About to start a major rebuild of this:

- Micro APM which will work with the Micro APM power board in the belly of the beast. (and stop the iNav/Cleanflight/Triflight drama)
- New Racerstar 20A ESCs
- New/Spare frame parts to get best tail function

   

Using the Rotorbits tail gear pressed into the Hobbyking tail motor platform gives a few (about 4) extra millimetres of length, and importantly the longer piece does not gall on the mounting shaft.  It was only this combination of parts that didn't gall.  Given that galling up was part of the issues I had first time around I'm very keen to avoid it.

I've also stripped out all the electronics ready to install the new stuff and would have started with the tail ESC but the cat had other ideas.

   

Nice one Aaron

Well moving back to APM/Pix plus the new ESCs delivered instant success. Strapped on a 4000mah 3S that is done all the ground testing with (so maybe 3/4 charged) and flew this around the front yard in a hefty breeze for 15 minutes.

Battery then only took 2900ma to full charge

It’s so quiet, and while a bit jittery it’s running with no PID tuning or anything.

Will now neaten up the last of the wiring and take some pictures. Then it’s build a upper deck/frame to hang my stabilised gimbal from and see how that goes. First I think I’ll get proper telemetry on it though...

And it's broken

Turns out I should stick to reading docs better. The tail servo (Emax ES09D) caused a brownout of the power to the flight controller resulting in a fall from sky which also broke the tail servo. Re-wired the tail servo to have its own 5v power via a Matek mini power board and also converted the tail wiring to accept plugging in servos so I can change them without soldering.

Tried a spare servo only to strip the gears before it even got off the ground. Metal gear is essential it seems.

(27-Dec-2018, 01:50 AM)Aaron Wrote: And it's broken

Turns out I should stick to reading docs better. The tail servo (Emax ES09D) caused a brownout of the power to the flight controller resulting in a fall from sky which also broke the tail servo. Re-wired the tail servo to have its own 5v power via a Matek mini power board and also converted the tail wiring to accept plugging in servos so I can change them without soldering.

Tried a spare servo only to strip the gears before it even got off the ground. Metal gear is essential it seems.

Trial and error lol

I have 5 replacement servos coming (2x Emax and 3x JX) two of this servos are earmarked for a different project but in the interest of trying to have spares I've ordered up big.

Sadly buying servos locally is out of the question - $10-15 for a JX or Emax from Banggood (delivered) versus a 50km roundtrip drive and $59-$109 from the local hobby shop.