AH-6Z "littlebird" scale FPV build.

[skyhigh]

Wow. DJI Ace One! I always wondered who would buy a $3200 controller.

[zeeflyboy]

Not me, got this one for cheap barely used... I couldn't bring myself to spend that much.

So far it's only managed about 10 seconds of flight and an expensive crash though, so even at the vastly discounted price it hasn't yet proved the best bargain lol.

[Keyrigger]

Hope you got it sorted this time out. It's a shame when you put all the effort in and the system just does not co-operate at all. By accident, more than design, I ended up owning a Helicommand 3A system. As soon as the weather breaks, I will see if I actually got it sorted. I am starting the new body build in my old thread. What exactly is powered in those weapons rack system? They do look very cool and for giggles, my old body will have a similar weapons rack put in as one of the old TOW racks was destroyed. Take care and I look forward to some flight pictures or video when you can.

Don

[zeeflyboy]

Thanks Don, look forwards to seeing your second take on the build!

The weapons rack carries wiring for the miniguns and pyrotechnics.

[zeeflyboy]

Machined out my new dash today from 2mm G10:








The inserts have been ordered from shapeways last week and should arrive within the next week or so. I also ordered the screens, though initially they will just be animated images rather than functional, but I didn't want to add yet more delay waiting for that, and now that I'll be using those screens it will be simple to upgrade to functional software later.

On a side note, it's amazing how much more productive you are when you aren't constantly fighting you machinery lol. I'm really loving how reliable and precise the new machine is.



-----


So the screens arrived, again just animated for now... not yet functional. Unfortunately shapeways is being pants and hasn't shipped my latest order despite it being due 2 days ago, so I still don't have the extra pieces for the dash.

anyway, the screens:

[zeeflyboy]

Printed up some special brackets and mounted the screens. Decided I really need to flip the nav display for space reasons, so now I need to figure out how to invert the display. All things are possible though. Well, most things.






Just waiting for the surrounds etc from shapeways, Screens have a real nice anti glare finish...

[Tomstoy2]

Zee, as always, this thing just blows my mind! Don't worry about delays, I like your approach.

Normally, I would say I can't wait to see the vids, not this time. Take all the time you need, I prefer to wait and see success!

[Psywarrior]

Update! WE NEED UPDATE! Suffering from withdrawal here. What other super cool totally awesome incredible freaking ingenious stuff did you do this week?

[Himilou]

Originally Posted by zeeflyboy

Thanks Don, look forwards to seeing your second take on the build!

The weapons rack carries wiring for the miniguns and pyrotechnics.

I knew I spotted Estes a while back!

[zeeflyboy]

Sorry for the lack of updates, been busy buying a new house and all that involves... plus developing some other cool toys

Anyway I just produced this... An EzUHF mount. I made a 3d printed prototype to test it a while ago but now decided to do the real thing out of aluminium.

This was the 3d printed prototype:

The clamps generate sufficient force that you can just push the EzUHF into position and it will stay there, the tabs prevent it over extending when used as a transmitter stand, and the bottom extends far enough to protect the plugs on the bottom.









I am SUPER chuffed with how this came out, I almost feel like I'm getting the hang of this stuff! Next step will be exploring 2 sided machining but for now I'm really happy with out this came out.


getting started:



taking shape:



et voila!




Glamour shots:

[zeeflyboy]

I actually nearly flew the mechanics for the first time since the crash, but it was raining

I've set up the Ace One again, it's all screwed back together with a blend if titanium and aluminium to shed a little weight, fitted the kontronik Jive 80HV (start up is much smoother) and set up the new tail... It was basically ready for another go, just waiting on free time and good weather to coincide.

However, you wouldn't believe what I managed to do the other day...

I was spooling it up with the tail blades (no mains) to test out the tail, and the thing drew so much air through that it pulled a loose cloth up and through the tail... sigh. I can't believe how stupid I can be sometimes! I hit hold as soon as I saw what was happening but it was already too late lol.

So I broke the tail pitch lever, bent some push rods and also completely stripped out the forward tail drive gear. AWESOME. The damage was very limited at least, the tail itself seems fine and I didn't damage any blades etc.

I needed to replace the gears and align have since released a much stronger and longer lasting (plus less warped) black material. Unfortunately the forward torque tube gear didn't fit the standard tail boom, so I had to design a new one with adjustable mesh. While I was at it I replaced the bearings with ceramic hybrids - something I had avoided doing previously as it was all assembled.

Here's the newly re-designed tail boom block with upgraded gears and adjustable mesh:








Next up I just need to figure out how to best repair/replace my tail pitch arm as the part isn't available separately for that particular tail:

----------

So I've been busy buying a new house, which I now can happily say I own

One of the first things I set up was the CNC lol, so that is now up and running again... I'm in serious need of some better lighting in the garage to use it more easily but that'll have to be done some time when I have money again!

Well as we know I managed to destroy a couple of key components of my tail, so as usual I've taken the opportunity to do things better... I was never happy with the side to side slop in the stock tail's pitch slider links and I really prefer a dual point slider design. On top of that the tail I was using was heavy and had no locking pin to help sure the tail, thus was purely reliant on friction from the clamp.

Soooooo as you have seen a few times, when I rebuild I upgrade.

that has lead me here...

This is the current tail unit I am working on... all fitted out with ceramic bearings on high speed parts now of course. At some point when I find some spare time the shiny metal parts will get painted black to match the rest of the tail, and I may bug Ian to see if he can turn down the ends one of the new black geared tails shafts to 5mm in order to get that last gear in the newest hi performance black material.







So that gives me a much more robust tail attachment with lock pin, and I designed a new tail piece that will also hold the pushrod. The pitch slider mechanism is vastly superior to what I had before and is buttery smooth with no slop... and it's lighter than the old one. Brucey bonus.

tail pushrod guide and tail lock piece:





But that's only half the plan of course and the rest requires me to make more custom parts. First up we have this new pitch slider mechanism that I need to cut on the CNC:





Combined with some little nylon (or maybe alu, not decided yet) anti-rotation pitch links, control balls and m2x8 screws to build a pitch slider that looks a little something like this...similar idea to the old one but much more solid design.







My one big problem is I am not sure as to the type of thread used on the pitch slider bushing. I am guessing it is a m8x0.5mm extra fine thread... It's about as close as I can estimate anyway - I ordered an m8x0.5mm tap and so we'll find out soon I guess lol. The next problem is that towards the maximum inwards travel, the aluminium pitch link part will strike the arm. To solve that and help get full travel I have also designed a new shortened mounting arm for the whole slider mechanism... This along with the tail lock will be printed at shapeways using the sintered nylon for strength.




-------


so today I got a chance to make some parts...


Cut the tail piece of of alu




Threading with the M8x0.5 which I am hoping is the right thread!




And the part along with some plastic arms I cut from black nylon. Obviously it all needs cleaning up a bit and I need to print out a little jig to make sure the holes all get drilled in just the right place.





-----------

So this is my little drill jig I came up with to make sure the holes all ended up nicely aligned. 3D printers are so useful!




And here is the drilled part after a little polishing with a dremel brush thing just to get a slightly better surface finish.






balls fitted




And hooray - I guessed right about the bushing being an M8x0.5 extra fine thread, all fits! You can also just about make out the new shorter slider mechanism side mount that I designed to increase clearance - it finally arrived from shapeways.

[zeeflyboy]

So another day, another jig. Turns out it's surprisingly difficult to drill a hole centrally in the like pitch links and there's not a huge amount of spare material so I needed to be accurate.

To help I whipped up another jig:








End result is a nice straight and central hole:




Cut down some push rods:




And finally we have a working tail again, it's much improved compared to the previous version:

[zeeflyboy]

I realised I really need to build a storage and transport case for this thing. I had planned on doing it once finished but of course things dragged on and now I'm looking at having to transport this back without damaging it.

I saw this box while looking at pictures on the internet and thought that could be quite a cool quirky idea... so I am setting about building a box using that rough idea as a basis:


The inspiration:




My attempts:









So the box is now more or less built, I just need my lid latches to arrive and put a handle on it, then give it a paint job. Perhaps add some rolling wheels on the back because it's going to be a big thing to move around. I had the idea that I can use the lid upside down as a landing and take off pad too if needed so might hook up some battery powered strobes on there for fun.

Next job on the box front will be figuring out the internal design to safely secure the heli in place for transport.

So where are we at with the actual heli? Well I am just waiting for some new ball links for the cyclic rods as I fitted a slightly longer main shaft. With the new head and a DFC shaft it was making me nervous about boom strikes... the new shaft is about 15mm longer which moves the head up in line with the top of the T tail but does mean I need longer ball links. They should arrive this week from quickuk.

I have also re-jigged my ballast - previously it was just a strap holding the weights to the front aluminium bars and wasn't very sturdy or easy to play with. I cooked up this little design which seems to work well... just printing up a spacer to bring the OD of the tube up to the ID of the weights and then that's done.






Soooo... she's almost ready to have a take 2 on the ACE One test. I've set it all up now so it should simply be a case of putting the new ball links on and levelling the swash, then off we trot.

[zeeflyboy]

well guys, the sun was shining and the wind was blowing (doh), and I decided to give it a quick run before work... The school just across from me has a small carpark and since it's summer holidays the car park is empty - ideal for some testing

Unfortunately the wind was going to make it impossible to really get a proper idea of how she's flying or to get any serious tuning done, but I just wanted to see if it flew.

My report:

First hop.. spooled up, thumbs shaking on the sticks a bit with flashbacks from last time, and then it popped up into the air at first, then started to develop a rotating oscillation that progressively started getting worse. Before it got out of hand I quickly popped it back down on to the ground and spooled down. The training gear performed it's job admirably!

I adjusted some gains and then tried again - she fliiiiiiiiiiiiiies. It was manual mode only (the instructions for Ace One say to get it flying in manual before even attempting to mess with auto modes), it was windy, I only hovered around a bit, but she FLEW. All in I probably flew for around 10 minutes across several tests, tweaking the gains a bit to get it flying better.

I didn't have a camera man handy, and flying a heli in manual mode requires all my digits, but I figured you guys would probably castrate me If I didn't show you something after all this time, so I put my iPhone on the ground and recorded a short test hover. I'll upload that video now. Like I say - it's far from tuned, but it's proof of concept if nothing more

WAHOOO!!!

[zeeflyboy]

So - like said... nothing special. I'm out of practise flying helis, it was windy, and the gains are far from perfect... but she ain't on the ground

Ace One take 2 (just a quick hover) (1 min 54 sec)

[gstoneberg]

Wahoo!! Great to see progress. Can't wait for more!

[rclover106]

Updates? I don't say much but have been following from the beginning in aw. How's the ground station?

sent from my quad.

[Keyrigger]

It's good to see some work going on with your 500. I am taking a break from the build for my new one and am working on the CH-139 version of the Jet Ranger and it is getting close to being done. I found that I still did not have enough tail authority in the 500 but found that the pushrod system is the weak link and by switching it from a push to turn right to a pull to turn right, I mighty have solved a lot of the problem. I need to change to a solid pushrod so that there is no deflection. I have switched the grips so that the pitch link goes to the trailing edge and although it might have lost a little bit of nimbleness, it will be a lot more responsive to turning against the rotor torque. If you ever get fired up and ready to make some more clear blank upper and lower windscreens, let me know. I have worked out how to make the glass fill the area where it is supposed to be and you will not believe how much more canopy will be on mine in the end. Take care and hope your test flights with the body go as well as that one did as a pod and boom.

Don

[XxRyan787xX]

Originally Posted by zeeflyboy

UPS lady kindly just dropped some stuff off.

First up we have my Naza GPS mount. This came out somewhat taller than I thought and now I'm starting to think about the blades lopping it off if they come close to a boom strike... I may redesign the central section a cm or so shorter.

The parts: Boom mount (to be inserted from inside through a cut out and then blended in), main body, and lid.




here with the Naza GPS sat inside (note it allows a few degrees movement if I need to set declination - around here it's only 1-3 degrees or so though)




and assembled (note little hook on the underside to tidy up the wire, neat lol)






Next up, the OSD Pro case... this one fits very nicely. When I get around to it i'll print up some new stickers minus the holes.






Altimeter case, also a perfect fit




and eLogger case, this one didn't turn out quite perfect, I'll have to do some small design revisions perhaps, but it works with some tweaking






and here you can see how they will make my install that much neater, the OSD Pro and altimeter are installed on the floor pan and will later be joined by the guardian for FLIR AHI... eLogger will go on the underside of the opposite side battery plate.

Would you have the STL or something similar for the GPS mount/case? I really want to fly but the gps is just the bare circuit board!

Thank you Kindly,
Ryan.

[zeeflyboy]

sorry you mean the satellite type pod (the white thing) for the DJI part?

Or do you mean an eagletree gps case?