250 series racing quad ordered in time for SELEM!

[buffo]

Well, shit. I told myself I wasn't going to order another quad-copter until after SELEM, but I couldn't help it.

After talking with Chris yesterday, I just placed my order for one of these kits:

http://www.banggood.com/QAV250-Carbo...-p-965217.html

It doesn't come with a radio, but fortunately I have a spare that I can use. Also, it doesn't have any of the FPV gear (no camera, no video transmitter, and no goggles). I plan to add that stuff later, after I've had a chance to fly it a bit and get used to how it handles. (I also bought 3 full sets of extra props because I've been told that people frequently break several props in the beginning.)

Not a bad price though. And it's got upgraded motors and speed controllers, plus it runs the same flight controller that Chris recommended. We shall see how well I can fly it once it arrives and I find time to assemble everything.

Your turn, Brad!

Adam

[buffo]

Well, I got the RC250 assembled this weekend, so I took it for a test flight:



As you can see, on the very first battery I managed to kill 3 props!

Yeah, I crashed it - on the roof no less! Two props were destroyed right away, and the third one had a white line near the tip that told me it was at least partially damaged. I managed to finish that third prop off with my finger when I was carelessly holding the bird and forgot to hit the ground safety switch on the transmitter. A little bump of the throttle and SNAP went the prop! (And *bleed* went my finger! Ouch - that smarts!)

The quad was otherwise completely unharmed from the little mishap on the roof. The props are fragile as hell, but the rest of the rig is build like a goddamned tank. The arms that support the motors in particular are almost ridiculous in their proportions. I believe that they would rip free from the body before they would snap off. (In fairness, the crash was pretty mild, but any crash at all is going to destroy these cheap plastic props. Good thing they only cost about 30 cents!)

Nevertheless, it is a great machine. It hovers very well, and yet when you goose the throttle it will flat out haul ass. That's what got me into trouble - I underestimated it's speed (and I wasn't anywhere near wide open). I got into a situation where my thinking wasn't far enough ahead of the model to figure out what to do next. oops.

Assembly was pretty straightforward, even with the laughably incomplete Chinese instructions. Setting up the CC3D flight controller was really easy too. Once you download the correct software from the web it guides you through the setup rather nicely. Only real snag was that I soldered and shrink-wrapped the motor leads to the electronic speed controllers before I checked for correct rotation. Damn... I had to rewire 3 out of the 4. (Thanks to Chris Tate, aka Lazerjock, for some much-appreciated advice via Skype during the final assembly.) Also, dealing with the very small allen screws and nuts was a bit of a pain. You definitely want to have your reading glasses close by during assembly - especially when it comes time to mount the motors on the arms.

But now that it's assembled the only thing I need to do is decide on a video system. And for that, I think I will wait a few months - until I'm more comfortable flying this beast. I'm also considering flying it with a smaller battery (less voltage) to make it less responsive. As it is right now, it is set up for racing, but I don't need that kind of performance yet. So running a 2 cell battery instead of a 3 cell should make it a little more docile.

Bottom line: if you ever wanted one of these things, this kit from BangGood is pretty damned nice, and it's not too difficult to assemble. (Figure 3-4 hours tops) I will have it with me at SELEM if anyone wants to check it out, but I don't know how many spare props I will have left by then! (Started out with a total of 12 spares, and I'm already down to 9 after just 1 battery!)

Adam

[lasersbee]

Those Gemfan props are really inexpensive but they are fragile and
break quite easily.
I ordered some more robust props from Surveilzone..
http://www.surveilzone.com/High-Qual...r-CWCCW-g-1351

I haven't tried them yet but i heard that they are much tougher..


Jerry

[buffo]

Thanks for the link, Jerry! The prices at Surveilzone are even cheaper than BangGood. Unfortunately, they do not have any of the "high quality" props in stock in the size I use. (My quad runs 6030 props).

The closest I could find was 6040, which would give me a pretty decent speed increase. I don't know if I want to try that or not. If I did go with the 6040s, I would definitely need to be careful. The thing is touchy enough as it is now!

Adam

[silentgloves]

Here's one of mine right after I finished building it. It's currently busted pretty badly after having flown directly into a goal post at a local park. I heard the "PIIIINGGGG" from about 200 yards away.

[Bradfo69]

If you crashed it that quickly, I'd have no shot. I'm still an extreme newbie with the quads since I don't have much more flight time than SELEM and FLEM aside from a few times around the hall. I AM however looking at a new one for SELEM that I need to pull the trigger on. It's through Amazon and a Prime candidate so, I can get it here by Thursday. It doesn't just flip... you can fly inverted for long periods too.

[buffo]

Brad, the new copter sounds cool! Can't wait to see it.

As for the difficulty in flying the 250 racer, you misunderstood my post. It's not hard to fly at all. It's actually quite easy to fly. It's just hard to fly it FAST, because you need to think fast to stay ahead of the machine.

In my case I was flying in very close quarters (front yard), so I didn't have a lot of room for error. Once I moved to the back yard things went better, but really I should have just taken it to a park.

Silentgloves; How is your flight controller mounted? I don't see any shock-absorbing bumpers... Do you have problems with motor vibration causing your flight controller to flake out? (My CC3D is mounted atop 4 rubber shock mounts on the very top of the quad. It looks ugly, but it completely isolates any motor or prop vibration.)

Sorry about your crash. But yeah, these things haul ass, so I imaging hitting a solid metal pole that was cemented in the ground would do quite a bit of damage.

Adam

[silentgloves]

Silentgloves; How is your flight controller mounted? I don't see any shock-absorbing bumpers... Do you have problems with motor vibration causing your flight controller to flake out? (My CC3D is mounted atop 4 rubber shock mounts on the very top of the quad. It looks ugly, but it completely isolates any motor or prop vibration.)

Sorry about your crash. But yeah, these things haul ass, so I imaging hitting a solid metal pole that was cemented in the ground would do quite a bit of damage.

I fly Acro Naze32s with Cleanflight/Luxfloat. It's a rock solid FC. No issues with motor vibration (I do a little bit of software filtering on the FC, but haven't needed any more than that). It's mounted inside the frame on the standard FC mounts, no dampening. I used to fly CC3D/Revo FCs, I was actually an OpenPilot test pilot, but I switched to Acro Naze32 and haven't looked back. Much more solid on Minis, especially the Luxfloat PID controller.

I fly hard and fast, so crashes aren't foreign to me. Usually it's trees that jump out in front of me, but this time it was a surprise goal post. It banged it up pretty good.

Do you guys all fly rate mode? If not, you should! After a few flights, you'll never go back.

[buffo]

I've looked into rate-mode flying, but I haven't attempted it yet - on any bird. Everything I have flies in heading mode. (And no, I don't have anything that flies in headless mode.)

I'd like to think that eventually I will be able to transition to rate mode, but it's not something I'm currently ready for.

Adam