Thanks!

I used .32mm Kanthal so that it had a bit of strength. I'd tried before just cutting it with scissors and then trying to seal the edges with a flame, but it always started to fray the moment it was cut. With a hot wire, it seals as you cut it.

Getting close now...just waiting for the big bundle of wires I just soldered to cool down so I can shrink wrap them.

So, crunch time... will I be able to get the top plate on?

My jaw dropped in awe as my eyes saw the first pic of the frame.
*geeehhh, now THAT'S innovative! DIG IT A LOT!!

(04-Apr-2017, 03:23 PM)RENOV8R Wrote: I used a 3M polishing kit.  Problem is it's super expensive ($125) but I stumbled across it on a clearance sale.

..you sure did a lot of buffing, looking at all those rounded edges. Actually, you could have just as well started off with ordinary pumice powder and a bristle brush (natural bristles are the best, but plastic work as well..) in an electric drill clamped to a table. Wet the powder with water until it forms a sludge, smear it onto the metal and then "clean it off" with relatively low rpm's on the brush. You'll need to set up a plastic container in the trajectory of the rotating brush, or your wall will look like jackson pollock's orgasm.
Polish surfaces with surfaces, meaning get an old turntable and "tune" the driving unit. Still adaptable with electric drill, just some work. Smear some resin onto it and cut (very) fine sanding paper to size. (2-0 to 5-0 grit). Sort of an improvised lapidary. Works splendidly for champhered edges and even surfaces. Lapidating can be a step before working with pumice if the surface is that coarse.
Polishing compounds are usually greasy and don't cost much. Either get a buffing wheel (cotton, leather, anything floppy..) or a fine, soft brush (-wheel, electric drill..)
For 125$, you would have gotten years of supply of the mentioned components.. 

It fits!



There's a little room left.



Thankfully, the slight backward lean on the flight controller will calibrate out, so that's not an issue. There was some swearing after I'd soldered the XT60 on and realised I'd soldered on a plug instead of a socket, but if that's my only problem with this build, I'll be happy.

First thing tomorrow will be finding somewhere for the RX and VTX, mounting the camera and checking for shorts before the first, nail biting application of power!

If I'm lucky, I might be able to take this out for a maiden flight in the afternoon.

I don't know who's more excited
Going to be gorgeousness in the air!

That's a thing of beauty! Just don't take it over water on the maiden. it won't float

(01-May-2017, 02:06 AM)RENOV8R Wrote: That's a thing of beauty!  Just don't take it over water on the maiden. it won't float

 

I didn't get to maiden the SwiftBlade today. When I started looking at how I was going to mount the camera, RX and VTX it became obvious that I needed to make some modifications to the top plate so that I could mount the pigtail from the Unify Pro HV VTX.
Then I realised that I hadn't run a wire for the SmartAudio input to the VTX and also that I'd need to add an OSD if I wanted to change channels via SmartAudio as well.

So, it was time to take the middle plate off again, get drilling and filing the top plate and adding a piggy OSD to the back of the Monster FPV cam. I also needed to get the camera mounted to the top plate as there was no room for any nuts and bolts under the middle plate.

In the end, it worked out fairly well. There's a lot of electronics crammed into the front of the craft and it remains to be seen what kind of video signal I'll get. Anyway, here's the top plate with the VTX pigtail firmly fastened via the new holes. The XSR antennas fastened very nicely to tie wraps in the slots that were already there.



As I said, there's quite a bit of wiring and electronics crammed in there!



I also made use of some tie wraps around the middle standoffs to prevent the battery demolishing all that electronics in a crash.



The build came in at 428g dry weight:



Or with a Tattu 1550mA/h 4S 75C battery which just fits in the middle, 613g.



It is, at least, ready for a maiden flight after work tomorrow. Betaflight is set up, motor directions set, ESCs calibrated and a model is created on my Devo 10 and bound to the XSR. Can't wait!

I know I am late to this thread but OMG! Is it OK to have a crush on another man's quad?

I saw you mention this frame before and I was excited by the idea then, but now that I see you working it out I can't help but really be impressed. You Sir are possibly building the best quad I've seen yet. ♥

Ooooohhhh maaaann!
Great use of the zip ties! Genius
The balance of that sexy beast should be amazing!

The idea of using zip ties like this to protect the camera and electronics from the battery comes from the frame's designer. It's a simple and effective idea.

I might actually glue some sandpaper to the middle plate where the battery is going to sit. There's just enough room to get a battery strap around the battery, but certainly not enough for any velcro or foam to help prevent the battery from sliding. Having a battery that weighs over 180g moving around isn't exactly a good thing.

Annoyingly, my beeper doesn't seem to be working. I hope that all I need to do is solder on a new one, as I really don't want to have to take the middle plate off again now that I've thread locked the standoffs.

Once I've verified that I get a good FPV video feed, I need to get some conformal coating sprayed on the naked OSD board as well. It should also help keep all the wires in place.

Looking at the finished build this morning, I think I might need to fit some motor guards...



Crashes are not going to be friendly to those motors - they are just a little wider than the mount and will be the first thing to make contact with the ground in a crash.

Beeper problem solved!

It looks like I had a bit of a Homer Simpson moment when I soldered those wires on.

If you want to maintain the "metal" look, you could probably drill/cut some appropriately-sized thin fender washers to make your own motor guards (at the expense of a little weight) ...

(or maybe some of those little disks that are used to help hold down roofing paper)

Build looks great BTW!

So, the SwiftBlade just had its maiden LOS flight!

I'm just sitting down with a beer to review the black box logs that I recorded, but the flight itself was a great success. The first thing I took away from it was remembering why I liked the feel of classic, two bladed props. None of that floaty feeling that you get with triblades and a pretty much instantaneous response. Despite the 6" 6040 props hardly being what you'd call light, the torque that these 2306 motors have made them feel like they were weightless.

There are monstrous amounts of power available here. The quad hovers at 40% throttle and is almost silent until you really open it up. Punching out from a hover showed this build to be the fastest quad I've ever flown. I've got some fast quads, the Chameleon being one of them, but the vertical acceleration was ridiculous. Interestingly, none of my punch outs triggered the low battery warning either, which says good things about the real life current draw of these motors with 6" props, and a lot about the 1550mA/h 75C Tattu battery. I wish there was a current sensor on this build, but there ain't and there's no room to add one either.

It certainly didn't feel like a 620g tank. It was really smooth and responsive in the air and could flip and roll with almost no loss of altitude at zero throttle.

Anyway, time to look at those logs. I did notice that the motors were warm - thankfully not hot - and I really didn't expect that given the 12 centigrade temperature and strong westerly wind at the field.

I need to do something else with the battery leads though. I ended up securing the annoying GensAce balance connector to the top plate with some thin dual lock tape and using the same at the back with the combined leads from the battery and quad to keep them securely out of the way of the props. It's not a particularly elegant solution though. It feels like I need some way to secure the XT60 socket underneath the craft as that would automatically make the long lead from the battery wrap around the back of the quad and keep it safe.