Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Double Down

Seeing as we have a short week and we need two blog posts a week, we have two posts in two days. Not much has happened since the last post, but we do have our power distribution board and are planning on wiring it next week after we finish prototyping our landing gear mount. Our first prototype has been 3D printed, but the screws don't fit so we fixed the issue in our model and are currently trying to print it out.

Our First Printed Prototype
3D Rendering of our Current Model

Monday, November 24, 2014

Gobble Gobble

Update 11/24/2014: The Power Distribution Board just came in!!!  

There's only two days of school this week so we aren't expecting much to get done, though we'll do the most we can. We're getting started on 3D modelling the landing-gear we're planning to make. We kinda hit a road block on the programming side of our project, so we've decided to put that on hold. We'll come back to it with fresh minds when we're done with the landing gear. We're still waiting on the power distribution board to continue wiring and we hope that it'll come while we're gone for Thanksgiving.
Current prototype for the landing-gear mount.

Friday, November 21, 2014

We've Hit Turbulence

This week we have gotten stuck on flashing the software on to our flight controller. After following multiple tutorials and guides, the computer will not communicate with our flight controller. We are also waiting for our power distribution board to be delivered, we expect it to be in by next week, which will continue progress on the hexacopter build itself.


Monday, November 17, 2014

Code Monkeys

This week, we are planning to interface the flight controller with one the school computers. By attempting to program the flight controller early, we will be able to debug early as well. Once the power distribution board comes in, we will continue with the wiring, but for now we're doing whatever else needs to get done before the first test flight.





Friday, November 14, 2014

Slow, But Steady

We have found the perfect power distribution board for our purpose and hopefully will have it soon. We have mounted the ESCs to the top of our frame. We have also put the gimbal together, but haven't started wiring the motors to the gimbal controller as we do not know where we are mounting it yet. As soon as our power distribution board comes in, we will continue with the wiring of the hexacopter.

Monday, November 10, 2014

We Can't Do It Captain, We Don't Have the Power!



We are continuing to look for a power distribution board or an alternative. We have looked into DIY power distribution boards and wire harnesses, but we would prefer buying one to making our own. The only power distribution boards we've found so far won't work for our hexacopter, most don't have enough motor ports or don't have a high enough amperage rating. This week we are planning to mount the ESCs and put the gimbal together in addition to searching for a power distribution board.


One Option for the Board

Friday, November 7, 2014

Race to the Top

We started building the hexacopter the second we got the parts. So far we've put the frame together, mounted the motors, and wired the ESCs. We're not sure where to mount the ESCs yet, but we'll probably end up mounting them under the motors and we'll have to shorten up some cables and lengthen others. We also found out that we need a power distribution board and are currently looking into what kind we'll need. This project may prove to be harder than we first thought, but we are up to the challenge.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Waiting for Wednesday



All of the parts for our hexacopter are coming in Wednesday and we can't wait to start building it. As soon as the parts come in, we are going to start to build. The entire project is going to be custom, we didn't buy pre-built copter or a kit, just a bunch of separate parts that will work together. There isn't much else to do for now, except looking into what landing gear and improvements we can make to the basic hexacopter we are going to build.
A hexacopter built with the frame we'll be using, the Tarot T960