For a few day’s I’ve been stumped on getting my motors/esc’s “throttle calibrated.” This is a process where you basically need to allow the motors to “know” what the throttle range is, from 0 to 100%.

In perhaps one of the most boneheaded parts of my build I was trying to calibrate motor one, which is on the front right of the hexacopter. No matter what I tried the ESC just beeped forever. To confirm that I had my transmitter and receiver actually set up right, I bought a cheap servo at a local hobby shop and hooked it up to the receiver’s throttle output. Sure enough, the servo woked. That eliminated the radio/receiver as the issue.

I started thinking perhaps my ESC wires were mixed up, but I put numbers on all of them when I installed them to avoid mixing them up. At that point I looked under the bird and saw the #1 on the front LEFT arm. What an idiot! I had the bird upside down so the front left was motor #1! OMG!!!

After that I was quickly able to calibrate 5 of the 6 motors. Motor #3 would not receive any signal. So I got a multi-meter out to test continuity of the cables. The signal wire (white) on #3 was bad. No connection from one end to the other. This is a total pain as I would have to pull out the ESC wires from the arms and re-feed a replacement through. Then in a brilliant revelation, I tied some string to the old wires. I pulled the string through the arm as I pulled out the old wiring. Then I attached the new wires to the string and threaded it through again. Voila. Save myself the mega-hassle of trying to fish wires through.

Re-wired ESC

I then soldered the new wire to the ESC (photo), and put a servo plug on the other end. Once that was done motor #3 recognized the receiver and I was able to do the final calibration.

On to motor configuration!

One of the casualties of my recent crash was my set of 3D printed clip on feet for the DJI Phantom.  I needed them because my Arris CM3000 gimbal was too big and didn’t want it touching the ground.

Now that my Phantom landing gear extensions are broken I’m trying to decide how to replace them with something light, easy to carry , and easy to put on and take off.  I may have found the solution at Home Depot.  The clips you see in the photo are 37 cents each.  That brings the whole landing gear cost to $1.48.

These clips extend the height of the Phantom a little bit more than one inch, more than enough for my needs.  My only concern is if the metal in the clips with affect the compass.  I won’t know that until I get a replacement compass (another casualty from the crash).

I hope these work.  They’re quite solid, more so than the 3D printed clip-ons.

I’ve said previously that the biggest growth market of the next five years will be drone repair…

Today while at a golf course doing some video/photos with my DJI Phantom (my small bird), I got careless and will now pay the price for not paying close attention to what I was doing.  On my 3rd flight of the day I had taken off on the 18th tee box and wanted to get the dramatic video of flying over the tee with the tall pines lining each side.  I took my eye off the Phantom for a second and realized I was headed for a tall pine tree.  The front of the bird was pointing the opposite direction than I thought so my move to get away from the tree sent me right into it.

Yard Sale…

The Phantom hit the tree, then dropped about 30 feet right onto a cart path.  A bit unlucky, because three feet in either direction was grass and perhaps a little less damage.

It landed on the corner of the back left landing gear where the compass is.  It broke three of the four 3D printed landing feet I bought for $40, and broke my $400 gimbal.  Other casualties include the landing gear, compass, and one prop.

Broken DJI Phantom compass

I’m not that mad because the body of the craft seems to be fine.  The 3D landing gear and landing legs (and gimbal I guess) took the brunt of the collision and may have actually prevented total destruction.

Broken Arris CM3000 Gimbal

I need to order a new Phantom compass (see photo above).  I already have an extra pair of landing gear though they are for a Phantom 2 or Vision.  The broken parts on the gimbal appear to only be plastic spacers which the front and back panel of the control board attach to.  Just a few cents there.  The GoPro lens has some road rash on the rubber side, but the lens itself seems fine.

The lesson?  Pay close attention to what you are doing around trees.