It has been a gorgeous weekend outside here in North Texas. We went flying yesterday and I am about to go again today. I just wanted to share a video from yesterday by my buddy Drew (YouTube rcfreak9). Yesterday he tested flying his mini, in moderate wind using a Hero3 as the fpv camera. No lag, no issues. More on the weekend later.

Enjoy in HD.

Over the course of the past couple of days I decided to install yet more goodies on the MiniBone. When I purchased the APM2 flight controller installed in the mini along with it came a MinimOSD. I had yet to really have a need for an OSD but since I had it here I figured why not so I stuck it on the mini. Also, a friend of mine loaned me a pair of 3DR radios to play with. If you are not familiar with the 3DR Radios, they allow live telemetry on your PC, as well as waypoint implementation, live editing, etc. Very, very handy tool for editing APM settings and recording your flight information. To upload a new PID setting for example, you land, disarm, make change, hit the save button (which uploads it to the controller), arm and fly. You never touch the quad or unplug anything. Dialed!!

The installation of the two was fairly simple. Granted I did run into a couple of problems. (Not a fault of the equipment but more my lack of knowledge.)The first thing to do was connect the MinimOSD to the computer using my FTDI cable and update the firmware to the latest greatest versions. A quick visit to the google wiki (link below) and I downloaded the latest .hex file for the MinimOSD. I always like to make sure I am running the latest firmware. This is where my mistake was made. The latest version was 2.x and the MinimOSD had 1.0 upon arrival. I thought that I updated the firmware correctly with the GUI but turns out I didn’t and installed everything, buttoned up the frame on the mini only to find that I had not updated the firmware and what was loaded on the osd was not compatible with my flight controller firmware. So when updating the firmware with the OSD Config Tool you must download the latest .hex file separately and choose it when choosing to update or all will be for not.. Configuring the MinimOSD via the config tool was painfully simple. Move your items around on the screen that you want on your display. You can add info or take it away. There are also options for multiple screens changeable via the transmitter. I decided to run both components simultaneously which makes the wiring just that much more complicated. Basically both the MinimOSD and the 3DR use the same pins and output from the APM board. I could have soldered the two units together at the pins OR I could have built in a Y type wiring system where both units pull from the same place and split. I opted for the Y configuration because the 3DR was not mine, just on loan. This allows me to remove it easily when it is time to return the units. The wiring scheme I followed is available on the wiki linked at the bottom of the post.

Flying the MiniBone with telemetry was pretty cool. I didn’t look at it much but the thought of knowing where home is via the arrow was reassuring. Also, knowing that the 3DR is recording the location at all times kinda helps as well. If I was to lose the mini the mission planner would have the down location recorded. Altitude and speed were other cool features I thought. One other thing to note if you are using a 3DR simultaneously with a MinimOSD, you have to have Mission Planner connected to the vehicle via the 3DR system or you will have no information displayed. If you wire the OSD according to the wiki and are not using the 3DR system then everything is fine. I freaked out on that very issue for an hour before I figured out what the deal was.

All in all I think the new additions to the MiniBone have their place, but not on the mini. I don’t see myself taking the mini far enough away to need waypoints or the return to home arrow. The Monster Hex will be receiving these parts tonight and tomorrow in anticipation for possibly fpv’ing the hex this weekend. I feel that the use of the MinimOSD and 3DR will be much more beneficial on the hex. So the MiniBone will be going on a diet again by losing the GoPro, MinimOSD, 3DR, Sonar, related brackets, etc. My trusty GoPro Hero2 will be replaced by the lighter and capable Horyzon HD (the only working one I have left). So more on that soon.

I also tested some new props today. The Gemfan 8×4.5 carbon fiber slow fly propellers. Very nice construction. They spin true and caused no jello in todays videos. I flew them back to back with the Graupner’s. Granted these are two different types of airfoil designs but whatever.. lol. They both fly excellent but the added lift with the slow fly seemed to make the MiniBone a bit more stable, especially at slow speeds. The Graupner’s feel better at higher speeds. So for outdoor high(er) speed flying I’ll rock the Graupner props. Flying / filming indoors are all about the Gemfan carbons. Also worth mention is the difference in weight. The Carbon Fiber Gemfans come in at a mere 5.4g each and for my setup need no adapters. The Graupner E Props came in at a 9.3g with the aluminum 8mm-5mm adapter. Without the adapter the Graupner’s were still comparably hefty at 8.8g. The Gemfan props are very stiff in comparison. Graupner props are stiffer than APC props (at least the ones I have had) and Gemfans carbons are even stiffer than that and lighter than both. That is two wins in my book that theoretically could result in better performance and longer flight times. Pictures below. Please click the picture for a bigger view and description.

MinimOSD Wiki – http://code.google.com/p/arducam-osd/wiki/minimosd

OSD Config Tool – http://code.google.com/p/arducam-osd/wiki/OSD_Config_Tool

Upon arrival at the location in Frisco I was immediately intimidated by the wind and flying the MiniBone in it. It wasn’t that the wind was blowing that hard but the MiniBone comes in at only 12″ diameter and right at 2lbs fully loaded with fpv gear. I flew it line of sight first just to see how it was. The mini wasn’t too bad but I was uneasy about fpv’ing it still. My buddy Drew got his new mini out of the car and flew line of sight. His mini looked really good in the wind. Not being one to be one upped by Drew…lol I decided heck with it. The flight will either be a success or a test in airframe durability. I grabbed my goggles, loaded a fresh battery and went for it. Much to my surprise the MiniBone with the help of the APM2 (thanks Drew) was manageable in the wind. It does need a bit of flight controller tuning but nothing major. You will notice in the videos that the nose would pop up and almost hit the brakes sometimes. That was me barely lifting on the elevator. When I did this the quad snapped level. A simple PID adjustment will fix it. I felt comfortable with it though. The rig does need more power for sure. My old worn out, crashed several times, fixed, etc SunnySky 980kv motors just barely had the gas sometimes. I have a set of NTM 3530 1100kv motors that will be installed soon. With that being said I tested the airframe as much as I deemed safe to do. I surely didn’t want to throw the mini into a bad situation and not have the power to pull out of it. The GoPro was servo taped to the lower frame. Nothing fancy. I wanted to see just how much vibration would manage to transfer through to the plate.

Also, for the first time I tried flying fpv through the gopro with the MiniBone. I have a GoPro Hero2. After hearing all the stories about video lag I was scared to trust it to one of my multirotors. This past weekend I set the camera at 720p 30fps. All of my fpv packs were flown at that setting. Today I flew around some more in an attempt to get accustomed to the feel of flying with the gopro at 720p/30fps. As of right now I can tell zero difference. It feels the same when flying as any other camera. So far there has been no lag for me. The next session I will try 1080p/30fps and 720p/60fps to see if the higher frame rate and resolution will have an effect on the latency via fpv. It may or may not, I have no idea but I wanted to see for myself.

I have yet to fly the newest frame design. The changes will only make it more tunable and I suspect the MiniBone will fly exactly the same as it does now if not better. I will be working more on the MiniBone in the coming days. So much more to come soon. If you are interested in a MiniBone feel free to shoot me an email at wesbrown@outfrontframes.com.

Flight One

As with all first flights, I kept it close and kinda got the feel for it.

Flight Two

I decided to push it a little more on this one. Climbed up to a respectable altitude for the second fpv with the MiniBone. Tried to build a bit more speed sometimes.

In my last post I mentioned how I lost a motor and it ended my test session… After further investigation it turned out to be my trusty Quadrino Zoom. I bought that particular Zoom from a friend whom I know crashed it upside down. However, it worked fine for hundreds of more flights. Then I crash the MiniBillet with the same Zoom board. After that it was installed in the MiniBone where it was never really right. I think the crash in the billet frame started the clock of death on the Zoom and it was a matter of time before it expired.

So, moving on, I landed a sweet deal on an APM2 board, Sonar, GPS, MinimOSD from a good friend of mine. From the moment I knew the Zoom board was toast I immediately wanted to install an APM with all the bells and whistles. I wanted to see how well the APM2 could handle a mini, especially outdoors in mild wind. Also on the upgrade list was a full set of Graupner props in the 8×5 E-Prop flavor. I buy my Graupner props from www.v-eastonline.com. Their customer service is some of the best in the business. Also, if you have never tried a Graupner prop I highly encourage you to do so. I have yet to balance one and I get no jello or inconsistencies in my video.

As for the edits to the frame, I tried a few different things. However, the biggest and most notable was a new lower plate designed for a GoPro. My Horyzon HD from foxtechfpv.com works great but not everyone has them. Tons more GoPro’s exist than HHD so it was only right to design an alternate plate. Other changes include provision for APM Sonar, flight controller protector / GPS mount, thinner bottom plate and aluminum hardware.  Future changes will be more balance adjustment fore and aft with the battery and dedicated balance point built into the chassis for easy cg checking with different setups. The new parts are drawn but I have not had the time to cut them.

The improved MiniBone flies very good, much better than before. The added GPS and Sonar functions really work well. I am still tuning and getting the APM2 lined out for the mini but so far so good. The new bottom plate with the GoPro allows the video transmitter to be placed farther back in the chassis for better weight balance. A great side effect of this is the ability to raise the video antenna or in my case bend it upright and use my FatShark enclosed CP antennas. This improved video tons over the whip I was using with the other plate. I wanted to post a progress report so everyone could see the progress. The only real videos is either at night (they suck) or the ones inside my shop area (its a mess) so hopefully this weekend the wind will calm down a bit and allow some good fpv from the mini. Pics below. As always click on the picture for a bigger view and caption.
Thanks for reading.