Gluonpilot

Hi,

New season calls for a new "MAV" project, well - small UAV at least...

I just got the E-Flite C-Ray 180 which looks like a good candidate for a quite light and small setup (55 cm wingspan and 125 gram AUW).

Before even flying it I gathered the lightest components I have on hand and it looks like I can have it up and running just 25 grams over the original weight (150 grams or so),

I doubt I will fit the GP and components under the original canopy, but we'll see.

Here are some pre-install pictures - everyting bench tested OK!

Cheers,

Björn

What a cool little plane!! Where did you get it?

Yes - it's like a small X5 !

I just got it from my "local" hobby shop online (www.mft.nu) and since it's from E-flite you can probably get it all over Europe. A little pricey at EUR 99 though (and that's without the rx!).

Will be fun to see how it flies - hope to report back soon!

/Bjorn

After a test flight without the autopilot - the C-Ray is fast and flies well - I have now installed all the gear;

- Gluonpilot 1 with external BEC
- XBEE downlink with special lightweight hookup (thanks Eddi!)
- Hitec rx with shrink wrap istead of plastic casing
- Adafruit GPS board
- JETI 4A ESC
- Hitec HS45HB lighthweight servos (the standard ones made noise on auto)

All-in-all the plane weighs in at 140 grams including battery which is only 10-15 grams more than the stock setup. I saved weight by taking away the canopy and magnets and by using as light equipment as possible.
I could probably save another 10 grams by skipping connectors and using the GP2 board but that's for the next installation.

Hope to madien this setup tonight!

/Björn

Another quick build! Well done!

Hope the maiden will go well!

HI again,

I have managed some test flights and the small CRay flies well with the GP.

Here is a picture of one of the test flights. There is an issue with my altitude sensor which I am disussing with Tom how to fix (the sensor is probably in the airflow right now which causes the altitude reading to jump at times).

After some tweaking it will be time to add a camera and a mission

/Bjorn

Update:

Finally after some really windy weeks I have been able to test the GP2 in the C-Ray ”MAV”.
I just replaced the GP1 and uploaded the exact same settings and the result was an instant success!
After adding a bigger 450 mAh battery it actually flies better, faster and tracks superbly. Really cool to see such a small airframe performing exactly as its bigger 1 meter cousins.
Below is a picture the track and the airframe and now its time for the surgeons knife to make a really neat installation with all electronics embedded in the foam and a proper sealing for the electronics.
Will post more results when it is done. That would make for a good challenge – a 150 gram Lighthouse Mission…!?

/Björn

Hi again!

Just posted this in the RCgroups UAV forum also

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthre ... st29364072

/Bjorn

Great to see you pulled it off!!! Can it be any smaller? I guess not lighter
Did you still seee it in flight?

I remember the "MAV" from my master's thesis was 128grams, and without autopilot
Maybe I should try creating another one.

Hi Tom!

Welcome back from vacation !

The C-Ray with everything onboard is quite fast (approx 50 kph cruise speed) due to the extra weight and it is possible to see it at a good distance but harder than an 1m wing of course...

Would be great to see you ar someone else making a smaller MAV...!

I have now embedded all electronics into the foam and covered the electronics and I just need to exchange the rx cable which causes a glitch a times.

I did a flight after the "new" installation this week and the tracking is really great even in some wind - see attached pic.

Tom - sometimes on start up I get the below error message - any ideas what it means? I think it occured when the rx cable had a bad connector.

Thanks,

Bjorn

[09:47:39.95] Hardware: 0.1q (GP2) [f=2MB, id=D6C62257
[09:47:43.19] RC-receiver: No PWM detected
[09:47:43.36] OSD: No OSD found
[09:47:44.43] Address error: 0a fe 00 00 00 05 in GpsNFirmware: 0.10 beta 4 [Aug 17 2013 09:28:55, config: 314B, logline: 36B, navigation: 1008B, double: 4B
[09:47:46.97] Hardware: 0.1q (GP2) [f=2MB, id=D6C62257