X450 Quadcopter
Proper Test Flight
The carbon props arrived the other day so I fitted them and did a hover test in our back garden. It managed a smidge over 20 minutes which is about what was estimated by ecalc, allowing for the slightly heavier weight of the quadcopter. Suffice to say, I was pretty pleased with that result.
So I took it out for its first proper test flight. We have a large field nearby with a mine chimney in one corner which is an ideal location to test both flying and video. Here’s a short video of the flight from the under-slung GoPro clone:
As you can see, the gimbal stabilisation didn’t work for some reason. I also didn’t have any FPV video for most of the flight which may have been due to a low receiver battery - I’ll have a poke around and see what I can figure out.
The eventual flight time was 10 minutes but the battery was slightly light on the initial charge and it was quite windy so I think we’ll be looking at a maximum of 12 minutes flying time when I go out properly. This isn’t as much as I was hoping for based on the hover test but it is just within my planned 12-15 minutes and I suspect I’ll be able to improve it by trimming some weight but it’ll do for now. I suspect a second battery will be in my near-term shopping list to ensure we get a decent amount of air time when visiting sites.
As for actual flight characteristics, it seemed fine. There was a little bit of wandering in a reasonably strong and gusty wind - there may be some additional tuning I can do to improve that - but it flew well, didn’t do anything unexpected and took off and landed smoothly.
A quick review of how things stand against my original set of issues:
Video signal issues
Still not fixed - I really need to figure this out before I can call this project ‘Done’.
Poor video quality
Definitely fixed. I might print a lens hood to see if it makes any difference but, if it doesn’t, I’ll be perfectly happy with the video this GoPro clone is producing.
Lack of video recording
This one’s also fixed by the GoPro clone.
Short flight time
My goal was 12-15 minutes. It’s currently a maximum of 12 so, as suggested above, there’s more work to be done here.
Poor battery life confidence
With the battery voltage being transmitted to my handset over telemetry and an alarm set to sound at a defined low voltage, I felt a lot more confident over remaining battery life so we’ll call this one fixed.
No bystander video
The situation is no different so far. I need to invest in a proper ground station setup with separate observer video.
While there’s some tinkering to be done, and I need to figure out why the video isn’t transmitting reliably, this is the last post I expect to make on this project for a while. I don’t plan on making any immediate changes to the copter itself (although that could change if I see an opportunity for real improvement) but I do plan on making some kind of carry case to make it easier to carry to filming locations. I’ll also be setting up a ground station so watch here for progress on both of those next year. In the meantime, I’ll be getting used to flying it so feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel to see new videos when I upload them.
Posted on 02 October 2016
