Tarot X6 New Build

[AlanN]

I';m just about to start building a Tarot X6, the frame arrived today , and the last of my orders are passing through Heathrow just arrived.. This will be a voyage of discovery as I have nothing but you guys and Youtube for reference.

Phase 1
Tarot X6 frame TL6X001
Tarot 5008/340KV motors TL96020
Tarot 15" folding propellors TL100D01 TL100D02 TL100B16
Hobbywing XRotor 40A ESC';s
DJI Wookong
2 * Frsky X8R (Separate FC & Camera/Gimbal control)
2 * Taranis X9D Transmitters (Separate FC & Camera/Gimbal control)
Fat Shark Attitude V2 Goggles (250mW 7ch 5G8 TX 600TVL FPV Tuned CMOS camera)

Phase 2 merged in with phase 1 
DYS 3 axis Gimbal
Sony A6000
DJI mini OSD
DJI datalink

Ill add some pictures as I go, and undoubtedly ask a shed load of questions.

[AlanN]

First Impressions are good, All the parts appear to be solid and well finished

Top plate is Carbon, lower plate is a combination of circuit board for power and ESC control distribution
and a reinforcing CF plate attached to the underside.

I was NOT expecting to find the 6 way power hub, it was visible in some of the images for the X8 but not on the X6
Not sure If I';m going to keep it or not

The 6 coax type power cables came in the box. Can these really handle 20 - 30A

There are 3 power connectors on the board, haven';t checked yet if these are connected to the main hub but I assume
they are and are meant to provide power to FC and receiver etc. We also have here the input from the FC for the 6 ESC';s

Adjacent to each of the arms is the connector for the signal cable to the ESC, these also came in the box

I sat one of the motors on one of the mounts for no particular reason other than it looked nice 

The hinge for the arms are already fitted and are aluminum

[AlanN]

Santa sent his DHL helpers today, looks like I have everything to make a start

I was planning on fitting the ESC';s on the center plate , however now I that I have
everything , perhaps on the underside of the motor mounts would be cleaner.

[AlanN]

I';m coming round to the idea of using the supplied coax style power leads.
Last nights thoughts were to butcher the power hub and solder 16AWG silicone cables in place of the connectors
and run these to each ESC, however after doing some forum searching , I don';t see anyone having any
issues or concerns with the tarot power system.


Just need to find a good use for 8m of Black,Red & Yellow Turnigy silicone wire.

[AlanN]

Finally got time to start building and learning proper.
Honestly someone wants to manufacture a right angled bullet connector, with magic heatshrink that likes to bend at 90 degrees, never mind got there in the end. The Tarot 5008/340KV motors have silly short wires and the Hobbywing XRotor 40A ESC';s expects to be presented with a bullet connector, perhaps I should have removed them and wired straight onto the ESC.

Having never touched a transmitter/receiver,BEC,ESC or motors before it was good to get the 6 arms fully built and ESC';s calibrated. I even remembered to make 3 of them rotate in the opposite direction.

Not sure how I managed to end up with about 3 miles of multicoloured heatshrink but I have done.

Tarot supplied the retractable landing gear in the up position, so needed to get my 1 channel setup back out again and lower them before I could attach to the bottom plate.

Note. You don';t get much Loctite in a 3ml tube, should have bought more.

Right, picture time.

Look mum no hands 


Its my table now 


Please add Items here


Next on my virtual list of TBD  is to decide where to put everything, have lots of bits to find some space for. It will be a 2 person setup eventually with seperate receiver for the gimbal which I don';t have yet  .

[Cloudbuster]

Looks very nice indeedy !! Have one wingin its way from the land of madness so will be watchin ur build with interest ....

Regards rob  ::)

[adibbins]

Hi AlanN,

I also ordered won around the christmas time and its now arrived. My first impressions are that it looks and feels OK.

I have some questions and thoughts, about the power distribution board in the centre:
    - Will you use those very think battery cables ?
    - I had planned to use a battery with XT90 connectors, I don';t think I want to daisy chain thru those connectors as well,
      do you think it would be possible to unsolder the cables and resolder tails with an XT90 in stead?
    - I had also planned to use a pixhawk FC, the best location is in the centre right where the power dist. is located.
    - I planned for the battery to go top, where';s yours going ?

Thanks Andy

[AlanN]

Hi Andy, I was concerned the power cables were not heavy enough tbh. but if you see the picture above they are about equivalent to 16awg (maybe slightly less).
I considered removing the connectors from the power hub and soldering my own cables out to each of the motors, I have all the cable to do that. But I came across some other posts elsewhere by seasoned veterans that seemed happy to go with the tarot power distribution , so for now I';m going with it.
I will be removing the sparkless connector and soldering a Y piece to 2 sets of 4mm bullet connectors for 2 nano-tech 6000mah 6S batteries.
Just started to arrange the components last night but so far I think I';m using the supplied battery tray underneath.

Disclaimer. This is my 1st attempt, so please don';t assume I know what I';m doing 

Alan

[Cloudbuster]

If you can chaps avoid placing batteries on top always go for the underneath option if you can !!! Having batteries on top is detrimental to the balance of C of G and always means your flight controller has to work much harder to keep things in order especially in challenging weather conditions. This puts more stress on your batteries and although it may not be much it will reduce flight times and most importantly having the batteries below provides a much more stable platform... The new X6 frame gives a great deal more space for your electronics over previous tarot models with the downward folding legs freeing up even more space, all your goodies should easily fit within the single deck which means you will be able to build a very clean looking machine with no wiring on display.. Feel free to PM if you want any help i have built over twenty multi,s using tarot frames so have a good understanding of the way they do stuff...

Regards rob 

[AlanN]

If you can chaps avoid placing batteries on top always go for the underneath option if you can !!! Having batteries on top is detrimental to the balance of C of G and always means your flight controller has to work much harder to keep things in order especially in challenging weather conditions. ...

Regards rob 

Thanks Rob, I figured the balance thing, but wasn';t aware of the impact to the fc. That confirms my plan for using the tray.

[AlanN]

Damn... 1 little gotcha with this frame. It comes with the body section prebuilt and I didn';t have to take it apart to attach the arms or legs.
However if you intend to fit the supplied GPS mount you need to remove the top plate, which has around 40 tiny little screws that will all need to be dipped in loctite again when I put it back together.
I did try and attach it,  and managed to just about tighten 1 of the 2 machine screws into the base from underneath and the other is about half way in but Murphy';s law is sure to apply, the screw will drop out, the base of the GPS mount will rotate 90 degrees and I';ll end chasing it to France.

[quadfather]

Damn... 1 little gotcha with this frame. It comes with the body section prebuilt and I didn';t have to take it apart to attach the arms or legs.
However if you intend to fit the supplied GPS mount you need to remove the top plate, which has around 40 tiny little screws that will all need to be dipped in loctite again when I put it back together.
I did try and attach it,  and managed to just about tighten 1 of the 2 machine screws into the base from underneath and the other is about half way in but Murphy';s law is sure to apply, the screw will drop out, the base of the GPS mount will rotate 90 degrees and I';ll end chasing it to France.

The pic is too small to tell the size, but can';t you use an screw from the top secured with a nut underneath the plate?

[AlanN]

The pic is too small to tell the size, but can';t you use an screw from the top secured with a nut underneath the plate?

Haha yes I could , not sure if that';s one step too close to admitting defeat, after spending near 2 hours trying to get them in from underneath with bent wire, blutack and very sore finger tips. 

[adibbins]

Thanks Rob, Well noted batteries to reside underneath.Regards Andy

[AlanN]

Just setting up my new flight controller . Bloke told me it was a DodJI

[james]

+1 on the low CoG battery placement. I';ve got my 450 set up with a 10Ah battery (1kg, 1.5kg for the rest of the craft(!)) slung underneath slap bang in the middle and it';s very solid, the FC';s not working very hard. I';m using a big battery tray from FlyingTech with three strips of velcro on the bottom and on the top of the battery, plus a couple of velcro straps.

I';m seriously loving the look of this frame. Think it might be my next build! All that lovely real estate in the middle of the frame... so much room for activities!

[AlanN]

Well its been a busy couple of weeks, but lots of progress.

1st thoughts of bulding it without taking the top plate off were just silly, so off it came and the mont for gps properly secured.

I put the WKM at the front on the bottom plate, the PMU next to that, and the controller for the retracts on top of the power hub. only other item on this level was the BEC for the video transmitter.


I have 2 frsky X8R receivers, so 1 either side at the front but under the bottom plate. Don';t you just love velcro 
Receiver #1 is for the WKM and the retracts, so I set it up in mode D giving me channels 1 - 8 on sbus and 9 - 16 on pwm pins , using channel 9 for the retracts.

2nd X8R is for the gimbal, video switcher and remote camera control, Got it all working but have removed the gimbal for now till I get some confidence in the air.




I mounted the LED BTU under the bottom plate just poking out like a warp drive


TIP . before you button it all up, make sure you have tested the retracts properly, particularly the failsafe. If its connected properly the retracts should go down when you pull the pwm lead from the receiver.

So on with the top plate, throw away most of the supplied screws (bit too soft) and replace with some nice quality dome headed 3m x 8 fastners.

Plenty of room up top for the IMU, just forward of centre.  Also added a mini iOSD , DJI datalink and fatshark video Tx which is now sporting a fine skew antenna courtesy of Gav


Having rechecked everything in the flight assistant for about the 10th time , I plucked up the courage to fit the folding props, had they came in anything but black or red, they wouldn';t have made the cut I';m afraid.




More to come...............

[AlanN]

How did that happen, couple of months ago I didn';t know what a Lipo was

[AlanN]

All dressed up with nowhere to go.



Weather and nerves permitting I';ll maybe give it a try tomorrow.

[Kitetraveller]

Good luck with the maiden flight!

The sense of achievement will be awesome!

Cheers
Andy

All dressed up with nowhere to go.



Weather and nerves permitting I';ll maybe give it a try tomorrow.

[AlanN]

Well "Dex the Hex" as it';s now known does indeed fly.... Nothing to compare it with but it seems to do what was expected.



Need to find some thin black tube to run at 90 degrees across the battery tray rails and out each side to hold 1 of the antenna tails up, but apart from that we smiled.
Video needed a fair bit of editing as a lot of it was out of focus but you only get 1 1st flight so here it is
http://youtu.be/6lW6XKTX-7I

Got some better footage of its 2nd flight but need a bit of editing, maybe tomorrow

[AlanN]

2nd flight from yesterday, bit better focus, shame I kept moving Dex around ....
http://youtu.be/k6yt4mDxhWg

Going to get rid of my homemade parallel harness for the 2 6S Lipos and replace with a 2 into 1 XT90 connector setup, wasn';t until I watched it hanging down that I realised just how naff it was.

[Friskle]

Looks Good Alan, but also looks quite unstable or at least quite waggly ?

[Cloudbuster]

Looks Good Alan, but also looks quite unstable or at least quite waggly ?

Hi alan .... I have to agree, looks very twitchy. Looks like you may have some flight controller issues there.. I would start by seeing if you have any vibration issues, this could be unsettling things... It should be rock steady using any DJI controller...

Regards rob

[AlanN]

Looks Good Alan, but also looks quite unstable or at least quite waggly ?

Hi alan .... I have to agree, looks very twitchy. Looks like you may have some flight controller issues there.. I would start by seeing if you have any vibration issues, this could be unsettling things... It should be rock steady using any DJI controller...

Regards rob

Thanks guys

Wasn';t sure how twitchy or waggly it should be tbh.. (its not as twitchy as my hubsan, but I guess that doesn';t count)

I lifted the values for the fc out the WKM manual as I figured it was similar to an S800 EVO

                  Propeller   Battery   Weight   Pitch  Roll   Yaw Vertical  (Att) Pitch Roll
S800 EVO  15 Inch   6S - 15000  6700g   130   130  150   150              180  180


I';m going to try using Rob';s values next time and see if that makes a difference...

[Cloudbuster]

hi alan  dont use my values on a wookong they are for V2 only... i would reduce the atti settings down to 130 each and see if that cleans it up !!! from the vid though it looks more like a vibration issue somewhere !!!

regards rob

[AlanN]

hi alan  :thumbdown:dont use my values on a wookong they are for V2 only... i would reduce the atti settings down to 130 each and see if that cleans it up !!! from the vid though it looks more like a vinration issue somewhere !!!

regards rob

OK, gotcha thanks Rob ... I';ll do some "research" on how to detect/fix vibration . I didn';t make any attempt to balance the folding props, perhaps I should look at that first.