Tutorials

So, although no one reads this, I'm back, because, once again, talking to yourself really is fun. The reason is because of the quadcopter I'm building. I've showed everything I've done so far, but that doesn't really show how to do it. Therefore, I will be reposting the things I've done in a more "tutorialish" way. I will hopefully continue until the end of the build and I hope anyone interested will read them.

Keep in mind that these tutorials will be for complete beginners, and not people who have already done big projects like these. This is because I was a complete beginner (on most things) and others will probably encounter similar problems, like, for example, how to attach a propeller to a smaller motor, which is kind of strange. So, that's all I have to say, and I hope I don't keep posting months apart like I have been.

HobbyKing... and more!

It's been weeks and weeks and weeks... and I haven't posted one thing. Of course it doesn't really matter since the person reading this probably got here automagically by being bored. So anyway, I was on a road trip with my family that was very exciting and not boring like you (sorry, I'm just imagining someone who has nothing better to do than read a blog by someone who barely has a clue about anything, including blogging). So the HobbyKing stuff for my quadcopter arrived shortly before we left. I also got some stuff from Home Depot for wiring the quadcopter. I will now go over it all:

This... is the battery (dun dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUN). It gives electricity to the quadcopter so it can fly. That's what a battery is supposed to do. Batteries provide electricity. You learn something everyday, right? So this is supposed to be for the quadcopter, but it's 300 grams. I need my quad to be under 800, so it's rather heavy. However, I'm going to try it out anyway and hope it works.

This is the transmitter. It is basically a huge remote control that you program. It's made for airplanes, but I. Don't. Have. To. OBEY. To the left of the transmitter is the wire that connects it to the computer for programming. On the right is a glorified lanyard for hooking to the transmitter because it's really, really big. The bottom right is the thing it transmits to, which I'll be connecting to the Arduino, so it can do all the work and I don't have to. I don't know what the thing on the bottom left is, so if anyone who's actually bored enough to read this far knows, please tell me. It's the same connection that fits into the antenna, but the wire just loops around.

What you see here is the charger. It charges the battery. The battery because it's not like the battery can magically create electricity... the wall does... duh. Above it is what connects the charger to the wall. It balances and charges the cells of the battery. the only problem is you need to program it to the voltage, amperage, cell number, and a bunch of other stuff of the battery, because god forbid if it could do that itself. I can't really tell it anymore than how many cells there are. Beside it are different connectors for different batteries I don't have. LiPos connect to the side of the charger.

These are the four motors. Now, I know what you're thinking: This guy is stupid! There's only one motor! Well, if you look closely, there are four boxes hidden in the background. They might be hard for a person with an IQ lower than OVER 9000 to see, but they contain three more motors. One is already opened and empty. The motors come with an O-ring and a propeller saver, and I didn't know how they worked until recently because a hero from AeroQuad told me. they attach like this:

This is the battery alarm, but who wouldn't know that? It buzzes and blinks when the battery is low, but I've heard it's hard to see or hear. I won't be using it until I'm done building and testing the quadcopter so I'm in no rush to unpackage it or anything. Plus, I have to change the code if I want to do that and I don't know enough about any of this to attempt that.

The last things that came from HobbyKing were the ESCs, or electronic speed controllers. They CONTROL the SPEED of the motors. That's why they're called SPEED CONTROLLERS. Get it? It's probably too complex, but don't worry. You seem quite intelligent. The only problem with these is that I have to program them with a series of complex movements from the joysticks of the transmitter, which I'm not ready to do until some other time when more likely than not, I'll say this exact sentence again.

This is the invoice from HobbyKing. Just so you know, all those prices are diluted down to 30% because, from what I have read, it helps the package get through customs more quickly.

I also got some things from Home Depot with my dad because I need wiring for the power supply and stuff:

This is the 16 gauge wire I need that comes directly from the battery and branches off eventually into the 18 gauge wire here:

This branches off the 16 gauge wire and goes to each ESC and the Arduino to provide power to all of them.

This is a wire cutter that my dad got because I guess I need it to cut and strip wires. That's all for now.

These are some connectors that will hopefully connect the wires to my battery. I don't think they will, because we just bought what Home Depot had and not what we were supposed to, but they may work.

This is the receipt from Home Depot. I think they skipped an item, but oh well. I have nothing interesting to say.

I have gotten a few things done in the long time I've had. For one, I uploaded the code to the Arduino, and that took like five minutes. I also put together the AeroQuad shield, which goes on top of the Arduino and everything connects to. I have a picture of it here:

This is the very useful soldering iron I used for the shield and will be using for the power supply and battery alarm monitor buzzer thing. It has two heats so I can solder small or large things, and it's helped a lot, even though I've only gotten one thing done with it.

So that's everything. It's now 11:25 and I need to go to sleep because I want to wake up early and do something interesting like relearn how to backflip or try a wallspin. I should start putting tutorials up here on how to do stuff. That would be cool. Of course, only I would read them because this blog is like a ghost town. If I stay in front of this text for much longer, I will get a "very minor case of serious brain damage" to quote Wheatley from Portal 2, the best game ever, which I think everyone should be required to play and every school required to teach. I might make a whole post dedicated to Portal and Valve. So, I'm leaving, and you're probably me.

AeroQuad Stuff

So today, while I was taking a nap, a package arrived with the stuff I ordered from AeroQuad for my quadrocopter. I took a bunch of pictures of all the stuff and I'll explain it. I couldn't experiment with it today because it's late and I haven't finished studying for my Spanish test tomorrow. I plan on weighing everything, working on the Arduno, and balancing the propellers later on this week.

So in the picture above, you can see the view of everything that came. Everything is sealed in its original packaging except the accelerometer, gyroscope, and Ardunio. The second picture (to the right), is just the receipt showing everything that was delivered.

The thing I'm most excited about is the Arduino. This will basically be the brain of the quadrocopter, evaluating everything the transmitter sends and determining outputs for each motor. It came in a nice little box with a bunch of stickers and a little booklet that I probably won't read. The Arduino is probably the coolest item I'll ever see with "Made in Italy" written on it.

So this is the cool box the Arduino came in. It's blue... with words on it.

Here's the box opened. The Arduino is in the center, the information booklet is on the left, and most importantly, the stickers are on the right.

This is the Arduino up close. It's sideways. I'm not sure if it being sideways will be a major problem when putting together my quadrotor; let's hope not.

The next most important thing that came was the shield, to the left. It's not very clear because it's in a bag, but basically, you just put it on top of the Arduino. It's specifically designed both for the quadrocopter and the Arduino so you can easily solder the sensors and other things where they belong.

Another unclear picture. These are the stackable female headers. They simply connect the AeroQuad shield to the Arduino.

These are the straight breakout pins. You can break them apart to have any number connected. You solder them to the sensors and to the shield to easily connect the two together.

These are also very important. The gyroscope (top) measures rotational movement on all three planes. This is necessary so the Arduino can tell how much the quadrotor is tilted and adjust for that. The accelerometer (bottom) measures linear movement on all three planes. It can sense the acceleration of the quadrocopter so it can stay in the same general area in the air. Both give six degrees of freedom and are necessary for stable flight.

This is a servo extension cable. I got seven of them. What they do is connect the radio receiver channels, which are connected to the antenna, to the Arduino. Now the Arduino can evaluate the signals transmitted to the quadrocopter.

The last things that came were the propellers. I ordered four extras, just because according to everyone who's worked on these before, the propellers will be the first things to break. Two of the propellers are normal and two are "pusher" propellers, which are basically reversed and meant to be rotated in the other direction. They simply cancel each other out so the quadrocopter doesn't rotate. I also read that propellers are rarely ever balanced when they arrive, so I need to fix that for each one. If a propeller is unbalanced, it stresses one side of the motor more making it less efficient and decreasing its life. You can imagine what a one-bladed propeller would do to a motor. It's the same thing, but with a reduced effect.

So... that's everything. I plan on keeping updates on this project so you can follow it. Thank you for reading my blog... I just noticed how funny 'blog' sounds. I wonder who made that word up. Anyway, I have to get ready for bed and study for Spanish.