Tim2100's Tarot TL250 Build

[Tim2100]

Like a couple of others on here I have decided to build a 250. I already have my 450 -

But I now fancy a mad 250 to play with so a couple of weeks ago I started speccing out my quad.

DYS BE1806-2400kv motors
Emax 12a SimonK series
1500mAh Nano-tech Turnigy Battery
& Most importantly a Naze32 Acro with BT Module. (From Makeitbuildit)

AsI hadn';t found a frame I also brought a cheap £6 250 frame from HobbyKing to enable me to put things together.  I didn';t like the plastic frames on HK and then a couple of frames I did like were sold out.  I had identified a frame from makeitbuildit but when I checked my email it turns out I had brought a QAV250 Carbon Fibre on FleaBay the night before.

A couple of days later I then found the Tarot TL250 frame partly inspired by Beaver';s build. 2 mins later it was ordered. So I tried to cancel the QAV250 frame which had already been posted. But I found a mate at work whom I managed to get hooked into quads.

When I went to order my Motors & ESC';s they also had a CC3D for £12 so I thought, it would be worth a punt to chuck this in.

Firstly my Motor';s, ESC';s and a set of cheap props arrived


Then with my cheap HK frame I started to assemble the build


As I had brought the CC3D I thought I would use that for this build and then swap to the Naze32

I then tried to add the HK Propellers which I found out had the wrong propeller adapter for the DYS BE1806 motors.  I wanted to fly this on the weekend so Phil from Makeitbuildit, helped me out at the last minute as he is fairly local.  Whilst there I also picked up a Case for the naze and a programmer for the Simon Series ESC';s (Which I had just then found out didn';t contain pure SimonK firmware.

I eventually got this all together

And I was actually able to fly this!  I had been used to the apm giving me a nice comfort blanket with stability, RTL, Loiter & GPS, but I was quite surprised that out of the box the CC3D was able to fly reasonably well, although when flying all the silly feet on the frame fell off so the quad was resting on its battery on the ground.
And then

My frame had arrived!!!


First impressions were that this is a really nice frame.  Although like others I had to mod the frame slightly to get it together. I had to drill a couple of holes that are missing from front supports.  The centre piece some people have had to mod to fit, but I found that whilst a very tight fit it did go together


For my build I wanted to compliment the frame and try and have a neat build so unfortunately the gap between the two plates isn';t enough to do anything useful, although the wiring plate is fabulous.
Firstly I took the Motors & ESC';s off the other quad and I wanted the wiring to be extremely short so I opened the ESC and started to solder directly to the pads, which is a shame as the DYS have very useful long wires.

My Crappy soldering giving a small distance between the motor & ESC


I really like on this frame the pads to solder the Battery Power & Ground, and pads for the signal, and 5V ESC output

The frame is coming together



Another of the nice touches is that the frame has a nice little matrix of connections to go to your flight controller, although bizarly the Signal and Ground from each esc is there but only power from Motor1 is connected.

The frame assembly could continue



In this picture is the Makeitbuildit Naze case with all my pins soldered. Also I had put the top plate down both upside down and the wrong direction.
I then thought I would add the CC3D (which I know works) onto the quad to test the motors and other connectivity And using tim2100 motor direction trick^tm of inserting a piece of paper into the propeller to make sure it is spinning in the correct direction.  All but one was in the correct direction.  M4 was spinning the wrong direction, so I opened the esc and resoldered the pins.



All was going extremely well, the quad was going together  and looking good but I wasn';t quite happy with it.
I decided that the arms would look a lot better with the ESC';s underneath the frame, Fortunately there is a small hole just big enough for 3 motor wires to go through, so Friday night I broke out the soldering iron.  Unfortunately due to how close the plates are the capacitor at the end of the ESC doesn';t fit in at all, so they have to go at the end of the frame arm, ideally this would be at the end of the arm so all wire is hidden.

So after the soldering iron comes out I resolder all the ESC';s, check them with the CC3D and they are all spinning the right way apart from Motor 4 (Again).  I fixed this but when I turned on the Quad the M4 esc got mega hot very quickly.  I striped the motor and this was fine, but unfortunately when I took the motor shaft out the circlip pinged off and cannot be found.  I started buzzing everything out and the output power and ground were touching on the chassis pads, So as that isn;t connected on the chassis I removed the power lead from both the ESC and chassis. And the motor was spinning Yay and no hotness of the esc! So I removed the CC3D and connected the naze.  It took a bit of thinking as the motors are a completely different order than the CC3D, frame, apm etc. (M1=M4, m2=m2 etc). I got them all working.  As I had lost the circlip I didn';t want to fly as the shaft could come out so again Phil (makeitbuildit) came to the rescue and I picked up a new motor yesterday.
When I connected the motor with the short leads ready for installation again it wouldn';t spin! so I checked the esc, all ok but upon closer inspection, due to my repeated attacks with the soldering iron two FET';s had come off the board, I tried to re solder but I cannot get the damn thing working.  A new one has been ordered.
So here we are now.


The esc';s are on the bottom of the frame, the Naze32 is on the top of the frame with the Turnigy receiver loose.

Next up is to receve the ESC and install that, I want to move the naze to the underside of the quad with the receiver and put the battery on top.

Tim.

[Tim2100]

A minor update tonight whilst waiting for my ESC.

I dug out the Bluetooth module and started to think of how to apply it to the Frame.
The first video I found said I needed to find out if it was a 3v3 or 5v BT module.  So I asked the question on here which replied was 5v.  I then checked the module and it is a 3v3 power regulator on the board so it needs 4.3-12v power supply.  So I can take power from the esc as I don';t want to put further drain on the FC.

Firstly I have soldered the 5v from one of the ESC';s to the pads designed for the GPS connection.


This then gives the power to some connections half way down the chassis.  With the Bluetooth adapter connected.. Success!

Which also connects to my phone!



Also I mocked up how everything would fit on the quad.

[Beaver2206]

She';s really coming along nicely.  I also had a shock when I went to strap the Emax ESCs under the arms and found that they didn';t fit owing to that big capacitor!  Managed to mount them with the help of a little foam.

I wish I had of wired the motor directly to the ESCs now.  I considered it at the time, but didn';t have any heat shrink large enough.

Keep up the good work!

[Tim2100]

Thanks Beaver.  It is coming along well. 

Some more progress since Monday.  Wednesday my new ESC arrived so this was soldered up.  To avoid problems this time I just soldered the wires short rather than direct to the pads.
So all motors were setup and esc';s soldered to the frame.

I then decided to re-solder a couple of pads and whilst the frame was in bits I also decided to add some extra wire to the 12v pads to add some LEDS.


So with the quad all back together and powered



Tim Happy!

then it came to setup!
I installed cleanflight on it as I haven';t tried baseflight, so thought I would jump straight to cleanflight.
When trying to take off the quad kept listing over to the left, and back and rotating. So  I recalibrated all esc';s again. still the same so I thought....RTFM!

Reading the naze32_Rev3.pdf document I saw how to update the firmware so I have installed baseflight_Naze_63.hex firmware.  That went great.
Then I saw that I needed to adjust the subtrims so they are centered at 1500.  I adjusted the trims on the controller to 1500 &.......


It takes off smoothy and lifts nicely indoors!.  I';m not brave enough to fly around the house so its looking good.  Now to try and get it all set up.

[Beaver2206]

LEDs look great.  I realised when tightening the last motor arm screw that I hadn';t soldered any feeds for LEDs.  Hopefull flying in FPV mainly, so I';ll see how I get along.

Go on, take it out, let it spread it';s wings propellers...

[Tim2100]

The craft had its first outing over the weekend when I met up with another forum member.  I wasn';t planning to fly but enthusiasm took over me. 

The quad lifted off very nicely.  Very smoothly, but then as I was moving around I kinda crashed into muddy ground.  Oops.

I chipped one prop and another came off.  I then realised I hadn';t tightened up the props.  Doh.  I stopped flying as I realised it wasn';t fully tight.

It has all been tightened with a nice support for the rear lights now.

Also today I have programming in some basic pids and setup flight modes in cleanflight.
Also I have started installing a frisky diy module in my 9x.