Wasp's Maiden Flight

Maiden Flight

On the first flight I accidentally got up to around 200 feet, and that was almost the end of Wasp. Thankfully I was able to get it back down and not crash into a tree. Pretty lucky. The only thing that broke was one prop. After my first crash the dampers were pulled out of the top and bottom plates (basically the dampers got ripped out of the plates), so it is really important to zip tie through all of the dampers.

Quads and a helicopter gathered before we fly

Lessons Learned

1. Motors are mounted in wrong arrangement rotate them CW by one position 
2. Move battery to bottom, print cage 
3. Move discharge wire out of the way 
4. Tighten arm bolts 
5. Focus camera properly 
6. Adjust PID gains? 
7. Wire in JST connectors 
8. Print spare parts 
9. Buy more props 
10. Use antenna on headset with correct polarity SMA connector 
11. Zip tie through all of the dampers

#1 

As I mentioned in The Build Part 1 the motors are labeled in a non-intuitive way (labeled CW wrt to the threads, not the rotation of the motor), so I mounted them in the wrong positions, oops. In this orientation the locking nuts on the props will loosen during your flight, eventually the props will come off and you will be flying a rock.

#2

Moving the battery to the bottom of the quad will help make the flight characteristics more stable, and keep it away from the blades (in case you crash and the arms fold in)

#3

I want to reroute the discharge wire to come out the back of the quad. I had a few crashes where the arms folded back in and the still spinning props actually cut the discharge wire, not good.

#4

The arms felt like they folded in too easily, so I want to tighten the bolts.

#5

The camera was out of focus for objects far away. If I want to fly FPV I need to fix that.

#6

All settings were default, so I want to adjust those to improve stability during flight.

#7

I had to solder all the wires directly to each other. I want to replace those connections that can be with JST connectors.

#8

With all the crashing I'm going to need some spare parts.

#9

Definitely will be needing more props.

#10

The antenna on the headset had the wrong polarity, so there was no pin between the antenna SMA and the SMA on the headset.

#11

As I mentioned zip ties through the dampers are really important so that when you crash the plates don't pop off the dampers.