Multi-Impossible, Mōvi_M5/MK Build and Review

[Bartman]

Everything's done and ready to fly. Small stuff like LED's and balancing props can be done Sunday evening if Monday's trip is still a go.

The rain persisted this evening up to and through the Cub Scout meeting so I'm expecting to do a first flight first thing tomorrow morning. Once it's done I'll post the video and the thread will swap back to the Movi M5 review.

Here are a few more pics of the build and a video of the first full voltage power-up.

This pic shows the final runs of the motor and power wires. When attaching the motor wires to the MK BL's you have to resist the urge to use too much solder as it ends up letting too much heat get into the FET's which are the electronic devices that switch the power to the motors on and off a gazillion times a second. If they damaged by too much heat during the assembly process then it's just a matter of time before they will burn up and maybe cause a lot of damage.
View attachment 18219

The next two pics show the wires I attach to make the flight controller do its thing. There are a bunch of different ways to do this and if you're using a Mikrokopter power distribution board then most of the wires can be replaced by a five wire cable with molex connectors. With the I2c isolator board I've got to have the power wires and the C/D channel wires run as separate cables and I use the power wires as I do because that's just what I'm used to doing. The Spektrum diversity board is another standard thing for my builds since I'm still using my JR9503 although Jeti or Graupner (I think) are better options at this point for Mikrokopter because they integrate into the MK system and provide telemetry readouts (and voice call outs from the radio).

View attachment 18221View attachment 18220

The last photo is the I2c isolator board I've mentioned a few times. It's not available anymore but it works well and makes wiring up the BL's (speed controllers) a lot easier, especially when they're mounted individually.
View attachment 18222

Here's the first power up, where the rubber meets the road, full voltage, let the chips fall where they may, time to $hit or get off the pot, what separates the men from the boys.........um.....you get the point.......if you make it past this without smoke or I2c errors then you're doing pretty well and should stop and celebrate your good fortune with the adult beverage and companionship of your choosing.

 

[Motopreserve]

Congratulations on no smoke, no flames and most of the beeps

looking great. Can't wait to see the Movi and maiden...

 

[Bartman]

anyone's that has ever built RC planes (helicopter and car guys may have had the same habits) has had one of those nights where they're making progress and they have to do a little "bench flying" before heading up to bed. It's where you place the wing on the fuselage, maybe attach the gear and push the cowl into place so you can get a first look at how your new plane is going to look.

Well, here's the multi-rotor helicopter equivalent to "bench flying"........similar but different

View attachment 18223

The landing gear is on the heli for the test flights and will be removed when the gimbal is attached as the gimbal has its own gear that move with the panning motion of the gimbal.

There's something about having propellers attached to the motors that gets me excited to get out and fly. Everything before that is very mechanical and not very dramatic but when the props go on it gets real all of a sudden. At least for me it does.

edit: looking at that photo for a while I'm wondering if the landing gear legs are going to come out very far from the center and interfere with the lower props. maybe I'll have time to investigate that tomorrow, otherwise it will have to be Sunday morning. how am I going to sleep? is that what you're asking yourself? I'm asking myself that too!

 

[sk8brd]

nice Bartman! Glad everything is working from the get go-not really a surprise thats some well tested and recomended gear. can't wait to see how everything flies. Most of the commercial guys i know of flying expensive cams like the epic, c500 etc trust MK over anything else. At some point i want to build an mk rig and see for myself and that day may come sooner then later...thanks btw i just bought a wkm..lol

 

[Mojave]

I did not realize that the M5 had its own landing gear; doing a quick search I did not find any good photos, but the parts were displayed.
When I was doing house construction in San Diego it always started to look finished when we put up the walls, we used sheet rock (gypsum wall board). I can relate to the similar feeling when I got the props on my hexacopter.
Looking forward to your next steps!

anyone's that has ever built RC planes (helicopter and car guys may have had the same habits) has had one of those nights where they're making progress and they have to do a little "bench flying" before heading up to bed. It's where you place the wing on the fuselage, maybe attach the gear and push the cowl into place so you can get a first look at how your new plane is going to look.

Well, here's the multi-rotor helicopter equivalent to "bench flying"........similar but different

View attachment 22416

The landing gear is on the heli for the test flights and will be removed when the gimbal is attached as the gimbal has its own gear that move with the panning motion of the gimbal.

There's something about having propellers attached to the motors that gets me excited to get out and fly. Everything before that is very mechanical and not very dramatic but when the props go on it gets real all of a sudden. At least for me it does.

edit: looking at that photo for a while I'm wondering if the landing gear legs are going to come out very far from the center and interfere with the lower props. maybe I'll have time to investigate that tomorrow, otherwise it will have to be Sunday morning. how am I going to sleep? is that what you're asking yourself? I'm asking myself that too!

 

[SoCal Blur]

anyone's that has ever built RC planes (helicopter and car guys may have had the same habits) has had one of those nights where they're making progress and they have to do a little "bench flying" before heading up to bed. It's where you place the wing on the fuselage, maybe attach the gear and push the cowl into place so you can get a first look at how your new plane is going to look.

I did that once, many years ago after I built my first plane from scratch, a Citabria. What I didn't understand at the time was that it didn't mean, fire up the engine as well. Those nitro engines are noisy and smelly. My mom didn't appreciate it either so I suddenly had plenty of time to work on my model as I was grounded to my room for a few days...

 

[stevemaller]

I did not realize that the M5 had its own landing gear; doing a quick search I did not find any good photos, but the parts were displayed.
When I was doing house construction in San Diego it always started to look finished when we put up the walls, we used sheet rock (gypsum wall board). I can relate to the similar feeling when I got the props on my hexacopter.
Looking forward to your next steps!

I’ve been flying my custom MK/Cinestar 8-based 6S X8 with a MōVI M5 for a couple months. It’s a phenomenal system, and I’ve had wonderful results. Here’s a photo of my rig.
View attachment 18225

 

[Bartman]

Looks good Steve!

@SoCal....between spray cans of dope and running nitro engines in the basement, i shouldn't have any lung capacity left!

 

[Bartman]

Here's a short and very underproduced video of the first flight without the Movi M5 gimbal, i'm also wearing the clothes that i slept in but that's what happens when there's a deadline!

All in all it was a great first flight and I'm very anxious now to work through the remaining test flights and get the gimbal airborne.

 

[Motopreserve]

Great job bart! That Machine lifted off smooth, level and without incident. A good test flight no matter how long the build took, but especially considering the time crunch.

 

[ChrisViperM]

Congrats...well done. I was worried a bit with the lack of sleep you had and beeing under pressure....but great advertising for Warsteiner....keeps the man on the job.

BTW: Do you really sleep with a hoodie, socks and slippers ??? :highly_amused:

Can't wait to see the first flight with the M5.....

May all the luck be with you....


Chris

 

[Bartman]

And so now we switch gears and get back to the reason behind all of this which is the gimbal review. To that end I present another video which, I must warn, is not an unboxing video.

 

[Bartman]

I’ve been flying my custom MK/Cinestar 8-based 6S X8 with a MōVI M5 for a couple months. It’s a phenomenal system, and I’ve had wonderful results. Here’s a photo of my rig.
View attachment 22418

Steve,

Which FC and BL's are you using? Motors? Props? Batteries? Flight times? With which camera?

Details on another flying example would help others looking to put something like this in the air.

Thanks,
Bart

 

[stevemaller]

Steve,
Which FC and BL's are you using? Motors? Props? Batteries? Flight times? With which camera?
Details on another flying example would help others looking to put something like this in the air.

My progress is very well documented on the Freefly forum, but in a nutshell...
- X8 frame based on cinestar with 500mm booms
- KDE 4012 motors
- 16" CF props
- MK Double Quadro 2XL "cool" PDB
- MK FC 2.5
- MK NC 2.0
- was using Zippy 8000 6S batteries but I think I'm switching to Tattu and Pulse batts, which are dramatically improving flight times
- MōVI M5 with GH4 and 12-35/2.8 lens
- AUW 22-24 pounds depending on batteries
- 14+ minutes with dual 10000 Lipos
- 20+ minutes with dual 16000 Lipos

videos here: http://vimeo.com/stevemaller

 

[RyanMcCrae]

That was a fast build, glad the Multirotor all came together as expected.

 

[Bartman]

Just a quick update...

It's been a crazy weekend between trying to get the new heli flying and having to go sleep out in the woods of Northern NJ for a scouting trip with my son. To make matters worse I left a garbage bag out not more than ten feet from my tent and was kept up while the raccoons ripped through everything in it! Long story short, the heli isn't ready...it could be ready if I were willing to go fly it with hardly any time spent testing and tweaking but since I'm not going to do that, it isn't ready.

Today was made worse by us having to leave the house for about an hour and a half so it would be vacant when a realtor came by with a prospective buyer. That was another hour and a half that I couldn't be in the shop working. When I was in the shop this afternoon I was dealing with phantom (not that phantom) motor control issues which I traced back to the older version Xbee telemetry system that I had installed. I'll order the most recent version tomorrow and put the older one on my older 4S Mikrokopter photo heli which didn't seem to have the same problem when I swapped it over to that one.

In the last hour the Movi M5 was set up with my Panasonic GH3 and the 12mm prime lens that I had bought for another project. As impressive as the Movi is, there's going to be some trial and error to see just how perfect the balance of the camera needs to be and also to see how much the quality of the stabilization suffers as you back off the stiffness settings from the vibration threshold. In other words, I've got some testing to do.

Also of interest to me is to see how the heli's battery consumption goes with 8000mah packs and 15" Xoar props. And then there is the matter of getting used to the odd sounds coming from the motors which may be a function of the newest version Mikrokopter motor controllers or it may not be. I've been spooked by the problems I've had today which weren't really the fault of the helicopter or the equipment but it just made me take a deep breath and reconsider rushing out to go fly the new M5.

There's every reason to remain optimistic and the appointment for tomorrow has already been postponed to later this week or next, weather being the ultimate factor to lock in a date.

More to come as we continue to work through the final details of this build and review.

 

[Bartman]

My progress is very well documented on the Freefly forum, but in a nutshell...
- X8 frame based on cinestar with 500mm booms
- KDE 4012 motors
- 16" CF props
- MK Double Quadro 2XL "cool" PDB
- MK FC 2.5
- MK NC 2.0
- was using Zippy 8000 6S batteries but I think I'm switching to Tattu and Pulse batts, which are dramatically improving flight times
- MōVI M5 with GH4 and 12-35/2.8 lens
- AUW 22-24 pounds depending on batteries
- 14+ minutes with dual 10000 Lipos
- 20+ minutes with dual 16000 Lipos

videos here: http://vimeo.com/stevemaller

Thanks for the contribution to the thread Steve. We're running very similar set-ups so I'd expect to see pretty similar performance numbers. In running the KDE and Tiger 4012 motors on my test stand they actually came out pretty close to each other. The KDE's have the advantage with the 3rd bearing set and heavier gauge wires but at the amps I'm expecting to be running at there shouldn't be much difference in power consumption although we are running different diameter props.

The flight time improvements you're seeing may not be as much due to the new brands your trying as due to the Zippy's being a weak brand to begin with. Have you been flying Zippy's very long? My experience with them was very bad and I've read other experiences that were similar, mostly much lower than rated C discharge ratings that caused them to puff and the internal resistance numbers to prematurely rise leaving the packs looking very new but mostly useless.

Regards,
Bart

 

[jappie911]

Hi Bart,

I was following this, because I think it was almost impossible to build and setup in just a few days..

I am flying MK only, and it takes some time to build and set it up together with gimbal etc..

As you all know People always ask what the cost of the heli's are.

Most of the time I answer the money is in the time which is required for set up and adjustments..

I think that is an advantage of systems like DJI, however I am a happy heavy user of MK systems. Even a few old 2.0 flightcontrollers are still going strong...

I often think how many time it would take me in case of damaging my heli's including the spare. And have to build a new one under pressure!

But I wanted to ask what frame you are using? Is that Sinestar or?

It looks like the booms are in an extreme angle, making lot's of free view, but will it be as stable as a normal X setup? And MK can handle this without problem?

Until now I only fly normal hexa's and servo gimbals!! With good and reliable results..

But thinking about a new build and take the brushless gimbal step. Maybe I will go for a y or x setup, because of more travelling in the nearby future I need something small..

However.. Good luck with the rest of setup!

Regards,

Jasper

 

[Bartman]

Nice to hear from you Jasper! You're an old timer around here.

The XY frame is my own design and it's flown with Mikrokopter, WKM, Hoverfly, and most recently a NAZA-M V2 controller. You can actually make an XY quad using your hexacopter frame plates by deleting the front and back center arms. It was borne of my desire to have a Y-copter's front arm spacing while still using eight motors and it first flew 2 1/2 yrs ago.

I'm still flying servo driven gimbals and getting good results although I'm also developing another facet to my media work and the brushless heli's I've added this year will be used almost exclusively for that.

Regards,
Bart

 

[jfro]

Nice to hear from you Jasper! You're an old timer around here.

The XY frame is my own design and it's flown with Mikrokopter, WKM, Hoverfly, and most recently a NAZA-M V2 controller. You can actually make an XY quad using your hexacopter frame plates by deleting the front and back center arms. It was borne of my desire to have a Y-copter's front arm spacing while still using eight motors and it first flew 2 1/2 yrs ago.

I'm still flying servo driven gimbals and getting good results although I'm also developing another facet to my media work and the brushless heli's I've added this year will be used almost exclusively for that.

Regards,
Bart

Bart, have you flown your xy8 with the Naza V2? If so, what did you think?

With the latest hardware and firmware, how hard is it to setup an x8 with the MK FC? I have been scared away from it because of the alleged complexity. Starting to wonder if I should give it a try.