+ 2014 Nick Wells 1/1/2014 DJI F450 Construction Guide Nick Wells1 | P a g e Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 2 Create Power Cables ......................................................................................................................... 3 Charging cables ............................................................................................................................. 3 Copter power cables ...................................................................................................................... 3 Charge Batteries ................................................................................................................................ 4 To turn off the annoying key beep! ............................................................................................ 4 Charging the transmitter LIPO Battery ....................................................................................... 4 Charging the main LIPO Battery ................................................................................................. 5 Solder Lower Board ........................................................................................................................... 6 Fit Motors to Arms ............................................................................................................................ 6 Attach Arms to Lower Board .............................................................................................................. 6 Connect RX to NAZA Autopilot ........................................................................................................... 7 Pairing RX & TX .................................................................................................................................. 8 Transmitter power on sequence (POS): ...................................................................................... 8 First clear existing codes: ........................................................................................................... 8 Bind RX and TX:.......................................................................................................................... 8 Set fixed ID: ............................................................................................................................... 8 Initial TX setup................................................................................................................................... 9 Stage 1 Create Model profile ................................................................................................... 10 Stage 2 Disable Fail Safe ........................................................................................................... 10 Stage 3 Calibrate switch travel ................................................................................................. 11 Configure and test NAZA Autopilot .................................................................................................. 12 Autopilot Configuration Stage 1 ................................................................................................... 12 GPS Mounting .......................................................................................................................... 12 Motor Mixer ............................................................................................................................ 12 TX Calibration .......................................................................................................................... 13 Auto Pilot Setup ....................................................................................................................... 14 Gimbal Setup ........................................................................................................................... 14 Voltage Monitor ...................................................................................................................... 14 Check motor Rotation direction ................................................................................................... 15 Configure First Person View Video System ................................................................................... 16 Test recording function ................................................................................................................ 16 Install Electronics ............................................................................................................................ 17 Nick Wells2 | P a g e Introduction This manual is a guide to help you construct the DJI F450 quad copter using the component parts listed below. There are more detailed instructions in the supplied documents but this guide should tell you all you need to know to get the copter ready to fly. Kit Contents DJI F450 Flame Wheel Quad Copter Kit NAZA M-Lite GPS Autopilot Walkera Devention Devo F7 Eyes First Person Video System B6AC Professional Charger Useful Links DJI F450 http://www.dji.com/tutorial/flame-wheel-tutorials/ http://wiki.dji.com/en/index.php/Flame_Wheel http://wiki.dji.com/en/index.php/Flame_Wheel_F450_Assembly DJI NAZA M-Lite http://www.dji.com/tutorial/naza-m-lite-tutorials-en/ http://wiki.dji.com/en/index.php/Naza-M Walkera Devo F7 http://www.walkera.com/en/showgoods.php?id=495 Nick Wells3 | P a g e Create Power Cables Charging cables Cut the black cover off the cable that comes with the charger to expose the 2 pins. Carefully lift the tabs and move the pins to the outside of the connector as shown top left. This cable can now be used to charge the transmitter battery. Chop an unused connector off one of the charging cables and solder on a 4mm HXT bullet connector. TIP:Press the bullet into the red cover using a screwdriver, put another cover on the end and push down onto a table. They take a bit of force to pop in and you can damage the front of the cover. Copter power cables You need to end up with these cables ready to solder onto the lower board. Make the power cable using purchased connectors. The video power cable can be cut off one of the spare leads from the video kit. Power Cable (HXT 4mm Bullet connector)Video TX power (HST connector) Nick Wells4 | P a g e Charge Batteries The B6AC charger will charge pretty much anything if you have the right cables. There are lots of different charging and discharging modes so best read the manual for all of them. This will tell you how to charge whats in the kit. To turn off the annoying key beep! 1)Press stop until display shows USER SET 2)Press Enter then Inc. till display shows Key Beep. 3)Press Enter then Inc. to set key beep off. 4)Press Stop to exit menu. Charging the transmitter LIPO BatteryConnect battery like this: (my battery is 800mAh 2S 8.4v) Make sure you get the polarity right. 1)Press Stop till the display shows LiPo BATT then press Enter. 2)Press Inc. to till the display shows LiPo CHARGE. 3)Press Enter and set the charge current.(0.8A will charge in 1 hour) 4)Press Enter and set the battery format (7.4v 2S is the transmitter battery) 5)Press Enter then press and hold enter to start charge 6)Charger will detect battery and show R: 2SER S: 2SER. You set 2S and the charger agrees! 7)Press enter again to start charge. If anything is wrong the charger wont start. (e.g. wrong polarity or cable unplugged) The Bottom line shows charge time and energy transferred in mAh (Battery Capacity is 800 mAh). The charger will switch to trickle charge automatically when done. During the charge you can press Inc. or Dec. to show more information. It is advisable to put the battery in a charge bag when charging in case something goes wrong. Once the charge has completed, the charger will beep and display FULL in the top left corner. Nick Wells5 | P a g e Charging the main LIPO Battery Connect the battery like this:(my battery is 5000mAh 3S 11.1v) 1)Press Stop till the display shows LiPo BATT then press Enter. 2)Press Inc. to till the display shows LiPo BALANCE. 3)Press Enter and set the charge current.(5.0A will charge in 1 hour) 4)Press Enter and set the battery format (11.1v 3S is the main battery) 5)Press Enter then press and hold enter to start charge 6)Charger will detect battery and show R: 3SER S: 3SER. You set 3S and the charger agrees! 7)Press enter again to start charge. If anything is wrong the charger wont start. (e.g. wrong polarity or cable unplugged) The Bottom line shows charge time and energy transferred in mAh (Battery Capacity is 5000 mAh). The charger will switch to trickle charge automatically when done. During the charge you can press Inc. or Dec. to show more information.It is advisable to put the battery in a charge bag when charging in case something goes wrong. Once the charge has completed, the charger will beep and display FULL in the top left corner. Nick Wells6 | P a g e Solder Lower Board There is more info in the F450 manual about assembly. This is a quick start guide. 1)Solder the 4 Electronic Speed Controllers (ESC) to the board 2)Solder main battery cable to the main power pads on the board. 3)Solder NAZA V-SEN module to the main power pads on the board. 4)Solder Video TX JST power cable to the main power pads on the board. 5)Clean and cover solder joints with glue or sealant. Fit Motors to Arms Attach motors to arms using the supplied M3 x 8 fixings. See page 6 of (F450 user manual) Pass the motor wires through the arm as shown. Attach Arms to Lower BoardDecide which way you want the copter to fly and attach the arms to the lower board using the M2.5 x 8 screws provided. Loosely connect the ESCs it doesnt matter where the wires go. FRONT Nick Wells7 | P a g e Connect RX to NAZA Autopilot Now we will connect the autopilot and receiver together before connecting to a PC to configure the NAZA autopilot. 1)Connect the receiver to the Autopilot as shown using the 3 pin cables. 2)Connect the NAZA V-SEN USB power unit to 4 pin LED and 3 pin X3 3)Connect the motor ESCs to the M1 to M4 ports as numbered in the picture. 4)Connect the GPS compass to the 4 pin EXP. port FRONT Nick Wells8 | P a g e Pairing RX & TX When powering up the DEVO transmitter it has a built in safeguard.If you dont follow this sequence it wont boot. Transmitter power on sequence (POS): 1)Set FMOD switch to position 0. 2)Set throttle stick to minimum. 3)Switch on power. You only need to do this once or if you factory reset the transmitter.This step isnt in the user manual! First clear existing codes: 1)Leave the transmitter switched off. 2)Connect BIND PLUG to the battery port on RX. 3)Connect main battery to the copter and the RX701 red LED will flash slowly. 4)Remove the plug then disconnect the power. The ID codes have now been cleared and the receiver is ready for binding. Bind RX and TX: 1)Power up receiver 2)Power up Transmitter (remember the POS above) 3)Transmitter will now bind with receiver. Set fixed ID: Follow instructions in 10.0 Customized fixed ID on page 12 of DEVO F7 manual. You have now paired the transmitter and receiver.Normally you power up the transmitter first and then receiver.You do it the other way round to bind the receiver. Nick Wells9 | P a g e Initial TX setup You only need to do this once or if you factory reset the transmitter. There are several things to set here using the buttons and onscreen menus on the transmitter. The values here worked for my build. Once we have configured the transmitter we can test all the settings using the NAZA PC software and adjust them if necessary. We need to: 1.Create a model profile for the quad copter. 2.Disable the AUX2 fail safe measures. 3.Calibrate switch travel. Nick Wells10 | P a g e Stage 1 Create Model profile Each aircraft you have can have individual saved settings stored as a model profile in the transmitter so you can switch between them. Here we will create one for the quad copter. 1.Use the Power On Sequence to boot up the transmitter. (Throttle stick down FMOD =0) 2.From the Main Menu 3.Press DN- to select the Model Menu and press ENT 4.Press UP+ to select the first model in the list and press ENT then EXT 5.Press DN- to select Model Name and press ENT 6.Use UP+ & DN- to select the character, use R+ & L- to set the value.Choose a name e.g. DJI F450 7.Press EXT when done 8.Press DN- to select Type Select and press ENT 9.Press L- to select Airplane and press ENT twice to confirm.We use Airplane to enable the AUX1 output. It is used for pitch on a helicopter but weNeed it to set the intelligent orientation control on the autopilot using the mix switch. 10.Press DN- to select Device Select and press ENT 11.Use UP+ & DN- to choose option and R+ & L- to set value. a.Set Flight Switch to Inhibit b.Set Flap Switch to MIX SW 12.Press EXT 13.Press DN- to select Device Output and press ENT 14.Use UP+ & DN- to choose option and R+ & L- to set value. a.Set Gear to GEAR SW, Active b.Set Flap to MIX SW, Active c.Set AUX2 to FMOD SW, Active 15.Press EXT three times to return to the flight screen. Stage 2 Disable Fail Safe Sounds like a strange thing to do but there is a reason. The receiver has built in behaviour when it goes out of range. It will hold all servo values as they are which is no good for the autopilot as it then wont know there is a problem. We want the autopilot to know the transmitter is out of range so it flies back home and lands. To do this: 1.Press ENT twice to enter Function Menu 2.Press DN- to Fail Safe and press ENT 3.Press DN- to select AUX2 (Default is Servo Hold) 4.Press L- to select Fail Safe 5.Press DN- to select value 6.Press L- to set value to -25 7.Press EXT twice to return to main menu Nick Wells11 | P a g e Stage 3 Calibrate switch travel This sets the output values for each position of the FMOD switch which must match predefined values in the NAZA autopilot. To do this: 1.From the Main Menu 2.Press ENT to enter Function Menu 3.Press DN- to Reverse Switch and press ENT 4.Press DN- to select Flap 5.Press L- to select Reverse 6.Press EXT 7.Press DN- to Travel Adjust and press ENT 8.Press DN- to select AUX2 first value9.Press R+ or L- to set first value to 82.0 10.Press DN- to select second value 11.Press R+ or L- to set second value to -87.0 12.Press EXT once to return to Function menu 13.Press DN- to select Sub Trim and press ENT 14.Press DN- to select AUX2 15.Press R+ or L- to set value to 6.0 16.Press EXT twice to return to main menu We have now configured the transmitter output to match all the connections to the NAZA autopilot. Now we need to hook it up to a PC and test it! Nick Wells12 | P a g e Configure and test NAZA Autopilot If you havent done so already install the DJI driver and software onto a Windows PC. Use the WIN8 driver installer for Windows 8. We will now power up the Quad copter, connect it to a PC and run the NAZA Lite assistant to configure the autopilot. Autopilot Configuration Stage 1 1.Make sure all propellers have been removed. 2.Switch on the Transmitter (Remember POS) 3.Connect the main battery to the Quad copter4.You will hear some beeps and the LED on the V-SEN board will start to flash.5.Connect the USB cable to the V-SEN and your PC. (V-SEN LED will go green) GPS Mounting Start up the NAZA Assistant. Once the NAZA has been detected your screen should look like this. After the copter is assembled you need to fill in these details. If you copy the suggested GPS mounting position, enter the following values. X = 0cm, Y = 5cm, Z = -9cm Click WRITE button to write values to the controller. Motor Mixer 1.Click the Motor Mixer tab 2.Choose Quad-rotor X Leave the motor speed at RECOMMAND (engrish) Nick Wells13 | P a g e TX Calibration 1.Click the TX Cali Tab 2.Set the Receiver Type to Tradition 3.Set Cut Off type to Intelligent 4.Wiggle the sticks on the transmitter and the sliders should move. 5.Click the REV button on T and E so your screen looks like this. 6.Press START to calibrate stick travel. In turn move each stick UP & DOWN then LEFT & RIGHT several times. 7.Click FINISH when done. 8.Test the Throttle stick, down should move slider left. 9.Test the Rudder stick, left should move slider left. 10.Test the Elevator stick, down should move slider left. 11.Test the Aileron stick, left should move slider left. 12.Test the MIX switch it should move X2 slider. 13.Test the FMOD switch it should move U slider.a.Position 0 should select Manual mode.Check the blue M and CONTROL MODE Manual is detected. If the box is not blue change the 2nd AUX2 value (see page 10)b.Position 1 should select A mode. Check the blue A and CONTROL MODE Attitude is detected. If the box is not blue change the AUX2 sub trim value (Page 10) c.Position 2 should select GPS mode. Check the blue GPS and CONTROL MODE GPS Attitude is detected. If the box is not blue change the 1st AUX2 value (see page 10) d.Switch off the transmitter. Check the blue Fail-Safe and CONTROL MODE Fail-Safe detected. If the box is not blue change the AUX2 value (see page 9) It is essential that the various modes are detected correctly otherwise you wont be able to use the autopilot correctly. If the box above the slider is not coloured blue, then that mode is not active, you need to change the calibration values in the transmitter. NOTE: You may need to reboot the receiver and reconnect the USB cable after testing failsafe. Nick Wells14 | P a g e Auto Pilot Setup 1.Click the Auto Pilot tab. 2.Set the following parameters for the DJI F450: Basic Gain: Pitch=150, Roll=150, Yaw=100, Vert.=105 Attitude Gain: Pitch=150, Roll=150 3.Press WRITE to save values. 4.Set the Fail-Safe method to Go-Home and Landing. 5.Enable Intelligent Orientation Control. 6.Test the MIX switch on the transmitter. a.Position 0 should select OFF. b.Position 1 should select Course Lock. c.Position 2 should select Home Lock. Gimbal Setup Not used for now.To use it you will need to reassign an output from the transmitter and they are currently all in use. Voltage Monitor This is a battery voltage monitor that will put the autopilot into safe mode if the battery starts to get low. To enable it: 1.Set Protective Switch to ON 2.Set battery type to 3S You have now: 1.Configured the aircraft type and geometry. 2.Configured and calibrated the autopilot. 3.Tested the connection between the receiver and autopilot. 4.Tested the transmitter configuration and calibration. Good Job go make a cuppa! Nick Wells15 | P a g e Check motor Rotation direction We need to check the motors are connected correctly and rotation in the right direction. To do this: 1.Power up the transmitter2.Power up the copter (USB disconnected) 3.Pull both sticks down and left to start the engines! 4.Hold a piece of paper up to each of the spinning motors to work out rotation. 5.Make a note of the ones that are wrong. 6.Disconnect the main battery on the copter. 7.If a motor is spinning in the wrong direction swap any 2 wires on the ESC. Once you have swapped the wires check rotation direction again. TIP: Set the FMOD switch to 0 (manual) and the motors will stay spinning.Set the FMOD switch to 2 (GPS Auto), the motors will stop after a couple of seconds. Mark the top of motors M1 and M3 with pen or paint to help you remember which ones spin counter clockwise to make it easier to fit the correct propeller. FRONT Nick Wells16 | P a g e Configure First Person View Video System Now we will connect and test the FPV video system.Connect the camera, transmitter and control unit as shown below. To configure the FPV System: 1.Insert the micro SD card in the camera. 2.Connect the Power cable to the lower board. 3.Connect the camera controller to the GEAR port on the receiver. 4.Power up the transmitter 5.Power up the copter 6.On the transmitter, press ENT then DN- to select System Menu and press ENT 7.Press DN- to select Video Select and press ENT 8.Press DN to Select Status then R+ to set it to Active 9.Press DN- to select channel then press R+ or L- to change channels till you see a picture. 10.Press EXT 3 times when done If there is interference on the video link, change the channel using the dip switches on the video transmitter, then repeat the setup on the main transmitter. Test recording function Toggle the Gear switch on the transmitter. You should see a red dot in the top right corner of the screen and a recording time bottom right. The camera is now recording! To stop recording toggle the gear switch again. TIP: When recording in flight, make sure you stop recording before disconnecting the power. If you dont do this you will lose the last recording. Thats it the flight systems are now fully configured so you can complete the assembly. Nick Wells17 | P a g e Install Electronics First make sure you have enough sticky pads to mount everything. You will need: 2 x circular Pads for GPS Compass 1 x square pad for Radio Receiver 1 x pad for camera 1 x pad for video transmitter 1 x large Velcro pad for battery Using the supplied double sided pad fix the Naza Autopilot to the centre of the lower board. Make sure the direction arrow is pointing to the front of the aircraft. Using a circular pad stick the RX701 receiver to the back of the lower board. Using a pad fix the DV04 camera to the front of the lower board. MAKE SURE THE CAMERA IS NOT UPSIDE DOWN!(The LED is on the bottom) The led should poke through the slot on the board or be visible if you are using a thick sticky pad. Make sure you can tilt the lens ok and it is not blocked by the lower board. TIP:Remove the DV04 sticker from the underside of the camera and stick it on the top to make sure the sticky pad sticks securely to the camera. FRONT Nick Wells18 | P a g e Cut one of the sticky pads and use 2 strips to attach the video transmitter to the lower board. Connect all cables (except the GPS compass) and use cable ties to tidy the bundles. If you can, route the ESC control cables and the video cables on opposite sides of the NAZA autopilot. Now fit the top board using the supplied screws. Nick Wells19 | P a g e Using Super Glue, fix the shaft into both ends of the GPS compass mount, and put it to on side to dry. Now, using cable ties secure the ESCs and V-SEN and aerials to the arms as shown in the pictures below. Feed the GPS compass cable through the arm and connect to the NAZA. Attach the compass stand to the top board and secure with a cable tie. Attach the compass to the top of the arm making sure the orientation is correct. Fix the GPS cable to the shaft using a cable tie. FRONT Nick Wells20 | P a g e Finally secure the main power cable to the lower board and add Velcro and the battery securing strap to the top board. If you want to fit the landing legs just follow the instructions provided. Thats it the Quad copter is fully assembled! Beer time!!