FQuad

by Provotroll | August 27, 2013 | (8) Posted in Projects

In this article I will show you how I built my new FPV quad and a video with the first results.

We start right of with the first video.100% pure and honest quadcopter footage: no auto level,no gimbal and no post stabilization.

And here is how I built it:

Warthox designed a new FPV quad frame. Perfect chance for me to send my two year old FPV quad into retirement and build a new one based on warthox' new FQuad frame.

The frame is meant to be a light, simple but durable platform. So I will also only use a simple FPV setup: only one camera (GoPro), no GPS and no OSD. Only the following equipment will be used:

FQuad frame
NanoWii
Flyduino 30A ESCs
Tiger Motor MT2208 1100kV
Gemfan 8045C
GoPro Hero 1
FPVManuals LayerLens
Foxtech 5.8 VTx
CL antenna by chipsundgrips
FRSky FASST compatible 2.4GHz diversity Rx

First step was to solder the needed pins to the NanoWii board, upload the software, establish the RC link and programm the radio. As the ESCs I chose do not have a BEC I use the one integrated in the NanoWii (two pins on the right).

I planned to have the motor wires on the inner sides of the frame. So I needed to mount the motors with wires on the left on two arms and on the right on the other two arms.

The ESCs have a special multirotor firmware (similar to simonK) and come just as the boards without wires or capacitors soldered to them. So I had to solder them first.

To save weight I didn't want to use connectors between the ESCs and the motors. Instead I soldered the motor wires directly to the ESC boards. Because you can't change rotation direction after heat shrinking the ESCs I needed to check the rotation direction on each ESC.

Now the ESCs and battery connectors were soldered to the bottom plate of the frame. As you can see I like to use 4mm bullets on most of my RC stuff.

The two black and white cables on the right will feed the 3S lipo voltage directly to the Vtx and the NanoWii.

Allright, time to put everything together and do a test hover.

Without the FPV gear and battery the quad weighs 535g, ready for maiden.

Maiden went just fine, so I put the FPV gear on it.

I'm really pleased with the frame and my new quad. Looks good and flies great.

 

- Find this article & others like it at www.FliteTest.com -

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travellin'

by Provotroll

COMMENTS

liveyourdreamsRC on August 27, 2013
Wow, beautiful footage! I also like the picture of it up in the mountains. In the video, are all the copters fquads?
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Provotroll on August 28, 2013
Thanks :-)
Yes, all three copters in the video are fquads. I added a picture to the article that shows all three.
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liveyourdreamsRC on August 28, 2013
Nice! I wish I could buy in US dollars though.
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Provotroll on August 28, 2013
Hmm? You can pay with PayPal. That always worked for me.
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kah00na on August 27, 2013
Is there any place that frame can be ordered from in the US?
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Provotroll on August 28, 2013
Unfortunately no. It's only available here:
http://flyduino.net/Warthox-FQuad-Frame-Set-25cm-arm
But Flyduino ships world wide, so it shouldn't be a problem.
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Corsair2014 on August 28, 2013
nice looking frame and awesome video!
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Elmtree on September 16, 2013
I love the look of this quad! Could it fit 10 inch props? I'm trying to decide on my next FPV multi and 10 inch props would make this thing perfect for me!
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Provotroll on September 18, 2013
9" are no problem. 10" are probably to close to give it a try. But as the frame is lighter than many other frames, you don't need as much thrust.
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Elmtree on September 19, 2013
Cool. I think I'm going to go with the MT2208s and 9x4.5 props for maximum thrust and flight time. What type of battery were you using? And what kind of flight times did you get?
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Provotroll on September 20, 2013
With a 3S 3.200mAh, a GoPro 1 and an aditional LayerLens the quad weighs 950g. The last flight on which I wrote down the numbers was 14min long and I did put 2.900mAh back in the battery afterwards.
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zev on September 20, 2013
wow, thats light! whats the flying time?
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Provotroll on September 20, 2013
With a 3S 3.200mAh, a GoPro 1 and an aditional LayerLens the quad weighs 950g. The last flight on which I wrote down the numbers was 14min long and I did put 2.900mAh back in the battery afterwards.
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Provotroll on September 20, 2013
Here is another video with the quad:
http://www.flitetest.com/articles/travellin
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rc_edgy on February 8, 2014
Love the mountains ! Those Fquads looks very light! ;)
Search for Warthox on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/search?q=warthox). This guy really is a great pilot.
Warthox frames rock !!
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skyfox55 on April 19, 2014
Awesome piece of work :-) ... Question though: Did you change the values in the firmware or is this done purely through the GUI pid settings?

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Provotroll on April 25, 2014
Mostly through the GUI. But I activated the Low Pass Filter in the firmware.
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Tazwell on May 4, 2014
You have a very good looking build and frame. I have translated many of the post on FPV.de on the subject of this frame, but still have a few questions. What, if any mods would or could you do to this frame to make it more crash worthy? I am under the impression that the aluminum arms/booms can bend rather easily. What is the size of the tubing? 12mm-16mm? Have you seen the Simplecopter T's or V's? If so, would it be possible to use a similar technique and materials on the FQuad frame, including zip tying the motors? Lastly, Ebola and a few others on FPV.de have written about drift issues, is this a problem that can not be corrected or is it just on the first release of the frame? Many thanks for any and all additional information.
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FQuad