Zăganu - 01 Introduction

OK, so after some words in the previous post about all this project wants to be it's time to get into the serious stuff. There are so many things into such a major project that it's hard to put things in order. Spent my last two weeks just surfing the net and trying to assimilate as much info in the field as I could since I'm a newb in all this RC hobby.

Except the documenting phase there's also a lot of acquisitions needed, from the Tx/Rx system, batteries, motors, ESCs, BECs, frame and so on. From all these I'm sure about this:

• I'll make the frame DIY style, using 10x12x1 rectangular aluminum hollow tube for the motor arms and carbon fiber or FR-4 plate for the center part
• I'll go the cheap way with the motors, propellers and ESCs since they are prone to destruction during trials. I've already ordered ESCs from the giant HobbyKing, the props and motors I intend acquiring from local suppliers
• For the flight controller I took the MultiWii path with some modifications. I acquired the original Wii Motion Plus and Nunchuk controllers as to avoid any problems with the cheap replicas. I'll try implementing the actual controller on a LM3S3748 development board I already had. If that doesn't work out then I'll switch to the Arduino approach with the software already available
• for the Rx/Tx system I went for Hitec Aurora 9 which is quite a lot over average but it should make my life a lot easier with all it's bells and bells and whistles. 

 As for some quick links on the subject, here are a few that I really consider essential:

• starlino.com is a great resource on multiple electronics topics but I found it crucial for the following two posts: A Guide To using IMU and Arduino code for simplified Kalman filter
• rcgroups.com is one of the most important forums out there in the field of RC. The Multi Rotor Helis section is packed with topics about the subject
• wiibrew.org is the main place to start when it comes to dealing with Wii controllers
• There are a lot of open source projects out there dealing with multi rotor helis but the ones I found most useful, information wise, and just to name a few, are: KKmulticopter, UAVP, OpenPilot, MikroKopter

So now I've sketched the frame and it's as ready as it can be till I get the rest of the components. I've also hacked the Wii controllers and successfully communicated with them over I2C. That's about it for now, I'll come back with some pictures and details on my work in the next post.