Now that I've got the majority of the fleet sorted and ready to fly once the weather improves I was sitting here last night looking at the bare Gaui 330X frame hanging on the tail boom of a heli on top of the workbench and thinking I really should do something with it.
Prior to it becoming a wall ornament I had been flying it with a set of Hyperion motors, Exceed 10 amp ESC's, and a Minsoo Kim KK controller mainly as a basher and to practice aerobatics. Tired of shelling out $20 each time I'd fracture a set of arm plates I yanked all the electronics and built the 350mm Silver Bullet with all of it, the Gaui frame then got repaired with the last of the spares I had on hand and retired.
I had all of the original Gaui parts in the box it came in though this was a version 1 kit with the pre-Scorpion motors and I never did get it to fly correctly with the original gear which is why I swapped over to the Hyperions and KK controller. Now I like a good challenge once in a while so I dug out all the bits and pieces I had and started putting the little 330 back together with all the original electronics. It took a while to sort the good, questionable, and bad parts but in the end I had enough workable pieces to assemble a relatively close to original Gaui.
Once assembled I once again ran into the orignal problems of motors randomly not spinning up and flipping either on the takeoff attempt or shortly after it got in the air. Now I'm remembering what a P.O.S. I thought this kit was way back when (was it really only about a year ago???), and why I ultimately bought my first MK Hexa. Being a lot wiser in the ways of multirotor craft now I was determined to get this little bugger flying if at all possible.
What I discovered was likely the reason why Gaui started using Scorpion motors in these kits rather than the generic unknown brand the version 1 kits had, the original motors are unquestionably crap! The wires to connect to the ESC's appear to be nothing more than an extension of the windings on the armature and consequently are prone to breaking, that was problem # 1, two motors had intermittent connections due to wires being fractured inside the insulation. They looked OK, and for the most part would let the motor spin up on the bench, but when trying to take off or once in the air the vibration would cause the break point to seperate and the end result was constant flipping. OK, fix that problem and I got it to actually take off and sort of fly around if you could call the drunken weaving through the air out in the backyard flying.
Closer inspection showed a tendency for one motor to change speeds all on its own and make some rather odd noises, digging deeper I found problem #2, the armature assembly was floating inside the bell, I could see it moving around as it pushed the wires one way or the other. OK, disassemble the motor and the armature stayed inside the bell with the rest of the housing falling off the bottom, hmmm. A dose of CA secured the armature to the housing and no more movement, reassemble and back outside.
Now it actually seems to be flying with some degree of control though not all that much, time to start tweaking the gyro gain. The book says start at 50, I wound up at 80 and by then had a reasonable amount of stability and control, that's where I'm at now.
So after all this I'm not at all surprised at why there were so many problems with the orignal production run of the 330X and why they changed to Scorpion motors, I'm actually kind of amazed that so many of the originals actually flew considering how bad they really were. I'm also seeing just how huge of a difference there is between a cheap Chinese entry level quad and a high end kit like the MK, and that's why I probably will never again spend good $ on another Chinese kit regardless of how glowing the reviews, a lot of folks originally thought the Gaui was a great kit too!
So I'm done with the Gaui project, its come full circle and now has been given the status of nostalgic reminder of my early days in multirotors. On nice calm days I'll take it off the shelf and give it a few laps around the backyard, then head off to the field and fly some real mulitrotor craft.
Ken
Prior to it becoming a wall ornament I had been flying it with a set of Hyperion motors, Exceed 10 amp ESC's, and a Minsoo Kim KK controller mainly as a basher and to practice aerobatics. Tired of shelling out $20 each time I'd fracture a set of arm plates I yanked all the electronics and built the 350mm Silver Bullet with all of it, the Gaui frame then got repaired with the last of the spares I had on hand and retired.
I had all of the original Gaui parts in the box it came in though this was a version 1 kit with the pre-Scorpion motors and I never did get it to fly correctly with the original gear which is why I swapped over to the Hyperions and KK controller. Now I like a good challenge once in a while so I dug out all the bits and pieces I had and started putting the little 330 back together with all the original electronics. It took a while to sort the good, questionable, and bad parts but in the end I had enough workable pieces to assemble a relatively close to original Gaui.
Once assembled I once again ran into the orignal problems of motors randomly not spinning up and flipping either on the takeoff attempt or shortly after it got in the air. Now I'm remembering what a P.O.S. I thought this kit was way back when (was it really only about a year ago???), and why I ultimately bought my first MK Hexa. Being a lot wiser in the ways of multirotor craft now I was determined to get this little bugger flying if at all possible.
What I discovered was likely the reason why Gaui started using Scorpion motors in these kits rather than the generic unknown brand the version 1 kits had, the original motors are unquestionably crap! The wires to connect to the ESC's appear to be nothing more than an extension of the windings on the armature and consequently are prone to breaking, that was problem # 1, two motors had intermittent connections due to wires being fractured inside the insulation. They looked OK, and for the most part would let the motor spin up on the bench, but when trying to take off or once in the air the vibration would cause the break point to seperate and the end result was constant flipping. OK, fix that problem and I got it to actually take off and sort of fly around if you could call the drunken weaving through the air out in the backyard flying.
Closer inspection showed a tendency for one motor to change speeds all on its own and make some rather odd noises, digging deeper I found problem #2, the armature assembly was floating inside the bell, I could see it moving around as it pushed the wires one way or the other. OK, disassemble the motor and the armature stayed inside the bell with the rest of the housing falling off the bottom, hmmm. A dose of CA secured the armature to the housing and no more movement, reassemble and back outside.
Now it actually seems to be flying with some degree of control though not all that much, time to start tweaking the gyro gain. The book says start at 50, I wound up at 80 and by then had a reasonable amount of stability and control, that's where I'm at now.
So after all this I'm not at all surprised at why there were so many problems with the orignal production run of the 330X and why they changed to Scorpion motors, I'm actually kind of amazed that so many of the originals actually flew considering how bad they really were. I'm also seeing just how huge of a difference there is between a cheap Chinese entry level quad and a high end kit like the MK, and that's why I probably will never again spend good $ on another Chinese kit regardless of how glowing the reviews, a lot of folks originally thought the Gaui was a great kit too!
So I'm done with the Gaui project, its come full circle and now has been given the status of nostalgic reminder of my early days in multirotors. On nice calm days I'll take it off the shelf and give it a few laps around the backyard, then head off to the field and fly some real mulitrotor craft.
Ken
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