Replacing a BL-2830/11 1000kv motor

Today I've replaced one of the motors. It works fine, but the metalic cylinder is just bit bended, as well as the propeller adapter.

It can be perfectly used to fly, but not for recording good video, because this is a source of vibrations, even if you have a vibration isolation mounting. At the end every little factor is going to affect the video results.

The motor comes with everything you need to completely replace the old one: motor, screws, motor holder and the propeller adapter.

 If you don't connect the wires correctly with the ESC (not colored wires), you'll notice it because the motor will rotate in the oposite direction. You just have to swap two of them in order to correct it.

G.T Power FPV camera switcher

I´ve been doing some FPV getting the video directly from the GoPro, which is really nice because you have directly on screen the battery duration and the timer of the video, so you know aprox you flight time in case you need to come back and land for not damaging your battery. And also you can see the area with fantastic image quality.

The weird thing is to fly while the camera is being stabilized with the Tarot T-2D brushless gimbal, because it is difficult to know the position your quad is. If you are close to land or to an object, the position of the quad can be controlled easily. But when you fly high you don´t realize exactly about how fast the quad is moving, you don´t have too many references. This does not happen when you get the video from the normal FPV camera, because you realize all the time what is the quad position.

So I have acquired the G.T Power FPV camera switcher. This small electronic piece allows you to connect up to three cameras, and select from the receiver from which of them you want to get the live video from. This will allow me to fly with the normal FPV camera until I really want to record the scene, that´s when I´ll switch to the GoPro camera and film.

As you can see, you have five connectors:

• To the receiver: just connect it to a free channel of the Futaba receiver R6208SB
• Video out: connect it to the video transmitter, in my case to the ImmersionRC 600mw.
• Camera 1 - for my normal FPV camera
• Camera 2 - for the GoPro
• Camera 3 - free so far...

However I need to create some wires, the two custom below. The first one goes from the normal FPV camera to the video switcher, and the second one goes from the video switcher video output to the video transmitter. I´ll see if it works!

Motocross aerial test with quadcopter

V010. Recording date: 01-02-2014

I broke one propeller some days ago hitting a tree branch, so I replaced them with DJIs, the only available at the store, as I wanted to fly asap. They don't fit perfectly with my motors, I reckon that could be one of the reasons why there's some jello on the footage. Besides, the cylinder of one of the propellers adapter holder is a bit bended because of that crash, and that's giving me vibrations for sure...

It was not the perfect day for flying: 25mph wind gust and my first time with too many moving objects on stage. Keeping my eyes only on the FPV screen was really complex, as the wind was taking the quad quite far away in a matter of seconds. For that reason I recorded 85% of the videos at a guess looking directly at the quad, and that's why I couldn't make another shoots I had in mind, like from a really high altitude facing down, or following the rider more closely, etc... I chose not to risk this time and avoid problems!

I'm still dealing with the slow motion settings in Sony Vegas, as I haven't been able to make these scenes look smoother. This time I've desabled resampling, and added the envelope velocity to set the speed at 50% (30fps). In previous videos (https://vimeo.com/niropter) I didn't take into account the fps for slow motion scenes, going under 30fps with the smart resample activated (apparently not good for fast scenes with dark background), and clicking the edge of the video and dragging while pressing control.

Setup:

Frame Whirlwind FY450
BL-2830/11 1000kv motors
20A SK ESC
10x4.5 Carbon fiber propellers
KK2 controller board
GoPro H3 black, 1080x60, N FOV
3300mAh 3S 20C battery
Futaba 8FG Super Transmitter
Futaba R6208SB receiver
Fatshark FPV camera
Fatshark Predator goggles
ImmersionRC 600mw Tx
1000mAh 3S 20C battery for video Tx
Gimbal Tarot T-2D
500mAh 3S 20C battery for gimbal
Plastic landing gear

Several batteries on board? or just the main battery?

There's plenty of discussion about what to do regarding how many batteries to have on the multicopter.

More batteries mean more weight but more battery life. More weight means less flight time. One main battery means less weight, but also share battery life for all the components. Meaning less flight time.

So there's not easy answer here. I guess this depends on the type of multicopter you have, the electronics, etc. At the end, you'll use what it works for you.

In my case I've only tested different batteries. I've three on board:

• For the motors
• For the gimbal
• For the FPV transmitter

I've to say that I like the feeling of knowing that I've enought power to send the FPV signal independently, so I won't get blind if I spend a bit more time on air. And as I'm lately getting the FPV signal from the GoPro, and it's being stabilized by the gimbal, I also like to know the gimbal will work fine during the whole flight.

But, I know this adds extra weight, so I would like to try how it is to have just the main battery connected to the motors, gimbal and FPV video transmitter at the same time.

The key is... how to connect this three different battery connectors to the frame??

I'll try to find it out soon...