next up, speed demon

[Tomstoy2]

Woohoo, it's here! got to hand it to the Chinese, they're shipping time has much improved. Considering it was free shipping, it came one day past their earliest expected delivery date.

So, let's take a peak at what we have here.

Everything came in a plane box, packed nice and tight.



This is the qav250 kit.



Once unpackaged, this is it.




Tiny motors.



I won't receive my 'Fury' power distribution board until tomorrow, but I had to do a loose assembly to see what se looks like.
First off, installing some nice anodized red stand off posts.



Sandwich the arms, and install the camera vibe plate.




And, a couple shots with the motors on. CC3D is just sitting there.
These aren't the props I'll be using. I got some nice stiff 2 blades props coming in.



Good example of how small it is. Despite it's size, or more to the fact, because of it, these things can reach incredible speeds.



Got to make the decision.

What I'm going to do, go with the cc3d for now. The Fury board is designed with it in mind specifically.
I'll be going with 5.8ghz for now, 200mw, just because that is what I have.
Camera is Sony's latest 800tvl bare board camera with a wide angle lens.
EZUHF, of course, and their osd. No current sensor, the Fury board already has that and will overlay.
No need for filters and regulators, Fury takes care of that, too.
In all, this Fury board is going to make this a very clean and modular installation.

[Tomstoy2]

Ahhh,,, !!!!

Damn, if this don't look purdy!



It will fit, like a fat woman into a size 6!

[Heli Yea!]

That was fast since it was preorder! That looks like a fun project to do. Ive heard that the 3 blade props are less efficient but sound so cool! What powers it 3s 1000mah?

[Tomstoy2]

Definitely 3s. Will probably just strap on my new 2500mah battery's on the bottom. 1300mah is what is supposed to fit inside the frame.

All the rest of the parts will be here today,,, and I'm officially out of solder!

[Heli Yea!]

I can mail you some if you want.

[Tomstoy2]

Found just enough old crappy looking solder to finish the job,,, thanks.

So, here's the new power distribution board from Lumenier. It has several power points, such as, main battery also feed a secondary board for the vtx and camera, not before filtering it first.
Everything plugs into this board, making the wiring nice and simple.
You can program the board to output multiple voltages.
And, if you are so inclined, the board is designed to accept the TBS Core, also.

I got the board pretty much done and ready to be mounted.
Unfortunately, I don't have any stand off's. This board bolts directly to the bottom of the bottom plate. Got some on order, didn't want to try to make my own.





Here's a shot of the camera assembly.
You will notice an offset for the camera. This is due to these things flying nose down, so offsetting the camera is a trade off. I'm betting I'll spend more time moving forward than hovering.
The double nuts were all done in red Loctite.




here I check to ensure the camera plate does not interfere with the mounting plate being perpendicular to the frame plates, which it was.
I took a pair of dykes and trimmed the board edges back to gain clearance.



it's kind of hard to see, but just aft of the esc's are to motor connectors. As the pins are vertical this would require some rather large stand off's. To shorten them as much as possible, there was a much smaller access hole in the frame sandwich plates just in the perfect location, so I did the first mode to the frame and enlarged this hole.
Now the connectors pass thru the frame and the stand off's will be about 3 times shorter than they would have.




So the decision is made. I'm going to go with the Vector.

It will require more frame mods to work, I need to relocate 2 of the upper plate stand off's. They are too narrow for the Vector to fit in between.
Also, going with the 1watt Lawmate.
Gives me something to do until the standoff's come in.

[Tomstoy2]

A few shots to give you an idea of what a flying brick this thing will be. Going to be interesting seeing what she will do, for sure.

Real estate is at a minimum, but coat everything with 90 weight and she's going to slide right in. A true Al Bundy nightmare!

[Tomstoy2]

Just because I'm waiting for the standoff's doesn't mean the work stops. There is plenty prep work to do,

As I said previously, to fit the Vortex I needed to move 2 of the posts outwards. Here you can see the 2 wider posts. Also, I mentioned before I needed to open an access hole wide to allow the connectors to attach to the power distribution board.
The second port from the the top used to match the 4th from the top. I cut web from the sides to allow access.




Next up, adapting the pdb to the frame.
To do this I ended up stripping down everything to sandwich all the boards together to accurately drill to stud holes.
Once done I then installed and sandwiched the bolts to the bottom board and secured everything.
In the intermediate plate access holes were drilled to allow easy access to the bolt heads.




Trial fitting the pdb and the nose and tail led's. This is obviously an earlier frame, not designed for the Fury board, but proved to be easily adaptable.
All I need to finish this off now is the standoff's. I could do the double nut trick, but the amount of shear force between just the bolt vs. bolts and standoff's is a 'no brainer'. With stand off's the frame plate becomes the weak link.






Another trial fit shot of component placement.
For me, 70% of the fun is in the build. I love to just do one thing at a time and the take my time staring at it until I come up with the next step.






Just a couple more 'loose shots' of component placement idea's.








This is turning into a 'passion project' for me. I have big plans for this if I can get everything to play nice together.

[copterboy]

Shaping up to be a nice little build Tom. See what you mean about space!!

[sutty]

I was thinking, damn, why does everything always get so complicated, lol. Following with interest though.

[Tomstoy2]

More work tonight. Mostly, configuring wiring, doing finalizing of component placement and mounting them in place.
Did a power on test of the pdb, everything looking good there.
Just need the standoff's now, not much left to do until I get them in.

[Tomstoy2]

Jeez, some times I amaze myself,,, not in a good way, usually. Like today.

Got the standoff in,,, as in 1!
Could have swore the 'we f' you' aka eBay site said 10!
Oh well, write it off as a bad bar tab I guess.

Not to worry, work will continue until the 6, yes 6 new red, to match the other standoff's, come in.



We got a major storm working it's way in, but nobody knows exactly what it's going to do. This means we may get a very light rain all the way to getting dumped on like God just ate a couple bad sausages and a 1/5th of Jack.
Me, I said screw it. Taking tonight off.

Last week at work I blew out a ligament in in right thumb. I just love this getting old crap.
Told the boss, first time in my life I ain't risking it. I admit, in my misspent youth, there may have been a few times I actually might have, in some extreme perverse way, accidentally enjoyed winter.
Now, now, don't get all wide eyed on me. My memory of these early pubescent times is no where close to being anything what it was. If it happened, I was probably still clenching her skirt in a death grip. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I bitched like hell in the womb about having to be born in Wyoming!

[sutty]

[Tomstoy2]

Jussst,,, about ready to do programming!

All the components are now in their final location and seated in place. It took some time racking my brain but I'm quite happy with how everything came out.





The Vector current sensor offered the perfect remote locatable access point. The battery connector has plenty of room to plug into the Cs and keep cables out of the way.





The receiver was too wide to fit laying down so its mounted on its side. Thank God for sspm! This would never have worked with a traditional hookup.

The antenna's pictured I will replace with IBCrazy's latest creation for mini's. More on that later.





Surprised at how clean it looks for how busy it is. Real estate made installation of everything a real nightmare, The Vector wiring harness, if there was a connector not being used, off it went.
All the efforts are paying off, though.





Really think that I might get a rise out of the ol' fun meter with this!

[sutty]

But it's for your Grandson.

[Tomstoy2]

Well,,,, ,,, sure!

More work, finishing things up. Still waiting for the standoff's, but that's a minor detail.

Last time I mentioned that I was going to replace the uhf antenna's. Well, they came in. These promise to do some seriously good things.





Once installed they stand off the antenna an extra 3 inches or so. It was designed for mini's in mind. The antenna's are flexible as can be but return to shape instantly.
The are a dipole and will be mounted vertically, one up and one down.
The pic gives a good idea of their flexibility.





Next up, battery mounting.

I'm going with a 3s 2500mah battery, under slung. The normal battery is tiny any gives about 6 minutes of flight. She'll pick up all this weight. She won't be a race horse, but that's not what I'm going after here. More poking around the trees, rooting around in the dirt.

The Fury board makes this an easy mounting point, just a few nasty pin heads sticking out.
Did a quick trim job on the excessive pins then trimmed up some industrial grade Velcro that I picked up in 15 foot lengths, cleansed the bottom of the board and stuck the Velcro down.





Balancing this puppy is going to be a snap!





Except for the new 433mhz antenna's not being secured on flight configuration, and the missing standoff's, this is its final configuration.
There will be no landing gear. That's something that just causes more harm than good on these little things.





If I hadn't decided to work on tomorrow's hangover,,, only programming, motor phasing are left!

[Tomstoy2]

Programming,,, programming,,, programming.
Damn near ready.

New antenna's made a HUGE difference. Graph looks excellent! Going to have to get a set for the others.

All that's left.
Calibrate compass/mag.
Phase the motors.
Standoff's.
Test flight.

Need a bit of good weather now. Good luck wit h that! 10 day forecast sucks.

[Heli Yea!]

Finish up slow cause we're not supposed to see the sun till thursday with snow everyday...

[Tomstoy2]

Ok by me. Just screwed up my camera.

Did an fpv check, everything was good, but the camera angle was 90 degrees off. As this is a caseless camera, there are no buttons so as to change the angle. There's a dongle, but I would have to mod the harness, so decided to just unbolt the camera.
Ended up knocking off a component. Tiny little ic chip. Found it, tried to reattach but dropped it in the carpet.
So, what the hell is another $80?

Got the programming done. It's close, real close to flying!

Got confirmation that my standoff's are in the mail,,, finally.

[Heli Yea!]

Tom I'm worried that once you get that puppy moving you're going to be staring at the ground. You should grab a cheap pan/tilt mount and a 4g servo. Then use a knob on your TX to tilt the cam up in FFF. Forget the pan just use the tilt Works a treat on my quad and is compact and light. Otherwise I'm quite impressed nice job!

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...rch=pan%20tilt