Building A Quadcopter! – Part 6 – How To Fly

Welcome back! So, if you’ve read the title, you may notice that the last idea was a success! Well, sort-of. Lost on what I’m talking about? Catch up on the Building Quadcopter series with these links:

[ Part 1 –Theory and Controls ]

[ Part 2 – The Body of the Quadcopter ]

[ Part 3 – Bring the Pain ]

[ Part 4 – On Standby ]

[ Part 5 – PID problems ]

So when we left off last time, the main problem at hand was PID control. Through some testing, I found that the PID controls were working ( although, DA’ QCB controller was experiencing some windup ) With the PID controls verified, what could be the problem? The frame, motor, and/or propellers? This is where I was stuck until I tried my final idea to the problem:

Building A Quadcopter! – Part 5 – PID problems

Quadcopter Problems, circuit boards, and where to go from here? That is the topic for today’s post.

First off, hello again after the long break! To get down to business though, this quadcopter project has been holding me back on many project things. For the model railroad enthusiasts, I’ve worked more on the layout, and have two buildings so far. I’ll get to them soon as I can in the coming weeks.

So the title is, PID problems. This has been the focus of the problems from the quadcopter, for the last few months. It isn’t the only cause, but seemingly is the only thing keeping the quad from leaving the ground.

What is PID? Well, to put it simply, it means Proportional-Integral-Derivative. This is used in many control systems for electrical circuits. You’re A/C controller on the wall probably has a PID controller. Your fridge/freezer has a PID controller. Same goes for your car and other various electronics. In short, a PID takes an error and compares it to a set point (i.e., your thermostat is set at 70 degrees F). If the error is too low or too high, it adjusts the output of the controller to bring the error to zero.

Building A Quadcopter! – Part 4 – “On Standby”

Hey there! Well it seems the post “bring the pain” still hasn’t ended for building the quadcopter! Today, its “ON STANDBY” But before I go into that, if your just tuning in, make sure to check the previous post on the Quadcopter first:

[ Part One – “Theory and Controls” ]

[ Part Two – “The Body of the Quadcopter” ]

[ Part Three – “Bring the Pain!” ]

Building A Quadcopter! – Part 3 – “Bring the Pain!”

This is my build log post on the quadcopter. Today is the introduction of almost flying the craft, but held-up with just a small problem: Stabilization.

If your just joining in, make sure to catch-up on the previous two parts of the Build Log:

[ Part One – “Theory and Controls” ]

[ Part Two – “The Body of the Quadcopter” ]

Ok, continuing on, if you haven’t caught the name of the quadcopter yet, it’s name is: Black Dragon. Due to how evil the stabilization tests have been, and for the fact that the color of the craft is black.

If you haven’t caught the video, here’s me trying to fly the quadcopter without any stabilization. This is why I need to build a test platform:

Building A Quadcopter! – Part 2

Hello there! During the meantime since the last blog post, I have been busily working on the quadcopter (and getting called into work alot). It has been taking much longer than I expected, but it is finally nearing completion! Taking a break for now from the stabilization tests (lots of pain!), here’s the log on how to build a quadcopter from various parts that you choose, and not just buy a kit:

(also, read everything! You might find the name of the quadcopter hidden somewhere…)

Building A Quadcopter! – Part 1

Why hello there!

So for this summer, one of the projects I’m working on is building a quadcopter (or quadrocopter, I prefer this, but both can be used). With exams at school almost over, I have ordered the parts necessary for the project. Unfortunately to keep costs down, I ordered some parts from China, and am still waiting for the parts to come in the mail. While waiting for the parts to come in, I did get some of the US ordered parts in, mainly from SparkFun. While I did get some parts for another project after this one, The one main part I got was the accelerometer/gyrometer (Part: MPU-6050) for the quadcopter, as shown below: