DJI 550 Build.
 

Finally picked up my DJI 550 kit from the post office depot. The arms are certainly much more rigid than the HobbyKing Clones.

Started the long process of assembling / soldering it.

This is the Spec.

DJI 550 Frame
SunnySky 2212 980KV motors
RC Timer 10x4.5 carbon Props
3S - 4000mah lipo's (or 2x2650 3S run in parallel)
Afro 30 amp (Simon K) esc's
DJI Naza V2 & GPS
Aeroxcraft Landing gear
Tarot (or possibly Zenmuse) brushless Gimbal + GoPro 3
LED lights along arms
(Lights and Gimbal running from a separate 500 mah 3S battery to isolate it from the Naza)
Turnigy 9X radio & Turnigy Receiver


Thing is - after all I have read - i'm still unsure of what to do re the radio / props and lipo's?

1st - Turnigy 9X and standard receiver. There is no failsafe, which scares the hell out of me. I have set the Naza up so I can force a failsafe on the Gear Switch, but this doesn't help me if I fly out of range or loose signal. Initial thought was to buy a 9XR and FrSky RX/TX as I want to keep the 9X and receivers to fly my KK2 Quads. But - then there's the cost + wait from Hong Kong :( The new FrSky Taranis looks nice but no-one has them in stock.

2nd - The Lipo & Props. Should I run 3S or 4S - and what combo of props gives the best flight time? I have a few 3S lipo's so that's what I was going to use as 4S on my other Quads is plain silly / wants to rip the arms off!

Any info from the 550 guys appreciated - also any build tips as i'm in no rush to get this into the sky, I want to be sure it will come back home should I have any problems with it!

Best combo that I've worked out for the most flight time is 1038 dji props on 3s (std dji motors).
The lipos I use are A spec nano's 4500mah from hobbyking, these lipo's are the secret for 14 mins flight time. My f550 weighs 2.4kg (inc 2x above cells in parallel).
Tempted to buy the same motors you have to see if it would give me a little more power with the 3s.
I used to run 4s 5000mah with 9x5 graupners, this would give me 8-9 mins of flight. Plenty of power though, night and day compared to 3s power but now I have the tbs discovery I don't need power with the 550, just nice smooth Ariel footage stuff.

You are right to be scared to fly it with no fail safe! I wouldn't, I have a 9xr on the way to me, should be with me this week. If you want you can have that off me for what I paid from hobbyking.
Purchased it just for a spare.

I also have a fr sky djt module and plus 2 rx spare.:drool:

Hi Fella.

Really appreciate the offer on the 9XR - sent you a PM :)

It only really dawned on me as I got everything together that I had no failsafe.... I think it will be remaining grounded until I get that sorted. It's a lot of pennies to loose control. I need to know I can turn the TX off, or it can fail and it returns to home.

Bearing in mind I havnt flown mine yet but quadcopters.co.uk advised 8" props with a 5000 4s lipo . I upgraded the motors to 2212 900kv straight from the start. Plus I can put these motors on my tbs if its complete overkill and put the dji motors on the 550 just need to buy 2 more.

I bought cheap plastic 8" gemfan or something props for mine and its not too far from taking its maiden eeks lol. I just need a tutorial on how to set up the switches for flight modes on the 9xr and failsafes ect.

Steep learning curves eh lol.

9x5 graupners defo the way to go! Imoa.
I reckon them 900kv motors could be good for 4s with the dji 1038 props? The dji std motors get a little warm! Ok on 3s though.

Maybe you two need to step into my garage for a crash course:cry:

I like the way I have my 9xr setup, the only thing I'm missing is course lock.
It has on my three position switch- fail safe (rth), attitude and gps.
On one of the two way switches - home lock on or off.
Then gimbal tilt control on one of the pots/knobs.
Then obviously when switching tx off fail safe kicks in (rth).

Sherbs has a good setup that includes course lock but think he has to toggle two switches to access fail safe?

Sounds like you have it all nicely sorted :)

I put a similar setup on the 9X when I tried the naza in my 450 - I followed a guide on YouTube and set the 3 way to atti/GPS/manual and then set the gear switch to override all 3 settings with the failsafe.

I'd like to do the same on the 9XR - but also have failsafe kick in when the TX is off:)

Also - could you post the naza voltage protection settings you use in the 550 - that confuses the hell out of me - don't want to set it wrong so that it tries to RTH when the lipo is almost flat....

think i have my voltage proyection at 3.7v per cell then loss at 0.30.
you have to calibrate your lipo to it and do a calibrtion flight.

got mine set perfect for my 3s lipos. it lands itself after 13 mins of flight (not hover) this leaves 14% left in lipo pack. Tis good foe me!

I could do with any advice lol, would be good to meetup and see how you have configured to get some pointers. As mentioned in the meetup thread what days im free however if ever your flying over the next few days let us know.

Thanks,

Col.

Well - my Naza V2 550 is officially doing my head in.
Sometimes it fly's ok - if i'm calm and steady with it - but most of the time - this happens and it eats the turf.

I've tried everything I can think of - re-soldered stuff - new motors etc. Baffled...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMYeG...ature=youtu.be

I'm not an expert with the naza as I have the APM 2.5 BUT it might be worth looking at balancing of your rotors and also motors. It might be worth turning the gain right down as it looks like it starts to oscillate then flips. I'm guessing you've done all the direction calibrations correctly and mounted the Naza with the correct orientation?

Cheers Steve.

Motors are Sunnysky's so are very well balanced as they come. I've flown it with my Carbon balanced props and it does the same thing :(

The problem is - I can fly for 5 or 10 mins, or as in this case 10 seconds and it can flip over at any time. Seems to do it if there's more stick input from my end. The first time it did it I was just Yawing from side to side on the spot and it keeled over. Suffice to say - I have not flown at any height with it as it's totally unpredictable.

It seems unlikely it's a motor (I have tried another good set) or esc as it flies fine when it works! I'm thinking Naza. I have spoken with the dji dealer I bought this from and sent them the video too. I may try swopping out all the esc's too just to be sure though :(

Andy, we can put my NAZA in it if you want? That should help to determine if yours is at fault.

Replied via text message pal.

Col.

Below is a link to set the 9xr to work with the Naza Lite. Read it, program it, plug into assistant & all becomes clear. Pretty neat.

http://www.multirotorforums.com/show...for-Naza-w-GPS

Might have to take you up on that Neal - it's driving me nuts!!!

Is it much work to drop a KK2 into it? That should eliminate motors, esc's and wiring all in one go

How do these things fly compared to trex 600 flybarless with a beast x:woot: are they super smooth very interested :thumbsup:

Col - that's what i'm going to do 1st:)
Was just in the garage looking at it and deciding which KK2 to take out of another quad.
Just pop it on the top and wire everything into it :)

Danger is with a KK2 it will be tricky keeping it a safe distance from the ground.....

Cheers.

Andy

Ok Guys - thoughts please :)

I simply unplugged the Naza (left it in the 550) and put a KK2 and a spare receiver from my 9x onto the top board. I then unplugged all the esc's from the naza and plugged them into the KK2.

Seems to fly just fine in my garden. Not an exhaustive test - but it seems fine.

So - the frame / esc's and motors must be ok?

Only thing is - this is not the same radio & receiver. I'm using the 9XR and frsky with the Naza and didn't want to unplug the reciever from the Naza.

I don't suppose there is any chance that the radio is at fault - or I have set something wrong in the 9XR????? Seems unlikely as it flies ok for a while before crashing itself....

Naza faulty - it's looking very likely?

Send naza back to quadcopters so they can test, or before tha have a run over to mine and we could run a few tests with radio gear, different naza etc...

Cheers for that buddy - I have e-mailed quadcopters. It really does look like something is fishy with the Naza. I have had to recalibrate it quite a few times. Once is would not fly properly at all after taking off and hovering nicely the day before - nothing had changed. I thought that seemed odd at the time. Also - it fly's ok 'sometimes' then randomly falls to one side and it's down. I've never had it up over a couple of feet as I don't / can't trust it - and I have always flown it over grass otherwise it would be very bad!

As per the video - due to the way it falls, it looks like one arm / area of the Hex looses power as it goes right over. I thought the Naza V2 was supposed to 'try' and stay up if just one motor goes down....

Anyway - i'll see what they say - do you have a spare Naza V2 lying around we could try ?!
Drop me a text and let me know when your free in case I need your help :)

Doing my head in this is - I seem to be wasting far too much time chasing this problem down :(

Another quick test - I connected the 9XR and Frsky to the KK2 to rule out the radio.
It all works just fine - I set up a new model for the KK2 and it fly's great thrashing it around in the garden.

So - it must either be:

Naza faulty

or

I have set something on the Naza wrong? But it flies ok before it crashes....

In the 9XR I have channels set up as:
1 = THR
2 = AIL
3 = ELE
4 = RUD

I guess that it does not matter which channel is assigned to which control as long as they are plugged into the Naza in the right places - and they were otherwise it would not fly!

I'm 99% certain my Naza is the problem now.

Had no reply today from quadcopters :(

Andy, if you are at Batley Sunday, you can take my NAZA to try. I'll bring my laptop to go through the settings with you.

Cheers Neal - that will be great - thank you :)

I'm going to Batley - so ill bring it with me :)

550 is 'almost' finished - going to try the tarot gimbal on it before trying the Zenmuse.

I bought a super cheap lcd screen from banggood and the cheapest Boscam 5.8 setup from hobbyking - I went for the upgraded antenna though. So now I can charge the GoPro whilst it's on the 500 as well as monitor what is sees through the GoPro. I have a video switch too so when I get a small FPV cam I can switch between the 2 in flight :)

Here it is - minus props. As it's super windy - I can't fly it :(

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15062770/550.jpg

Nice, what's round your gps antenna? I broke my gps antenna case last crash.

Heyup Neal. Merry Christmas :)

The GPS Thing was from ebay - it's just a 3D printed protector. Not sure how much good it will be in a proper crash - but something is better than nothing.

top banana!!:thumbsup:

All we need to do now is have a meet......

And to you Andy (and anyone else reading).

My case broke in the impact, which resulted in the carbon rod snapping, never to be seen again. Instead of the 3m tape/glue to ali mount breaking, it broke the plastic case instead.

un predictable flip
 

I had same problem with a tri that I was testing. All components were known good, except for an untested control board, and trying to use flashed ESCs on 4s. In the end, after the last crash,, it was determined that there was a bad sensor on the board. No amount of tuning and fiddling would fix it. When all else fails,, replace the control board with a known good one!