You have a first look at the new Typhoon Q500 4K quadcopter by Yuneec, along with me!

Yuneec Typhoon Q500 Quadcopter

This weekend’s project has been to change my 680mm Alien quadcopter frame to a different one in hopes the different frame is better engineered.  I wasn’t very happy with the design of the old frame and the quad flew very poorly in my opinion because of the way the weight was distributed more toward the front and rear of the UAV.  The concept of the old one was cool, to get the camera more front, but the mass of the battery had to be put way in the back.  This made flying it in anything other than dead calm a teeter totter ride.

New Alien Quadcopter 680 Frame Flies!

The process required ripping the old Alien quad apart and moving all the components/wiring/electronics to the new frame.  That took a couple of partial days to do.  Much of the wiring was custom cut and soldered, so that had to be undone.

The new version is lighter so far.  I’ve decided that though it is cool, I’m not going to put the old retractable landing gear on the new frame.  The new frame came with some very cheap, but super light gear.  That gear also has some finger nuts which allow it to be take off and put back on very easily.  That’s part of the point of this bird, to be able to compact it down to something easy to transport in a backpack or on an airplane etc.  I will be weighing both sets of gear to make a note of the difference in grams.

Today’s maiden flight was a success! IT FLIES. Too windy to do much else other than launch it a few feet.  It was very squirrely due to being lighter and the wind conditions.  The gains are set for a heavier load.

Quadcopter test hover…

Next Steps

Now that I know it flies, I’ll be taking it into the shop again to install the camera gear.  I’ll be putting the old FPV (first person view) camera setup on it, along with a 3-Axis brushless GoPro gimbal.  Hopefully by the time I get that stuff installed the wind will have calmed and I can do more test flying later today.

As much as I wanted the Alien 680 H4 I’ve been flying to work out, I’m not happy with it.  I’ve gone through quite a bit of work trying to get this frame to fly well but it just doesn’t.  I’ve started ripping it apart today and have a new, different 680 Alien folding frame ready to build.

Alien 680 Quadcopter

The good part about this frame is the K shape which puts the camera even with the front two motors.  That helps keep props out of the photos/video.  But because of that design, the battery needs to be put way back to counterbalance it.  That means most of the mass is NOT in the center of the bird, where in my opinion it should be.  As a result there are some funky things that happen when flying.  The bird looks almost like a teeter-totter in wind.  When stopping or slowing it is not smooth and I worry about it flipping in the air.  I’m thinking the frame and the mass distribution is the issue and surely hoping that it isn’t the MiniX flight controller.

Soon I’ll be sure.

I’m willing to try out a new, more symmetrical frame with the same hardware. That frame has already arrived and I hope to have Alien 2.0 flying soon.  Naturally I’ll post a build log.