AH-6Z Littlebird Night-Ops build project

[Zeeflyboy]

Ok, I thought the big expenditures were over....

I was wrong. A spanner has been thrown in the works... It's changed everything.

Fortunately it is a rather awesome spanner.

I've just been offered a DJI Ace One at a price I can't refuse. Aside from the obvious advantages of some serious professional grade hardware and waaaay more configurability than the Naza, it also brings a really important feature - RTH. Given the expenditure already put into this, I figure this (last?!) expense might be worth it to gain the safety and comfort factor of RTH.

It also means I have the option to add semi-auto landing and take off, which would mean I can FPV from start to finish. It's another 300 quid to enable that however, so I'll see how badly I want it later.

However this is devastating news, because the Ace One has no led/USB puck like the Naza... My Naza hatch is now defunct! That was the best bit

The LEDs for the Ace One are built into the GPS puck. It is slightly larger, but I purposely designed my GPS holder with a little "growing" room so should be fine. I will just need to come Up with a small locking system for the upper plate so it can remain removable to view the LEDs.

Interesting times... Little bird is now getting a £2100 flight controller and autopilot (thankfully I'm not paying that much lol).

[Zeeflyboy]

Almost finished the dash... I have to say almost because the place I ordered my secondary screen from a month ago still hasn't shipped my order and has ignored the 2 emails I've sent to chase it up.


Anyway, wired up all the backlight leds and so on. So you have all the small screens illuminated, the main screen displaying the FLIR feed (and eventually a secondary screen displaying a nav display), you have the three mode indicator LEDS, red = manual, amber = atti, green = GPS Atti, and finally the larger led to the left of those is from the firestarter.

[Zeeflyboy]

I forgot to post this too - done some wiring for the weapons pods. I took some 12 awg and stripped the silicon sheath off, then ran two smaller wires through the silicon. I printed up some small hooks to attach the cable to the side of the arm.


This will actually all then hook up to a 6 pin connector at the end which means I can quickly add or remove the weapons arms as required. They'll just slide over the spars and then connect into place.

[Gazzer1uk]

Phew was just getting mild shakes....... it is looking close now!

[Zeeflyboy]

AH-6Z Littlebird Night-Ops build project

And when it looks close, it's further than ever lol....

So I've been having big problems... nothing is ever easy. Testing has shown a glitching problem with my EzUHF setup... I've spent several hours on it now.

It seems firmware related. It'll happily sit there with no glitches but when you start moving the sticks you get occasional and random but severe glitching.

I moved back to v1.43 and the initially thought the problem had gone, but very occasionally if you try really hard on the sticks/switches/pots you can force a small glitch. The frequency and severity are much reduced however which points towards the EzUHF firmware being the culprit.

Needless to say though I'm not willing to trust my AH-6 to a glitching control system so it needs to be sorted out.

Made this video:

Now the good news. Anthony from ImmersionRC (the main programmer for the EzUHF) is going to drop round my appartment tomorrow and pick up my gear for testing. If anyone can get to the bottom of it, it would be him. So hopefully this will all start to come together soon. Ace One is being posted tomorrow, Anthony is planning on dropping back my kit by Friday - all being well I should have the mechanics operational again by next week in time for my days off. Fingers crossed!

[Gazzer1uk]

Whilst a bit disappointing, best ironed out in the test phase!

[Zeeflyboy]

So as promised the ImmersionRC guy popped round today and picked up my gear. We had a good chat about stuff over lunch lol... if we can't figure out what's up with the current setup he had some other ideas about supporting 16 channels natively with some firmware changes.

So that's good, one way or another this'll get sorted out.

So while Anthony is off trouble shooting/devising new and clever ways to give me what I need, I do have things to be getting on with.


One such thing was a quick redesign of the battery boxes. You can see I incorporated some holes on the underside - the primary reason for this was to provide an easy way to push out the battery from inside the box... I also built in a "collar" for the front straps. This means the box simply cannot shift forwards or backwards as the strap is locked inside this collar.










For cosmetic reasons I also printed out a thin black cover that simply lies on top of the battery and gets held down by the strap. Stealth batts.


in case anyone is wondering what the red tape is - that's simply my way of denoting pairs of batteries - one will be red tape, the next blue etc etc.

[HeliMonkey]

And when it looks close, it's further than ever lol....

So I've been having big problems... nothing is ever easy. Testing has shown a glitching problem with my EzUHF setup... I've spent several hours on it now.

It seems firmware related. It'll happily sit there with no glitches but when you start moving the sticks you get occasional and random but severe glitching.

I moved back to v1.43 and the initially thought the problem had gone, but very occasionally if you try really hard on the sticks/switches/pots you can force a small glitch. The frequency and severity are much reduced however which points towards the EzUHF firmware being the culprit.

Needless to say though I'm not willing to trust my AH-6 to a glitching control system so it needs to be sorted out.

Made this video:

Now the good news. Anthony from ImmersionRC (the main programmer for the EzUHF) is going to drop round my appartment tomorrow and pick up my gear for testing. If anyone can get to the bottom of it, it would be him. So hopefully this will all start to come together soon. Ace One is being posted tomorrow, Anthony is planning on dropping back my kit by Friday - all being well I should have the mechanics operational again by next week in time for my days off. Fingers crossed!

Is that subwoofer powered? Could that cause interference, it looks quite big. Not really got much knowledge of electronics but it was just an idea that popped into my head.

Awe inspiring build Zeeflyboy, it just gets better and better. Shame about the hatch though! Maybe use it to store some sarnies for Juan?

[Zeeflyboy]

AH-6Z Littlebird Night-Ops build project

Cheers for the thought but:

a) it's not a sub but just one of my rather large floor standers
b) it wasn't on
c) glitches happened well away from there it's just where it was easiest to film it

The problem is deeper rooted than that unfortunately, but as I say nice suggestion love the tiny sarnies idea too lol. Perhaps a pair of little lunch boxes with their names on! Lol.



So look what was just sitting in my postbox when I got home... YEAH BOY! Thanks so much to the guy that sold it to me at such a ridiculous price (you know who you are buddy!) - new this here is a $3400 system (blimey!)










In other news, Anthony from ImmersionRC has been awesome too... he picked up the gear to check it all out on his oscilloscopes, and he decided that this project needed a native 16 channel solution and as such he's been coding away some new firmware for me... it's not entirely finished yet, but basically since my Taranis is capable of producing 16 channels this gives me the full 16 channels the need for a channel wizard anymore. It's eeeeven more clever than just a simple 16ch ppm stream as the 4 additional channels (13-16) while being fully proportional and full resolution will have a slightly lower refresh rate (eg they will only update position once every 2 frames for example). This adds a little latency obviously but it's irrelevant given their non-primary flight control functions... the advantage is the data rate stays lower and the sensitivity higher as a result.


So, good news! I just need to install the Ace One and Anthony to finish coding up this firmware update, then I can begin some test flights of the new systems.

[PorscheBoy]

Yeah, all clear to me now.....

Superb as usual Zee, so very very clever..

[Zeeflyboy]

Not me, Anthony lol... I can't take credit for his work! I'm very lucky to have the guy that does all the firmware for EzUHF living so close by...

[Zeeflyboy]

So I couldn't wait to get going on the Ace One install...


Happily the shelf I made for the EzUHF rx during flight testing is a perfect fit for the main controller. Losing this space when installed in the fuselage is no problem as the Rx sits further back in the fuselage itself... during flight testing I'll just have to strap the EzUHF Rx underneath. This position also means I can reach back inside the fuselage to plug in a USB cable to program the unit (since my lovely Naza hatch can't be used anymore )


I needed the main controller raised slightly so the servo connections could clear the rear brace, and it occurred to me I could make the riser into a wire router as well. Since I was re-wiring I also changed the wires to all be colour coded - makes matching channels to Naza ports much easier. The IMU fits nicely where the old Naza-H was.
















So next up I need to make up some servo extensions and break open the frames (hopefully for the last time!) to install them properly and plug them into the main controller. The only mod I will need to do to the Ace One is cut the GPS cable and use a thin profile 4 pin locking connector so I can pass the cable through the GPS mount in the fuselage (the canbus port is too big to fit).

[hanson]

this may well be the greatest scale heli ever built, the ideas and execution are second to none, hats of to you zeeflyboy, you have some real talent there.

[Mike Sanders]

Agreed, real talent. The thread is compulsive reading. I have been following it from the start. It is an ambitious, detailed and complex project which is being brilliantly executed and documented. I always look forward to the next instalment.

It will be very exciting when it is finished but in a way I don't want the story to end.

[Zeeflyboy]

Thanks guys, very kind!

Mike - you are not the only one to mention that! I think this project has several people that enjoy seeing the build more than the finished article lol.



I have just been playing around inside my heli and thought this made for a cool picture to share.


Just added - you can see the 3D printed tail servo wire guides that prevent the tail servo wire from going anywhere it shouldn't (like into the gears for example!), and the small servo wire tidy at the end of the IMU shelf that keeps the Cyclic servo wires away from the ESC.


Also nicely shows the combined elevator pitch arm/anti rotation mechanism and all the interior gubbins.