AH-6Z Littlebird Night-Ops build project

[Gazzer1uk]

I have been grumpy, scratchy and irritable.... just worked out why.... 5 days since the last update, I am clearly addicted!

[Zeeflyboy]

Haha, I do apologise...

It's my birthday and I went back tot he UK for 4 days, got back and yesterday did a 12 hour day so haven't had time to do much!

However, here are some pics of the missiles to tide you over









Lil' Bird is coming to get you...

[wheredidthetailgo]

Happy birthday 🎉🎉

[Zeeflyboy]

Muchos gracias

[Gecko501]

Happy birthday!!!! What did you get to add to your project?

[Zeeflyboy]

Cheers... nothing directly related although I did get a nice little HP pavilion netbook to run all my RC software at the field, had been meaning to get one for ages. Now at long last I can tweak all my settings at the field!

[Mike Sanders]

Happy birthday. Keep up the good work.

[Gazzer1uk]

Thanks, I am chilled again...... exemplary is all I would say! Happy Belated Birthday too!

But don't leave it too long for the next one!

Gaz

[Zeeflyboy]

I promise not to have another birthday for at least a year

So, something I've been putting off because it intimidates me lol - the control side of things... I have wired up my Channel Wizard in the module bay and so it is finally time to try and understand how to use this thing.








I have to give a huge (massive, enormous, GALACTIC) thank you to Sircana (from circular wireless) without whom I would barely even know where to start... He is guiding me through what I need to do as I am at best a programming noob and he has a brain the size of a small planet. This project would be more limited without his assistance for sure, so please give him a virtual round of applause!


Anyway, I've discussed before the general idea but this is now the finalised connection table... It's actually fairly straightforward, but helps me visualise what is going where and to what. It's fairly self explanatory I think. The only thing that might not be obvious is that PPM 1 is the mechanics PPM decoder and PPM 2 is the cockpit PPM decoder (consider that this is merely the control connections and that on top of this you have power, video, audio, RSSI, gps, LEDs, Power system etc etc wiring and you'll get a hint of how much freaking wiring there is in this thing lol)





With that out the way I have also been playing with FTDI cables, drivers, com ports and hyperterminal... I could cope with the first 3 fine, but I am clueless when it comes to command line stuff as I've never dealt with it before. Sircana to the rescue of course and if anyone is interested this is the programming of the channel wizard mux and demux (I should say initial programming, failsafe behaviour of muxed channels is still on the to do list).


MUX COMMAND LINE
o.frame=28000
codelimits=1024-2004
a.type=a
b.type=a
c.type=a
d.type=a
e.type=a
o.src=i1 i2 i3 i4 i5 i6 i7 i8 i9 i10 i11 (a b c d e)


DEMUX COMMAND LINE
demuxInput=12
a.pwm=m1
b.pwm=m2
c.pwm=m3
d.pwm=m4
e.pwm=m5


After programming that, it is a case of setting up the EzUHF and Trinity HT channel mapping. This is fairly straightforward and simply involves setting EzUHF to output Muxed PPM on channel 1 and CH12 on channel 2, and to take the HT inputs from channels 7 & 8 via the HT port and inject them as Channels 8 & 9 in the PPM stream.


In theory all that should now be done, but testing will have to wait unfortunately because work gets in the way. Sircana has done a LOT of the troubleshooting on the setup already however and so any problems should be relatively easy to resolve (touch wood). One potential hitch is that the lowest my BEC will go is 5.6v and the limit for CW in bypass mode (required in this case) is 5.5v... I would just drop using a diode but the current draw will be fairly significant from the LED system with all lights running. There are ways around it of course but we'll see which one is best.

[Zeeflyboy]

Just realised I forgot to post this update, so here it is

I was trying to find/build a temperature controlled circuit for a fan, but everything small and light I turned up was a design that varied the speed of the fan, but not the on/off function. Sircana pointed out, in his usual non-patronising (but somehow still subtly inferring "you clucking moron") way that all I needed was a temperature controlled switch. Duh. Sometimes I think it's a wonder I manage to tie my own shoe laces.


Anyway, net result, I'm going to have the fan in the exhaust hooked up to an automatic temperature controlled switch. Temperature exceeds a certain amount, fan switches on until it drops below a certain amount... the only thing that will likely generate any particular heat in this heli is the BEC... the motor and ESC should stay relatively cool, and when I finally change the 5.8ghz furnace for an icy cool 2.4ghz (sander? yes, you... come on now) that should remove another heat source. So The temperature switch will probably be fitted to the BEC casing...


I'm looking at these two different possibilities. First is a simple Bimetal switch... you can buy it normally open or normally closed and at a variety of fixed temperatures. Cheap and simple.


10x KSD301 Thermostat, Temperature Switch, Bimetal Disc, 40 ~ 150°C | eBay







My second option is a little larger and more technical, but extremely cheap too... the advantage of this one is that the little probe will be easy to position and the thresholds are adjustable by means of a trimmer pot.


1 Single-channel Thermal Relay Control Sensor Module Temperature Switch 5V 12V $5.75 Free Shipping @GoodLuckBuy.com





So, of course I just ordered both and will have a play. However, I will be running this off the external 3S auxiliary missile/guns pack and so since this will be an automatic process I am slightly dubious about running the battery entirely flat... however, the fan draws a measly 150ma or so - with a 600mah 3S pack that I was intending to use that's 4 hours continuous run time for the fan on it's own. Even with use for other things it's not going to be a problem over a few 12 minute flights.

[Zeeflyboy]

I'm back in the UK again, but time is not wasted. I was initially going to try drilling out the hardened steel main shaft on my pillar drill but it's got a bit too much runout and wouldn't have dealt well with penetrating the round surface without scrabbling around a bit.


So I decided to give it a go on my CNC machine which is much tighter with less than 0.002" of runout. To cover my bases because I'm a moron and don't know how to do things properly I used some nice tungsten carbide bits - they are generally pretty temperature resistant and can handle a bit of mistreatment as regards feeding and spindle speed.


First up I ran it through with a 1mm pilot drill, this went through like butter through a knife. I used some spray oil as lubricant.







Next up was my 3.2mm bit (didn't have anything in between lol)... this was much noisier, oil smoked away and some nice sparks came flying out the shaft but it too went through without too much argument... I suspect I should have slowed the spindle down a bit more but then the power really drops off.... anyway - drill bit survived without scorching or blunting so all good!







And the end result - perfectly aligned! Wohoo! the top of the shaft now butts up against the top of the head which makes the whole assembly that much more solid and also drops the head down by about 8mm. Doesn't sound like much but it does actually make a surprising visual difference to the installed mechanics.

[PorscheBoy]

Hi Zee,

Amazing thread, just a bit of advice when drilling, use a proper cutting paste/compound (Rocol is a good one), not lubricating oil. Oil is designed to keep metal surfaces apart, cutting paste is designed to assist the cutting and drag heat away which will keep the drill bit happier and cutting better for longer.

Never thought I would be offering advice on this thread...

Next stage & pictures required.......

[Zeeflyboy]

Thanks - I appreciate it! As I said I just make up a lot of this as I go along lol... at least I used something and didn't run it through dry

[Zeeflyboy]

So I've finished the Channel wizard hardware wise...


Installed my 6 position switch (the large silver part top left). The 4 blue things are trim pots that allow me to fine tune the output position of each individual switch position. Not necessary for this project as the DElight trigger values can be tuned themselves, so I've gone for values that should translate to approx 0%/20%/40%/60%/80%/100%


The last position won't actually be used as I will only have 5 settings:


1: All lights off
2: Beacons on
3: Beacons, Nav lights on
4: Beacons, Nav lights, Main landing light on
5: Beacons, Nav lights, Main landing light, Auxiliary Landing lights on


Pretty neat that you can do all that from one switch!


On top of that I installed a 3 position switch on the opposite shoulder that will allow me to control my OSD pages and menus, and finished up the wiring for the 2 position camera switch and the two 2 position armament switches.


So here is how it all works if you are still wondering what is going on - All these switch wires go through to the module bay where they connect up to the channel wizard. The channel wizard takes gnd/power/ppm from the module bay pins and muxes (ie basically encodes) these additional switches into a single channel replacing the 12th channel in the stream.... the modified ppm stream (plus gnd and power) then goes back into the controller body and around to the 3 pin locking connector on the back. The EzUHF plugs into this and receives gnd/power/ppm... It's not quite over there though as Trinity is also outputting the head tracking pan/tilt channels into the EzUHF head tracking port. The EzUHF takes these inputs and replaces channels 8 and 9 in the stream with the Trinity's values instead.


The whole stream then gets sent to the helicopter. The EzUHF rx outputs a ppm stream to the mechanics ppm decoder which breaks out channels 1-7 for the naza, the cockpit ppm decoder which breaks out channels 1,2,4,6,7,8,9,10,11 for flight controls, dashboard flight mode indicator, and pan/tilt of both pod and pilot head, and to the channel wizard (through a voltage step down to give no more than 5v) which decodes the 12th channel and outputs the result to ports A,B,C,D,E for lights, guns, missiles, camera and OSD control.


Shimples?












Now that the hardware side is done, next up is testing of that theory in practice... of course work gets in the way as usual.

[PorscheBoy]

Shimples??!! Yah Shimples, right. Genius work Zee, totally amazing, how the hell will you remember what each switch does, where it is and when to use it WHILST you are flying the heli, I have enough to do just flicking IU when I'm flying......