FC first checks

OLED display causes I2C to get many errors, and eventually system freezes.

Gonna try this fix. (Does not work. It's low priority, anyway.

Powered 5V from an old PC PS. FC is dead :( :(

Got a new one.

Update 16-Oct-2017: Every essential component already at home. The only pending one is the PWD+OSD board. I can't wait to see my QC doing something, so I'm assembling it using a PDB with 12 and 5 DCV regulator. I will replace it with the OSD one some time later.

Oops! My RC is left handed.

!"^"$2$"£% !!!!

A bit of disappointment. My RC transmitter is left handed. Apparently I'm not the first one to get a wrong handed unit. My guess is that explains the low price. Who knows....

Returning it back to China and claiming a new is not my favorite option. So, I'm trying to give it a go.

Disassembly is fairly easy: just remove the 4 screws on the back. Just be careful with the cables that link the main electronics on the front panel the the batteries and connection port on the rear.

I've read that some guys swapped the whole gimbals: left and right. I decided to be more... mechanical? Throttle movement is loaded with a metal plate so it does not move from the position where you leave it, while the other side stick is just spring loaded. The base is semi symmetrical so they can be placed on either side. The only tool I needed apart from the screw driver was the pliers, to remove the pins on left gimbal that push the spring loaded lever and move to the other side gimbal. The spring loaded lever is easy to remove. Be careful, with the spring: it is tiny and black, and, easy to jump under your coach.

Restarted the unit and in the setup menu switched the sticks from mode 1 to 3. They only issue so far is that, upon restarting the unit, the standby position is needs to be manually done for the left stick. Somehow the firmware still thinks the throttle's on that side. Channel assignment looks ok. But I believe that if in trouble it could be fixed from the software side. Finger crossing.

RC transmitter modes for planes

Another fooled user

Shopping list

I need...

I'm splitting this list into 4 categories:

• Essential components
• Optional components
• Tools, and
• Extra components

Remember, this list was my first choice.Weather it is fine or not, only future will tell. I must reckon that even before getting all the pieces and starting to build the copter, I'm already aware of some mistakes.

Essential components

Frame

The main skeleton where all the components are to be placed.

There are plenty of them. I've chosen this one:

powerday®3K CF Carbon Fiber QAV250, £18.49 in Amazon.

The size is the 250 number after QAV. It's the distance measured in millimeters from every corner to the opposite one, ie, the diagonal size between propellers.

Frame size limits the props size. In my case, maximum prop size is 6". 

Flight Controller (FC)

The brain. Gathers sensor signals and commands from the pilot to drive the motors and make the thing fly. Some other interesting features such as logs, leds, displays, GPS,... can be controlled, as well.

Initially I was looking for a Naze32, but looking for good prices I found in eBay a SP Racing F3 DeLuxe for £20.16.

The DeLuxe version includes a barometer sensor, a compass sensor (needed if you plan to add a GPS unit, as I do) and 10 DOF instead of 6.

Essential information in manufacturer's WEB page: seriouslypro.com.

Painless360 has a very nice video tutorials about this FC in his YouTube channel

Electronic Speed Controllers (ESCs)

Flight controller cannot drive the motor directly. You need a Electronic Speed Controller per motor. Quadcopter? 4 ESCs.

Main parameter for ESCs is the electrical current they are able to deliver to the motors. I got 4 Emax Simonk Series 12A in BangGood for £6.76 each.

Interesting point about power supply. 12 V batteries feed the ESCs that in turn drive the motors. But how do you power the FC and other peripherals? The ESCs do. One side is the motor output, a second side is the FC commands input and... a 5DCV pin for the FC and rest of the devices. There are more details on this, but this is the basic background.

Motors

Quadcopter? 4 motors. But you need not 4 identical ones, but two pairs. I mean, the motors must be identical but two must be Clockwise ones and the other two Counter-Clockwise. The reason is aerodynamics. Is far more complex that a traditional chopper, but basically you need to drive 2 props in opposite direction to the other 2 in order to obtain a balanced thrust.

Power must obviously match ESCs capacity.

The rotating direction is not electrical as any of them can be driver either CW or CCW. It refers to the bolt that fixes the prop. You don't want to get them loose and see your props falling mid flight, do you?

I bought 4 EMAX MT1806 KV2280 Brushless Motor from BagGood for £9.95 each. Remember!! 2 must be CW and the other 2 CCW.

Power Distribution Board

This one is not exactly essential. Is a rather simple PCB where you connect the 4 ESCs and the battery to deliver electrical power. It is going to make cabling much much easier, and the layout cleaner, to.

There are plenty of them in eBay for just 2 or 3 quid.

Props

You gonna need a lot. Losses, breaks,...

8 pairs (CW + CCW), Gemfan 5030 5x4 Propellers, from Amazon, for £15.99

Read about propellers size here: http://www.rc-airplane-world.com/propeller-size.html

Remote Controller

I guess you are not telling your drone where to fly using mind control. So you need an RC controller.

I bought a FlySky FS-i6 2.4G 6CH AFHDS RC Transmitter from BangGood, for £33.77. The pack included a FS-iA6 Receiver. Later I learnt that the iA6 receiver does not have CCPM. This means that for a Naze32 there no much capability to extend command. But the SPRacingF3 FC I'm installing looks to have been a better choice. I ordered a CPPM receiver, also. And I read that the iA6 can be flashed to use 10 channel, but that would require another receiver. Too early to get into that.

I'm pretty sure I ordered a right handed unit but I got a left handed one. Since I'm not in the mood for sending it back to China and getting the right one, I googled a bit and found that most likely it can be fixed. I already did the mechanical part, see more about this on a future post.

Looks like I'm not the first one to get a wrong handed unit. So, be careful and good luck.

RC Receiver

So. yes, I ordered an aditional receiver: OrangeRx R615X DSM2/DSMX Compatible 6Ch 2.4GHz Receiver inc CCPM, from eBay, for £13.49.

The point of CCPM is that it needs less wiring between the FC and the RC receiver. Leaving some IO pins available in the FC for other purposes.

Battery

Your drone is not flying to far away without a power supply. Pluging it to home socket is not an option. I bought 2 batteries, for a start. One can be charging while I drain the other.

A couple of ZOP Power 3S 11.1V 2200MAH 35C Lipo Battery T Plug, from BangGood, for £12.56 each.

Battery charger

This is not a copter part for sure, but you need to recharge your batteries. It can serve as well as a battery measures callibration tool.

Optional components

Camera

This is probably my main mistake, since I'm interested on the OSD (to be done, muuuch later). The camera I bought is a compact unit that includes the video transmitter. We will see when we get to that. At the moment, the camera is a XCSOURCE Eachine EF-01 AIO 5.8G 40CH 25MW VTX 800TVL 1/3 CMOS FPV Camera. £24.99 in Amazon.

Update 27-Oct-2017: Not a mistake. Is gonna need patience and surgeon skills but I found on the Internet that the Video and the TX boards are completely different ones, just linked but some pins. Cutting the Video Signal one and inserting a connector will do the job.

Goggles

I'm not getting a video display for the time being. Goggles again from Amazon. EACHINE VR-007 Pro 5.8G 40CH FPV Goggles 4.3 Inch Video Headset Glasses With 3.7V 1600mAh Battery costs £57.99

LEDs

There's a way to connect classic mono-colour LEDs. But is much nicer to use RGB one. Individually addressable LEDs are the ones you need. Plenty of options on the Internet: single units, strips of any size, modules. They are really cheap. More on LEDs later.

OLED display

Not that I'm really interested on this, but since I got a couple of spare ones leftovers from some Arduino projects, I'm most probably giving this a go.

This feature is still on developement.

OSD

Wanna see telemetry and status overimposed on the video feed? There's a device that allow you to do this. Another one for the TODO list.

Update 16-Oct-2017: Ordered a nice board from SeriouslyPro.com: PWD + OSD

GPS

Probably putting to use a unit that's being idle in my drawer for a long time.

Buzzer

I also got some spares, so let's beep. FC can tell you a few things about its status if you plug a buzzer to it.

Tools

Soldering Iron

In moving, vibrating device I'm not very keen of soldering. Crimp connectors are by far a safer solution. But there's still a few things you'll need to solder. A pen size one with a thin tip and some skills are doing the job.

Pliers

Since you are manipulating very small pieces, they can become handy at times.

Screw drivers

Some small good quality screw drivers are a must. Most of the screw are Philips but you might need some slot ones too.

Cutter

There are a few things you gonna cut. Try not to cut your fingers!!! :)

Caliper

Probably not required, but if you already got one, it's not gonna hurt.

Magnifier

Even if your sight is still good (not my case), it's not a bad idea to use one to check for soldering blobs or any other thing not easy to check at naked eye.

Prop balancing tool

Last lesson from Painless360: Props are usually not well balance. The cheaper the worst, obviously. There's a method to accomplish the task with this tool I found in eBay for £2.46

UST2TTL converter

I already got one in my workshop. Setting up GPS, upgrading RC transmitter firmware,.. There's quite a good chance for you to need it. Zillions of options in eBay or Amazon, or...

Software

You'll need to setup and tune your copter. Most of the software is free and on continuous development. I checked CleanFlight and looks awesome. Google for it.

Multitester

Checking connections polarity and values is a must. Never trust labels, wire coloring, or whatever: double check you voltages, guys!!

Oscilloscope

Probably too much, but who knows.

Extra components

Insulation tape

Insulation. So, this is not for fixing things. At most, temporary things when at the workbench.

Nylon standoffs, nuts and bolts

First of all you need to avoid electrical shortcuts at all costs. (Becareful: carbon fiber used in the frames is a good conductor). On the other side they are lighter that metallic ones. It's not that your drone it's not flying because a few screws, but a dozen of them can be heavier than you think.

Cable ties

These are mostly for wires. You don't want a loose one to get into your props area.

Velcro

Mainly for easy replacement of batteries, but some camera layouts can use it too. Again, you can find on the Internet any size, any price, any colour, bulk rolls, premade ties,....

Metallic foil

EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference) can be a big hideous enemy. Shielding the power areas (PDB) might save you a few headaches.

Connectors

Most of the items you are buying will include the required connectors. Some servo type connectors are really cheap.

Update 16-Oct-2017: Using 2mm banana conectors for both ESC power supply and connecting ESCs to motors.

Foam

Air flow can make the Baro to get a false reading. Some open bubble foam will fix this.

So, I'm gonna build a FPV copter...

Before that

Yep! I'm building a  FPV copter. I've been thinking about it from some time now.

I gave a try to some commercial stuff, and honestly, results have been quite disappointing.

I tried a Hubsan Red 5 Nano Q4 and I must confess that my only achievement was smashing every wall in my house. The thing has two or three flight modes from starter to expert, and I must say that even in newbie mode the thing was absolutely no flyable for me.

A few months ago I got a Parrot Rolling Spider. This was a much better experience, though pretty away from I was looking for. At least, it is quite easy to fly, and driving it with your cell phone is quite interesting. The camera only allows to take overhead shots and it is of average quality. The Rolling Spider is more a toy that a real quadcopter, but allows you to get familiar with flying.

For sure this was not RC at all, or at least it was not the real thing. I mean. Building, tuning, customizing, experimenting...

Where to start?

Maybe it's not the best place, since there are many RC devoted forums that I still don't know very well, but I chose my configuration from a post in instructables.com. There are literally hundreds of entries today and it's quite easy to get sick and spend weeks looking for them all. I took this entry http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-FPV-Racing-Drone/  as a starting point. Some items a no longer available or there a cheaper or newer version. I decided to follow my instinct assuming I'm making some mistakes. As long as I learn from them, I not concerned at all.

I've recently found an amazing channel in YouTube: Painless360. Videos are sometime a bit long, but there are many good reasons for this. They are real step-by-step: no shortcuts, no assumptions, repeating the most important points as many times as the author think it's required. Explanations a full of detail both the starters and the more experienced users. I value a lot the speech. What I mean is the tone and rhythm are relaxed, contrary to other guys in youtube that seem to be contesting for the quickest speech ever. For a guy like me that I still struggle sometimes when listening my not own language, this is priceless. I even do not use the subtitle feature. Seriuosly, this guy is doing an amazing job.

Google, on the other hand is a must. No more needed to say.

Where to buy?

Being just a starter I don't dare to recommend you any specific place. But I'd like to mention the obvious ones. It's up to you, your preferences, your budget,...

• Amazon
• eBay
• BangGood

You should be able to find everything you need just in those three sites.

Why?

Well... Actually what's in and what's not. I decided to write this blog for my own reference and as a diary to track this project. So.

You are not finding detailed instructions, neither product comparisons. But I'll try to add as many relevant links as I can.

But you are witnessing my mistakes. If I post it as a mistake, I hope it helps you to avoid doing the same thing. If not, I hope you are so kind to give me honest advise. I'm giving it to as honestly as possible.

Ok. Here we go!!