The XCopter Quad Build - Week four

Maxx's Stuff

Hi and welcome to Maxx's Stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff!

In today's world, I manage to have some time to learn, play, discover and tinker with new things and I get to share all that with you.

XCopter Micro Quad Build - Week four

Sorry about this being late. I was hoping to get a video out for every one on programming the controller board in Linux, but have had trouble getting the script done and obtaining some graphics in time, so maybe in a few weeks when we get closer to actually putting the Micro Quad in the air.

The fourth week in I finally get the AVR programmer, one motor and one ESC. I have to watch it, because every time I see ESC, I want to call it an escape, as in the escape key on the keyboard. Of cause, delivered to my door for $27.91, bringing the average to $27.30. I am going to have to be careful because the next few orders are a bit over $30. Need to do this if I am going to keep this to ten weeks, and as stated last week and additional cost has emerged in the prop balancer and as I will explain later, more tools as well.

First before all the technobabble, I am gong to talk about the motor and ESC. The motor packaging and items really impressed me. I like that for around $10 you get the motor, prop adapters (two of) bullet connectors and heat shrink. The other bit that amazes me is that this tiny little thing is a three phase motor. I was an electrician some years ago, and the three phase motors I worked on where just a tad bigger. Looking at the ESC and sizing it on the frame will mean possibly some trimming to the leads, I also noticed that the three leads coming out of the motor are over the bolt as in the picture.
This means I will need to rotate the mount with the armature so the leads will go through the hole with less stress. My allen key set does not have small enough key, so I will need to order some additional tools from Hobby King. So the next order (this will be the order for week seven) will include the Turnigy hex driver set.
The other thing is the prop adapter, I actually really like the little alloy spinner, and the props I ordered will not fit them. So, I will need to order different props, luckily (and I actually think will look heaps better) Hobby King have some three bladed 5030's in black and green, so I will also be ordering those for week seven and week eight.

Programming The AVR in Linux

I will still do a video on programming the controller in Linux, but for now I will just give a basic run down of how it is done.

The programs really needed are both AVRdude and a Java Runtime Engine, I used OpenJDK 6. Get those from your Distro Repo (Linux distribution software repository).

The JRE is used to run kkMulticopterflashtool. Grab the Windows/Linux stable version. I did not actually use this to flash the controller as there are some incompatibilities with the Linux AVRdude binary that comes with kkMulti, and the conf file is also incorrect. What I did use kkMulti for was getting the desired HEX files. It is well designed to be able to pick the desired configuration and firmware with maximum ease.
I then flashed the controller with the hex file I downloaded, being XCopter 4.7 by kapteinkuk using AVRdude that came from my Distro Repo, Kubuntu 12.04 in my case in the console .... yes the console, just makes life easier... really.
It will be some time before I get to properly test, but the flash showed no errors, and appeared to do as expected.
Anyway, please enjoy the video from Flite Test on how to flash the Hobby King Multi Rotor Controller Board in Windows using kkMulticopterflashtool, as some of you might actually be interested in how to do that, and it is easier.

The other cool thing about the AVR programmer is Hobby King have a great cheap Arduino clone and breakout shield (sensor shield) that this AVR can program if your interested in doing your own hacking.
I will be getting one with the shield when the project is over. I am planning on trying it with my old Real Robots robot from years ago, see if I can get it going and doing stuff.
Any how, thanks for reading, and keep an eye out for the video, and a question. With this Atmel programming, do you think it would be cool if Hobby King maybe started supplying some robot gear? Wheels, coasters, sensors, micro switches etc. I bet Hobby King could really bring it to market at a price that would get people in cheaply, or is it to far removed for the modern RC pilot .... your thoughts?