Friday 7 September 2012

Building an Xcopter

Hi all,
last week i tried to re-build our xcopter. The model I definitively destroyed was assembled with the help of an expert in aircraft models (Walter Gilli). The mainboard is a kkMultiCopter Controller sold by kkmultikopter.kr, which is based on Rolf R Bakke's original PCB (public domain). the others parts are:
  • 1 power distribution board, 
  • 1 lipo battery, 
  • 1 low  voltage alarm
  • 4 brushless outrunner motors, 
  • 4 ESCs (speed controller), 
  • 2 counter propellers, 
  • 2 noncounter propellers, 
  • some silicon wire pieces, connectors and leads,
  • a homemade frame composed of 4 aluminum arms.
I put the first prototype on the "operating table" (see picture below) and started to remove individual parts to reassemble them into the new xcopter.


The first step was to create the electrical network using the power distribution board (picture below) which allows to transmit electricity from the lipo battery to the motors. A switch simplifies the turning on/off of the xcopter.


The second step was to create a plate where fix the mainboard and the receiver of the remote control. I modified an empty box of CD/DVD (picture below).


Then I started to remove the ESCs and the motors from the first prototype and to solder them into the new model (picture below).


I was careful to respect the order of the xcopter schema: type of propellers and rotation of the motors (picture below).


Finally I fixed the the mainboard and the receiver of the remote control on the CD/DVD box (picture below).


The picture below shows the "operating table" after the "transplant" procedure.


I closed the top with the CD/DVD box-cover (picture below) and I was ready for the first flight. The remote control was correctly set up with the first prototype; I needed only to regulate a little bit the Roll and Pitch pot on the mainboard. Have Fun!


2 comments:

  1. Hi,
    What will you be doing with the quadcopter?

    I've built about 15 different multi rotors - from tricopters, to quads, to hexacopters. Mostly for aerial photography and video.

    Looking to expand usage for photogrammetry and mapping some archaeological sites.

    Thanks,

    John

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi John,
    With a quadcopter we worked on an archaeological site both to take aerial pictures and to rebuild a 3D. Here are the related post:

    http://arc-team-open-research.blogspot.it/2012/03/xcopter-drone-and-sfm-techniques.html

    http://arc-team-open-research.blogspot.it/2012/04/archeosanduavp-for-archaeological.html

    http://arc-team-open-research.blogspot.it/2012/07/open-source-remote-sensing-platform.html

    Hope it is useful!

    Ciao

    ReplyDelete

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