MicroArduCopter, 3" props, Omnibus Nano, Success!

pls let know how it will work out. quite pricey ESCs for a 2s fun, it seems, $56 is quite a bit.

Mine is the 20x20 version, but I’d imagine if mine works on 2s, yours should too. Let us know if you have any trouble. It’s a shame they discontinued the 20x20 version. There aren’t a lot of blheli_32 opions in 20x20. I ordered another one today, so I should know in a week or two if there’s another option that works properly on 2s.

That’s great! About how long does a battery last for relatively slow flying?
My 6" copters ended up being about 10A at hover! But I built those a few years ago w/ heavier components than you’re using… and 2200mah battery. Maybe I’ll rebuild one of those next year.

My son is only 3.5 years old, but is super interested in my drones. He picks up random parts (broken frame, battery strap, random 3d printed things, etc) and puts them in a box and says “This is for when I build my own drone when I’m a little bit older”. And, he encourages me to bring my drones when we go to parks, playgrounds, etc. I’d expect him to get annoyed that I’m not paying attention to him, but he likes watching me fly them. Loves it if I bring a screen for him to watch the FPV.

I built a small gimbal for my 250 size (6") copter… You could put a gimbal controller in that front stack position, and build a gimbal for the top of your copter… Could make it easily detachable so you don’t have to use it all the time. I used 1806 gimbal motors, which still appear to be the smallest option. And the camera is a mobius mini. Storm32 gimbal controller, which at the time was a 30.5x30.5 size board. (I can give you more details/photos, if you’re interested)

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I did that too 3 years ago for a Mobius camera. Here is the result: 45g

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Nice little ship! What is its AUW ?

I build a micro quadcopter for indoor auto flight test. I bought the ARF kit from local store. https://goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?21806678027603
It is based on HAKRC MiniF4 fc (it works with omnibusf4pro ardupilot firmware) . I add USR-WIFI232-T for wifi telemetry. No RC because I found power supply on fc is not enough to power both RC and wifi board.
I also add markers for motion caputre system
It weights 100g with 2s 450mah lipo battery
DSC00374s
This is flight video. It take off and fly in auto mode (using ATT_POS_MOCAP for external navigation data)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKzuaVQZclI

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424g with no lipo. i use it now with 1500mah, idealy it wants 2200mah 4s.

So, you can see it is pretty much a 3 stack model - 2 30mm stacks in front (but needs other 2 holes drilled - and it may violate the warranty if done so) and a space for 20mm stack in the tail, but i plant there tfmini lidar, mach3 vtx on it - or TBS one - fits the same - and r-xsr on top of it.
i still did not transition to r9-mm, should try it may be later, as i got whole setup for both my old taranis and x-lite one as well, but, i found my r-xsr to work pretty much ok for a 3/4 mile or so range and i do not fly much further than that, at least locally here. at least vtx almost always cuts off earlier for me than my r-xsr.

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here is how collection looks like now - top row - 6" rooster (1 30.5mm stack space, rear almost fits 20mm stack), 6" chameleon LR Ti, 7" chameleon LR Ti, bottom is 3" gecko. 4" gecko i did not put together yet.

quite fun to build, and was interesting to compare. rooster flies most aggressively, for pure acro flying it is probably the best frame, but overall i like the middle one the best. there is also 5" rooster in the store, but, i did not see that as a good option as it weight will be almost same and with 5" props those motors will need 5S or 6S lipos to fly fast and my whole set of batteries is 4S. those who fly those frames for speed use 5S mostly.

In any case, logically if you have to fly more than a mile or so, it will be in autonomous mode through waypoints and you can loose RC control (but keeping telemetry would be nice through the video channel)

Nice collection! You’ll have to hang them you your walls pretty soon :slight_smile:

Nice fleet of copters there!

Here are mine:

Big one is 16" props, circa 2013, pixhawk.
To the right of it is a 6" prop one from about 2014, which was updated w/ the gimbal in 2016, AUAVx2.
To the left is another 6" from about 2015, pixracer. Lighter/faster than the older one.
Then in front are my 2 3" copters from 2017 and 2018. One betaflight, the other Arducopter, omnibus nano (Zeus all in one fc/esc on the betaflight copter).
And in front is my little 2" prop copter w/ a decent night ability camera, and I fly that one around after it’s dark out, which is any time after work in the winter.

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very cool!
i did not show in my list 450mm and tarot 690 - they are on the shelf a bit further away, but, nothing too interesting. i still think of getting 690 to the proper form but hate to spend more $ on it, it is on 14" props and ideally it needs same you got - 16" props, 240kv motors, 6S or higher lipo, it is just too much $ for not clear what for.
what motors you have on your big one?

i think this r9-mm has more practical sense to plane folks, as those planes can indeed travel quite far, our copters are unlikely to go way beyound a mile and i think my r-xsr was actually good up to 1.5 miles or so, i tried to test it long time ago and do not recall now what it was.

I rarely use my bigger ones anymore. Mostly because I’m in a suburban area and don’t want to bother my neighbors. The 650mm, I use 2 or 3 times a year for 3d imaging. I work w/ some architects and they have me make 3d models of some of their projects… I haven’t really used the 250mm copters since I got in to the little 2" & 3" prop ones.

My 650 has relatively high KV motors. I think they’re 780kv or something around that. I use 4s. Same philosophy as my micro copters… Keep the motors relatively small to keep the weight down. The low kv pancake motors weren’t around yet, when I built that one, so there weren’t a lot of options for motors. (low kv ones were huge).
It’s a great copter, though. Has the HD camera on a brushless gimbal. Then it has the FPV camera on a small servo gimbal. Video switch so I can see the HD feed, or the FPV cam. I can control both gimbals from my transmitter. Can hover for about 45 minutes. Has 1.2ghz video and rfd900+ telemetry for long range. It’s just too big to fly anywhere near my home, and has been flown less than any of the others.

I’m trying to fly my microcopters long range, manually. But you’re correct a mile is about the limit. I have been out over 3 kilometers, but that was scary. The close spacing of everything on the small copters, and inability to use 1.2ghz video are big limitations. I was able to fit a 2.4ghz video antenna, but there’s too much interference in my area to use 2.4 video. :(. I got further range, but it had a lot of sudden cutouts for a second or three, due to interference. It was too scary for manual flying. (My long over 3k flight was using 2.4 video, but I’ve gone back to 5.8)

that is a nice little design, that zeus, too bad it cannot be flashed with a copter code.
so, for now i guess nano v6 is pretty much all we got?

45min on the big quad is awesome. 690 hex i have is nowhere near that, but, with stock arms 14" props is all i can fit. i am also not using it anymore, it is a go pro equipped, but, i have no desire to keep investing into it.

Yes, not enough uarts and no baro on the zeus. No other 20x20 all in ones.
There were a couple 30x30 all in ones w/ ESC that might be potential options, but I didn’t look in to them and look up all their details.

Btw, about gimbal - can you share the details? Does it go on your 7"?

Yeah,
Mine is a 3 axis built w/ aluminum bars and 1806 motors.

A 2 axis like Hugues posted is probably good enough… I might rebiuld mine as a 2 axis hanging off the front, rather than the top mounted 3 axis. Then I could look down w/out the copter in view, which is an issue w/ my current setup.

I don’t have a 7" copter, but this is what’s on my 250mm, 6" prop copter.
Well, I can’t find all my build pics of it… But it’s basically just two curved aluminum bars, and one L shaped holding the camera.
If it’s your first gimbal, the storm32 website has a lot of good info. Main thing: Keep everything balanced. I started w/ the camera. Connected it to its mount, and balanced it on the pitch motor. Then connected the next arm and balanced the entire camera motor arm on to the roll motor. Then attached the last arm and balanced the camera, pitch, and roll motor assembly onto the yaw motor. Then readjusted.
Then you tune the PID’s which is actually pretty simple for storm32.

I found one pic…

Let me know if you have any questions or need more details.

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If you’re really ambitious you could try making one even smaller, but might have to rewind some motors. There are posts around the web about rewinding motors for gimbals.
It would be awesome to make a gimbal w/ 14xx motors (maybe even smaller) for just the camera/lens portion of the runcam split.

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