The Ultimate P230 Manual v0.9

Transcription

1 The Ultimate P230 Manual v0.9 Abstract This manual will prepare you for and help you through building The Ultimate P230, an excellent quadcopter developed through countless hours of design, flight, crash and redesign. Written by Clint Kingston 02/Jun/2018 Assembly/build guide

2 1 Table of Contents FOREWORD:... 2 WHAT MAKES UP A FPV QUAD-COPTER:... 3 TOOLS:... 4 MISCELLANEOUS SUPPLIES AND TOOLS:... 6 ESSENTIAL HARDWARE:... 6 BUYING A RADIO TRANSMITTER:... 7 BUYING FPV GOGGLES:... 8 COMPONENTS SHOPPING LIST:... 9 PRINT SETTINGS: ASSEMBLY: STEP 1 DRILL BASE PLATE STEP 2 - SET THE M3X2.4MM NUTS INTO THE CAPTIVE NUT HOLES STEP 3 ATTACH SPACERS STEP 4 ATTACH ARMS STEP 5 ATTACH THE STAND-OFF S FLIGHT CONTROLLERS: SOLDERING SKILLS: CONNECTING POWER TO THE QUADCOPTER: ASSEMBLY CONTINUED STEP 6 - LAYING OUT THE COMPONENTS TYPES OF MOTORS: STEP 7 TRIMMING THE WIRES DOWN STEP 8 POWER DISTRIBUTION STEP 9 HEADERS AND ESC SIGNAL WIRES STEP 10 SOLDER MOTORS TO ESC S ABOUT BRUSHLESS MOTORS: STEP 11 SOLDER THE BATTERY TERMINAL TESTING WHAT WE HAVE SO FAR: STEP 12- MOUNTING THE RADIO RX STEP 13 MOUNT THE ANTENNA HOLDER STEP 14 PREPARING THE BUZZER AND LED BOARD STEP 15 MOUNTING BUZZER, LED BOARD AND VIDEO TRANSMITTER STEP 17 INSTALLING THE FPV CAMERA STEP 18 WIRING THE FPV SETUP STEP 19 MOUNT THE BATTERY TERMINAL CONGRATULATIONS WE RE ALMOST DONE BETAFLIGHT BETAFLIGHT DRIVERS... 41

3 2 Foreword: The ultimate P230 is a 230mm (measured diagonally from prop centre to prop centre) First Person View (FPV) quad-copter. Adapted from the Peon230 I have done what I feel is refine it for the ultimate in strength, ease of assembly and repair, and a comprehensive platform from which to build a very learner friendly FPV Quad-Copter. In this manual I will strive to provide in depth instructions for how to go from a collection of STL s to a ready to pilot 3D printed FPV racing Quad-Copter with great lengthy flight times to robustness as you learn the ropes of flying. Throughout this manual I will link to websites such as Banggood and Hobbyking. I have no affiliation with either of these sites, and only use them as an example. Having said that I find Hobbyking s prices to be competitive and their ship times from local warehouses very quick with almost everything you could need under one roof. By using this link to create a HobbyKing account any purchases you make will earn me reward points think of this as a small thanks for the work I have put into this project. I suggest reading this manual in full to decide what supplies you will need to buy, and to have a good understanding of what it is you are doing.

4 3 What Makes up a FPV Quad-Copter: An FPV Quad copter like any machine can be broken down in to a set of sub systems that each control one or more functions. The main components of our Quad-copter are: Flight Controller Radio receiver Camera Video Transmitter Electronic Speed controllers (ESC s) Brushless motors Frame Lithium Polymer Battery LiPo Miscellaneous parts This is the heart and brains of our quad. It distributes power, processes the input from the pilot and mixes this with the input from the accelerometers and gyro contained on the flight controller. It also outputs the On Screen Display. Receives the inputs from our controls on our radio transmitter and feeds this information to the flight controller Allows us to see the world from the Firstperson Perspective or FPV of the drone this video signal is feed to the Video transmitter via the Flight computer where the OSD output is overlayed onto the video signal. Takes the video signal from the Camera and transmits it via radio for or video receiver to display in our goggles Takes a throttle signal from the Flight controller and then accelerates the connected motor to the desired speed The 4 motors of our quad each with an attached prop will create thrust when they spin and provide the needed lift to make the quad fly The physical structure that all our components will be mounted on We will use a 3 cell 3000mah LiPo each cell of the battery supplies around 4.2 volts when fully charged in serries to give us a combined 12.8volts (3x4.2=12.8) the second number is the amount of current stored in battery given in milliamp hours All the above components will be connected by wires, plugs and header pins to form one machine, a Quad-copter. There will also be a few other minor/optional components such as a buzzer or addressable RGB LED board which allows the Quad to give visual and audio feed back.

5 4 Tools: The following is a list of the necessary tools to build the UP230, while not all are essential some can be substituted or not used but for best results and ease of building I recommend you purchase any you do not have. If building Quads is a hobby you would like to pursue or even just to get more out of your 3D Printing, the listed tools are good purchases with most being quite inexpensive. Soldering iron: A decent thermostat controlled soldering iron with a fine tip will be used extensively during the build, and later for repairs or upgrades Solder sucker: Used to remove solder if you make a mistake or need to remove a soldered joint. Good for removing a large amount of solder quickly. Solder braid: Fantastic for removing all solder from a joint, pin or pad when making repairs or fixing mistakes Solder: Used to create conductive joints in electronic circuits. Helping hand: With a soldering iron in one hand and solder in the other how do you hold what it is you are trying to solder? A helping hand. Hex Keys: All the fastening hardware I have used in this build uses hex keys in particular 2 and 2.5mm keys Side Cutters: Used for trimming and cutting Needle nose pliers: Used for gripping and or getting to places to small for fingers

6 5 Craft Knife: Cutting and trimming Craft hammer: For a little gentle persuasion Hammer-Watchmakers-Repair-Tool-p html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=CN JST-SH Crimping tool: Not a cheap tool and yes you can perform its function with some very careful plier work, but this tool is in my opinion worth its weight in gold for making custom cables to connect components of your quad to the flight controller Premade cables are another but less cost-effective option. Digital Multimeter: This is an invaluable tool for testing and troubleshooting your circuits, measuring battery voltages and testing continuity. Smoke Stopper: places a fuse between your battery and the Quad to prevent damage from a fault in any of the circuits

7 6 Miscellaneous supplies and tools: - 22awg hook up wire in at least 3 colours Red, Black and Yellow awg hook up wire Red and Black - Superglue - Servo JST-SH plug sets (these can be purchased in bulk lots of 100 much cheaper) very handy for making your own custom cables. Alternatively, just buy pre-made cables. - Zip ties and lots of them! 3-4mm x150mm long - Heat shrink in various sizes - Cordless Drill And 3mm Drill bit Essential Hardware: These screws and nuts are readily found all over the internet, they are available from Hobbyking and McMaster-Carr for example. I have listed the minimum quantity needed but buy getting a pack of 100 of each you will have plenty of spares or hardware for future builds. Screws and nuts are relatively cheap and good to have on hand. Counter sunk M3x8 Qty $3.72 M3 x2.4mm nut Qty $3.12 Socket head M3x20 Qty. 6 $1.17 M3 nylock nut Qty. 6 $3.17 anodised-aluminum-m3-nylock-nuts- 8pcs.html Pan head M3x8 Qty.2 $0.74 Plastic stand-off kit with all the stand offs you will need for this build and many more. 38mm Spacers They come in different colours too. $7.06 $10.28

8 7 Buying a radio Transmitter: At the heart of every RC build is the Radio Transmitter or TX. Right now you have a very important decision to make as to how much you are going to spend and which brand you will go with. While it might seem tempting to buy a cheap radio such as those in the Flysky/Turnigy range these radios are very limited in their capabilities and lacking in support. For a small investment purchasing a radio such as one from the FrSky range (Not to be confused with FlySky). The FrSky Taranis Dx9 is a very popular and quality radio that uses the OpenTX firmware, which is an open source firmware supported by a huge community this will be the first and last radio you need ever buy. If you however unlikely decide you want to sell the radio transmitter there will be a large market for a quality 2 nd hand unit. This guide will continue to assume you have opted to go with or already have a Taranis

9 8 Buying FPV goggles: Like the radio transmitter you have a number of choices here that range in price from AUD$100 to $500 or more. I personally have had a very good experience using 2 products from Eachine. The Eachine EV800D box goggles are a good choice for a budget pair of goggles with diversity Antennae. This means you can use a Patch antenna (Directional) and a Cloverleaf antenna (omnidirectional) and the goggles video receiver will switch between antennas depending on which is picking up the strongest signal giving you the clearest picture. One of the other advantages to this design is the Screen can be detached from the headset and used as a standalone monitor. The downside to this kind of design is that they can be a little bulky and heavy. The alternative to this is Goggles and Eachine have a good range of these smaller FPV goggles as well at very affordable prices. The only Negative about the Eachine goggles I have found is that they use RP-SMA connectors on their antennas. Without going into great detail about what RP-SMA means, the issue is that the more widely used SMA connector has a much wider and readily available range of different antennas. The solution is to either shop around for the RP-SMA type, use an adaptor, or mod your goggles and change the connector.

10 9 Components shopping list: *Prices in Australian dollars and correct at the time of writing. BetaFlight F4 Flight computer PDB-and-Current-Sensor-for-RC-FPV-Racing-Drone-p html?rmmds=cart_middle_products&cur_warehouse=CN $46.20 ESC s x4 $ x ($63.08) Clockwise motors x2 $9.59 2x ($19.18) Counter-Clockwise motors x2 $9.59 2x ($19.18) FrSky X4R-SB radio receiver $35.67 Immersion RC Tramp HV (international High power version) $39.69 XT-60 Battery socket $2.73 RunCam FPV camera 700tvl-mini-fpv-camera-orange-pal-version.html $54.10 Addressable 8 RGB LED strip Highlight-LED-for-Naze32-CC3D-p html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=CN $5.83

11 10 Buzzer Buzzer-Beeper-Tracker-95_5mm-for-Racing-Drone-p html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=CN Pin Headers Antenna mount $3.94 $1.38 $1.74 $4.41 Video transmitter antenna $6.35 Vibration dampers pcs.html $5.76 Battery 3Cell 3000Mah $37.97 Propellers (they re cheap so get a few sets as they will be the first thing you damage in a crash) $1.87

12 11 Print settings: This is relatively easy print. I have optimised the design of the parts for particular print settings that provide the very best in strength. Layer Height: 0.15mm Top layers: 5 Bottom layers: 5 Perimeters: 3 Infill: 30% Infill pattern: Rectilinear Print each part without supports with the only exception being the file Top_Supports_req.stl this will need some minimal support for best results around the battery socket mount. You will need to print 4x arms, and 2x arm braces. The picture below shows where the supports are needed these can be placed manually in some 3D printing software such as Simplify3D

13 12 Assembly: Step 1 Drill Base plate Run a 3mm drill bit through the 8 holes using a cordless drill to remove the material in the hole. This material is deliberately printed filling in the holes to avoid the need for supports.

14 13 Step 2 - Set the M3x2.4mm nuts into the captive nut holes Take a M3x20mm screw and thread a nut onto the end until the nut is level with the end of the screw as pictured. Hammer the nut into the 8 hex shaped reliefs until the nut is fully seated. Do the same to the rear wall with another 2 m3x2.4 nuts

15 14 Then set 2x Nylock nuts into the recesses shown. This time though pass a 20mm screw through the hole from the other side thread the nut down onto the screw. This will act as a guide as you set the nut. With the nut carefully aligned with the recess tap it down with the hammer. Then wind the screw in to pull the nut the rest of the way down. Then remove the screw.

16 15 Step 3 Attach spacers Attach 8x 38mm aluminium spacers to the Base with M3x8 screws. Step 4 Attach arms Attach arms using the arm braces and 8 M3x8 screws.

17 16 Step 5 attach the stand-off s Attach the 8mm and 10mm stand offs to the bas as shown with a M3x8 mm screw from the other side.

18 17 Flight Controllers: The Flight controller (FC) is the brains of the Quad-copter. The FC is fitted with accelerometers which measure movement, speed and direction. Gyro s which tell the FC what angle the Quad is at on the X and Y axes (whether it is rolling, pitching or banking). The FC takes the data from these sensors thousands of times a second, processes this information and then sends throttle inputs to the 4 ESC s (Electronic Speed Controllers) which enables the quad to pitch roll and bank. It is this computer aided flight that makes the Quad flyable without the Flight computer the quad would be impossible for a human to fly. For this Quad build I have chosen the Betaflight F4 Board for several reasons: Affordable Power distribution built in 5 volt BEC built in OSD (on Screen Display) built in Very easy to work with Below is a generic wiring example: You will find the full-size version in the Files of this project. I suggest studying it until you have a good understanding of how the drone will be wired. However, I will explain in detail as we continue.

19 18 Soldering Skills: This next section will cover soldering, if you are an experienced at soldering you can skip ahead. Soldering is the joining of two parts of an electronic circuit using Solder (Mixture of tin and lead however most solder now is lead free). We do this by heating the two parts of the circuit to a temperature where solder becomes a liquid. This liquid will then run and bond with the two (or more) parts of the circuit and then as we remove the heat and the solder cools and hardens to create a strong join that is electroconductive (electricity flows through with little resistance) The types of joins we might make are: Components to circuit boards Wires to components or boards Wires to wires The Problem we face is that much of what we solder can be damaged by heat. This means that we must be careful when soldering to use only enough heat to melt the solder and only for as short a time as possible.

20 19 I suggest first practicing tinning wires. This is the process of stripping the insulation of the tip of the wire and then tinning the exposed strands of conductive wire by fusing them with solder. Search tinning wire on you tube and you will find many helpful videos. You could also buy a piece of Perf board and practice soldering some header pins to it before starting to solder on the Flight controller. Once you feel you are comfortable Soldering we can move on to the next step of our build, which will involve all of the soldering skills you should have developed. We will be tinning wires, soldering header pins to our flight controller. Soldering wires directly to our FC and ESC, soldering wires to our XT60 battery plug.

21 20 Connecting power to the Quadcopter: I strongly advise that you use a smoke stopper between your drone and the battery the first time you power it up This one from hobby king called a Boom stopper is cheap and the same one that has saved me a few times. If you have wired anything incorrectly the fuse in the Boom Stopper will blow before you let the magic smoke out of your electronic components. However, it is always a good idea to double and triple check all your connections. Make sure connections are negative to negative and positive to positive Check all your solder joints are of sufficient quality and shiny. Make sure none of your solder joints are bridging any solder pads they shouldn t When you are happy everything is as it should be connect the boom stopper to your battery and then connect the other end of the boom stopper to your power socket on the Quadcopter.

22 21 Assembly continued Step 6 - Laying out the components Begin by placing the Flight controller onto the 4 8mm Stan-offs and then temporarily securing it with 4 plastic nuts form the stand-off kit. Then using the side cutters snip the threaded post of the stand-off so that the threaded post finishes flush with the top of the nut. This will make room for the header pins and plugs later. Note the arrow printed on the Flight controller circled in yellow this should point towards the front of your Quad-copter. Next, we can mount the motors on to the arms but first we will talk about motors briefly.

23 22 Types of motors: Brushless motors for drones often come in two variants, clockwise and counter-clockwise (CW and CCW). Now these motors are identical with one exception. They will both spin in either direction you tell them to. The Key difference is the thread on the propeller shaft. (usually the motors with the different coloured nuts will be the left-handed threads or Clockwise spinning motors. The pictured motors also use Lock nuts for added security) Typically, all screw threads are Right handed this means that when you turn the screw or nut to the right it will tighten and when turned to the left it will loosen (A good way to remember this standard is Righty-Tighty Lefty-Loosey) A Quad motor marked CW or clockwise (this is the direction it will spin or turn the prop will have a left-handed thread. The reason being is that as the motor spins the nut will want to naturally get tighter. If you used the standard Right-handed thread, the nut would want to spin free and eventually pop right off. If this happened in the air it would result in a crash.

24 23 Some motors have no markings at all and have standard Right handed threads, but they also use Lock nuts that are very difficult to turn and so won t come off while the motor is operating. CW, CCW, left and right-handed threads is one of the hardest parts of quad build to wrap your brain around but eventually you will have a light bulb moment and it will all make sense and you will barely have to think about it. Fit the motors to the ends of the arms as pictured note the wires pointing inwards towards each other this is purely aesthetic you can point them any way you like. I do it this way to leave some relief on the wires and make working on the drone easier. As you get better with your builds you may choose to point the wires in line with the arms and make them as short as possible to save weight or again purely for aesthetics. When screwing the motors onto the arms ensure that the screws do not protrude into the motor too far and make contact with the coils as this will destroy the motors and ESC s if you apply power to the quad. If the supplied screws are too long you could use a washer to shim the screw or alternatively use smaller screws. For this quad 6mm screws a usually perfect. Lastly lay the ESC s roughly in the middle of the arms.

25 24 Step 7 trimming the wires down With your components roughly laid out we can trim the excess wires leaving a little slack for relief and to make working with the drone easier. The picture above shows how I routed my wiring and the amount of slack I left in the wires. My wires are also wrapped in spiral wrap which protects and keeps everything neat this is optional, alternatively you can just twist or braid the wires to keep them neat.

26 25 Step 8 Power distribution Before proceeding any further please ensure you have studied the flight controllers wiring diagram. It shows a typical setup and is essentially exactly how we will be wiring our quad build. The FC has a top and a bottom, with power distribution built in to the board which saves us having to purchase and install a separate board to handle power distribution and voltage regulation for components that run on 5volts. The underside of the board will supply power directly from the battery to our ESC s. prepare the pads with some solder by heating the pads until they are hot enough to flow some solder onto them. The solder on the pads when hard should be shiny silver in colour. Next take the wires from each ESC (they should be tinned) and solder them to the corresponding pads by pressing them on to the pad with the soldering iron tip until the wire

27 26 sinks down into the solder you previously laid on the pad, then remove the soldering iron and hold the wire in place until the solder joint cools (Use the needle nose pliers to hold the wire as it will get hot) Note that the Negative pads are a common ground meaning they are all joined together, this acts as a heat sink and it will take longer to and seem more difficult to solder the negative pad Repeat for each Esc until you have all your esc s connected to the flight controller. While we are working on this side of the board we can go ahead and add our Positive lead for the battery to the pad marked +LiPo Take a length of Red 12awg wire strip about 5 mm of insulation off one end and tin the wire. Prepare the +LiPo pad with some solder as you did for the other pads earlier using the same technique and then solder the wire onto the pad. The last thing we need to do while working on the underside of the board we need to bridge the pads that control the voltage supplied to the Camera pin. Locate the pads on the board pictured here highlighted with the green square: With a hot soldering iron heat the VBAT and CAM pad for a few seconds the melt some solder onto the tip of the soldering iron and drag it across the two pads to form a bridge like picture left in green. This will route the voltage from our Lipo battery to the Cam pin which I will explain in more detail when we fit the video transmitter and camera.

28 27 Step 9 Headers and ESC signal wires Flip the flight controller over so we are looking at the top. We will now solder the Signal wires of the ESC onto the corresponding Pads. Each motor has a Ground (sometimes marked as Gnd and/or -) and a pad for the signal wire marked M1, M2, M3, M4. Prepare the pads by flowing some solder onto each Ground and motor pad and then go ahead and solder each wire to the pad We will also add our -LiPo negative wire to the top of the board using some 12awg wire and following the same steps. The reason the LiPo wires going to the board are substantially thicker is because unlike the ESC and motor wires for each individual motor the LiPo wires will have to carry the combine current of all 4 motors and if the wire was to thin it would have to much resistance to carry high currents and would get very hot and fail. Now we must place pin headers onto the top side of the flight controller. This can be a fiddly exercise but with a little patience and using our helping hands to hold the board and pin header

29 28 Solder pin headers at the points shown in the picture above. The pin headers will sit on top of the Flight Controller, and your solder joints will be on the pads under the flight controller. When placing the double row of 6 pins on the board try to tilt the pins upwards as much as possible. This will give us a little more clearance over the plastic nuts that will hold the flight controller to the frame. The other pins can be soldered flat and we can then bend them upwards slightly if needed.

30 29 Step 10 Solder motors to ESC s This next step is very crucial to get right so that our motors spin the correct directions Motors need to be wired as shown in the next diagram: Notice that the CCW motor has 2 of its phase wires crossed. By crossing any 2 of the wires from the motor to the ESC will reverse the direction the motor spins. With some ESC s this can be done in software but in order to make this build as simple as possible Fixing the motor rotation in hardware is a much better solution. Prepare the solder pads on the ESC by flowing some solder on to them first just as we did with the flight controller then solder the tinned wires on to the pads as show above for the CW and CCW motors

31 30 About brushless motors: A traditional motor is brushed. It has an iron core wrapped in copper windings. Each winding has its own pad or commutator on the shaft of the motor. The copper wrapped core sits between two magnets with opposite poles. As the iron core spins on its shaft the pads connected to the coper windings comes in contact with a brush which energises the winding creating an electromagnet which in turn repels against the pole of the magnet it is passing this happens very rapidly spinning the motor. You can power the motor in either direction by simply applying voltage to the terminals situated outside the motor. A brushless motor is essentially the opposite, the copper windings stay still and the magnets attached to the shaft of the motor spin. However, in order to power the electromagnets a controller is required to energise the right electromagnet at the right time and in the right order. While more complex this is a more efficient method to spin the motor with less mechanical wear. Wikipedia has a wealth of information on the exact workings if you wish to learn more. Step 11 Solder the battery terminal Take the 12awg -/+ wires you soldered onto the Flight controller earlier and cut them to a good length that allows you enough slack to take the top off the quad and lean it to the side, then strip back about 5 mm of insulation and tin the wire ends. Place a length of Heat shrink over the wires and slide it down far enough that the heat from soldering will not affect it. Prepare the bullet connectors in the XT60 plug by tinning them with some solder. Now while applying heat to both the bullet connector and the tinned wire wait for the solder to begin flowing then remove the heat and hold the wire in place until the solder cools. Take not of the polarity of the socket it is vital to protect your quads FC, ESC s and motor from damage you solder this correctly. After the wires are soldered slide the heat shrink up and shrink it around the solder joints to protect from shorts.

32 31 Testing what we have so far: Its time we test our wiring. But before we do check and double check and then do one more triple check of all our wiring and solder connections. It is absolutely vital in order to not damage anything, risk fires or potentially an exploding LiPo. Look over the wiring diagram and then over your Quad build making sure everything is in order if you are confident everything is correct connect a smoke stopper between the Quad and your battery and be ready to disconnect power if you see any smoke, hear any crackls or pops or nothing at all happens. If all is well the LED s on the flight controller should light up and the ESC s will make a chime sound De-dee-deeee-----deee If there is no lights or sounds disconnect the battery immediately. I m going to assume all is good and move on with the build. From now on once you complete any new wiring, you should test the circuit with a multimeter and then apply power.

33 32 Step 12- Mounting the radio Rx Place the Receiver onto the component board between the 4 square holes and then secure it in place using 2x zip ties. It is a good idea at this point to ensure the Firmware on the receiver is up to date and Bind the receiver to the Quad. Mount the Board with the receiver attached over the 10mm Stand-offs as pictured above. You can then secure the board and receiver in place by screwing down a 12mm stand-off over each threaded post as seen below. Inside the box with your Betaflight F4 Flight Controller is a small cable this is used to connect your radio receiver to the FC go ahead and connect this cable now from the SBus port on the receiver to the SBus pins on the FC.

34 33 Step 13 Mount the antenna holder Before mounting the antenna holder onto the quad frame, I found that the wire tubes were a little loose, so I super glued them in place and left to sit for ~30mins. Take the antenna holder and thread the wires from the radio receiver up through the tubes. Take the supplied double-sided tape and stick it to the underside of the Antenna holder. Remove the backing and then stick it down on to the Quad frame just behind the radio receiver. To protect the coaxial wire sticking out of the tubes I place some heat shrink over the ends of the tubes to extend them and protect the unsheathed wire.

35 34 Step 14 Preparing the Buzzer and LED Board The buzzer and LED board will allow the Quad to communicate with us through Audible and visual cues. It will tell us if there is a problem when we attempt to arm the Quad and/or show us what flight mode we are operating under. It s not completely necessary but it is a nice addition. Firstly, we will prepare the buzzer by soldering 2 wires onto its legs and adding a Female header plug so we can plug it into Flight Controller The LED Board requires a 3 pin cable to be soldered to it you could use an old servo cable with a female plug on the end or make a new cable. In the image above, I have highlighted the 3 solder pads you need to use. Wire black to GND, red to VDC and Yellow/orange to DIN (Data In).

36 35 Step 15 Mounting Buzzer, LED Board and Video transmitter We can now mount our buzzer and LED Board to the Rear wall.pass the buzzer through the middle hole in the rear wall until the buzzer sits in the cradle. Secure it in place with a zip tie. Next mount the LED Board using 2 M3x8 Pan Head screws I took 2x plastic nuts and snipped one side off to act as a spacer as the Holes on the LED board are in a poor location. Take the brass antenna fitting of the Video transmitter and pass it through the Rear wall, place the locking washer on to the threaded brass fitting and then tighten the Nut down with an 8mm spanner. As you tighten down the nut it will pull and fully seat the brass fitting into the Rear wall ensure the hex part of the brass fitting is roughly lined up with the hex cavity as you tighten the nut on the other side. Secure the Video Tx onto the Component board with 2x zip ties and then place the board over the 12mm stand offs and secure in place with 4x plastic nuts.

37 36 Step 17 Installing the FPV Camera Begin by screwing the metal Camera mount onto the Quad frame using the 2 M3 screws supplied with the camera. Then attach the camera to the metal mount. Leave the screw slightly loose so that we can reposition the camera while we work on the wiring. Note that the camera pictured above is not a RunCam from the shopping list. This is just a Fatshark Cam I had lying around. The Runcam in my opinion is a better camera at about the same price The RunCam pictured here on one of my Prototype UP230 s

38 37 Step 18 Wiring the FPV setup Each camera and Video tx usually come with their own wiring harness with a plug on one end to go into the device and bare wires on the other to connect to the Cam or Vtx. This is because each Quad-copter builder will choose and use different components based on their own personal preference. This is the wiring diagram for the for the FPV wiring harness we will make: Note that the Negative or Ground all runs to one common earth, this is important to reduce any noise on the signal and ensure the best picture quality for both the image from the cam and the OSD output from the flight controller. My completed FPV system cable

39 38 Step 19 Mount the battery terminal Take the Top part of the Quad frame and ensure you have removed any support material around the battery terminal mount, the battery terminal should be a very tight press fit into the cavity on the printed Top. You may have to clean it up a little with a jewellers file or craft knife. Secure the battery terminal in place with 2x 20mm Screws and 2x nuts. The cam platform is secured to the frame using 20mm socket head screws and 4 nylock nuts. Sandwich 4 vibration dampers between the Quad frames Top and the Cam Platform as pictured. Complete the drone build by securing the top of the frame to the Aluminium spacers with 8x M3x8 countersunk screws.

40 39 Congratulations we re almost done If you have gotten this far you have completed the build phase of our FPV Quad-copter, and it should look something like this. Lastly Install the propellers and spin them with your fingers to make sure nothing is going to interfere with the propellers and cause a crash. Secure any lose wiring with zip ties to anchor points like the Aluminium spacers. When you are done remove the propellers before continuing with the setup of the Flight controller in the Betaflight Configurator. This is a very important safety measure to prevent damage or injury to yourself or others.

41 40 Betaflight Betaflight is the firmware installed on our Flight Controller. We will use some software called the Betaflight Configurator. This is a Google Chrome App so we will need to have the Chrome web browser installed on our computer. Chrome can be downloaded here Once you have downloaded and installed chrome we need to go to the chrome app store and add Betaflight Configurator. kijelibmamfjn Click the Blue button top right of screen Add to Chrome to install the app. To open Betaflight open a new Chrome tab and click Apps in the top right to see your installed apps then click Betaflight the dark icon with the yellow wasp.

42 41 Betaflight drivers First time you open Betaflight you will be presented with this screen: Begin by Downloading the SiLab Virtual Comport Drivers this allow our computer to talk with the flight controller over USB. Once you have downloaded and installed the Driver we will reboot our computer just for good measure and then open Betaflight and connect our board.

43 42 When the Flight controller connects to Betaflight we a presented with a screen that shows an animated representation of our Quad-copter if you move your Quad-copeter around you will see the one on the screen follow your movements. Before we go any further though we will update the firmware on the flight controller to the latest stable version. Click the red Disconnect button in the top right of the betaflight configurator window. Click the Firmware Flasher tab shown above in the green box. In the first dropdown menu find the BETAFLIGHTF4 selection, then in the dropdown menu below select the Firmware (Latest available at the time of writing). Next click the button at the bottom of the screen Load Firmware (Online). the firmware will take a couple minutes to download and once it has finished the greyed-out button Flash Firmware will now be yellow and you can now click it to begin the firmware update. Betaflight has an

44 43 enormous amount of settings to configure your quad-copter to just how you like it. I have supplied a backup file of my settings that you can restore to your Flight controller. This will set your Quad-copter up ready to fly. Click the Restore button and then locate the file included in the Thingiverse files called: BTFL_Quad-Copter_settings and restore the configuration file to your flight controller. If readers of this guide request it I will go into configuring the Flight controller in greater detail but as there is already a plethora of information on the web on how to setup Betaflight I will leave it for you to google how this is done