great thing is that it provided my daughter and the family a wonderful experience. Another plus I can take from the sale is that it went to a great family, 3 generations completing it as a Grandfather, Son & Grandson project.

The other positive was that there was some $$ left over that allowed me to get a second hand 3D printer which has been great for the mulit-rotors. Go check out progress of those at www.bluefish.net.nz

So far 6+ years of time, energy and blood sweat and tears the project that was so close to getting finished has now moved on. A sad day.

Small TCopter for learning to do flips

A flitetest article I did on my small Tcopter build.

http://flitetest.com/articles/small-tricopter-for-acro-training

Bad weekends flying

You have some days where you should just give up. I had one of those on Sunday. I have a chance to go and fly in a park. So I decided to take only the tricopter and try to get some footage. I packed the Tri up in the car with the camera and 5 batteries.  Trundled off to the park, get all set to fly.. start the camera. NO SD card .... grrrr.

Oh well lets go for a fly anyway. Flying very happily and then with the Tri about 100 meters away I lose orientation of the tri. I try to figure it out but Im only getting further away. I decide to try and land. Well the landing ended up been a lawn dart as the below picture shows. This was all on the first battery.

I should have stopped there. But no I went back and got the quad, and the SD card to try and fly again, in a different spot. I had a few glitches with the gimbal initialising, but finally got it sorted and took off for a the first flight. All going well, doing a sweeping turn see lamp post, mental note don't hit it. Carry on the turn smack right into the bloody lamp post. I could not believe it. I normally would not have been able to hit it even if I was trying.  So another broken bird, and yes that to was on the first battery.

Picture of the nasty pole that jumped out and attacked my quad !!

Broken props, still need to test everything else.

Video evidence of my stupidity.. idiot !! 

So I now have 2 broken multirotors to fix.

Tricopter Rebuild

After the above lawn dart landing / crash I decided to rebuild the tricopter. This is the second time in a crash that a motor wire has pulled right off the ESC board. So in the rebuild I wanted to protect them better and also centralise the weight to the body to make broken arm repairs easier.

The rebuild begins, complete tear down.

Damage that the ESC sustained in the the crash, this is the second that has broken this way. I have now hot glued around the wired and inside the heat-shrink to add some strength. The ESC are also now in the frame and not on the arms and I have tried to remove any force been applied to the motor wires.

Completely stripped ready for the rebuild

This time all wiring is covered in plastic mesh. 

Custom wire harness to help reduce weigh and simplify the wiring.

ESC's now in the body, meshed patch leads from the motor to the SC to hopefully protect both in a crash.

I also found that I had broken the rear servo, and internal shaft had sheared. Luckily I have some that I had ordered for my simple Tcopter. They are larger ones, so hopefully stronger. I have to used the yaw from the simple Tcopter as the fortis yaw mechanism is setup for smaller servos.

All finished, much tidier and lighter than before. it will be interesting to see how the rear servo lasts.

Quadcopter flight in and around trees

My latest video. I am flying in around trees. the FC is a kk2 board and all flying is light of sight in arco flight mode. 

Gimbal Update

hi folks ...

I little quite on the blog front, been busy flying, crashing rebuilding.

Here is an update to the gimbal modifications, I posted an article on Flitetest.

http://flitetest.com/articles/playing-with-a-cheap-brushless-gimbal


I also made a Tricopter which i think is now my favorite multirotor

http://flitetest.com/articles/batbone-tricopter-various-builds

So I have been busy. I have to other articles yet to be published, Ill post links once they are up.