/Construction

Construction of the NG Hardware

Contents

Construction of the NG Hardware
Putting all the stuff together

Make sure you have all components ready described on the Requirements and the Part Lists pages. Depending on your version, the NG PCB's are different to construct. Choose your version and follow the instructions on the sub pages.

Electronics

If you are a beginner when it comes to solder, read our general Soldering information page.

The Electronics page describes how to solder your NG PCB's.

There are also circuit diagrams (schematics) of the boards which you can find in the NGOS release packages which can be found in the Download section.

Connectors & Hardware configurations

These pages describe the connectors and solder jumpers on your hardware.

This Hardware is not yet released! Hardware HW-0.23-mini
Hardware HW-0.22-mini
Hardware HW-0.22

Assembling Brushless Controllers - NGBLC-4mini or others

The Brushless Controllers (BLCs) are connected through a I2C bus. Therefor you have to connect at least 4 (for a Quadrocopter) of them with the Flight Control.

BLC's with I2C interface are available from other QC Projects like Mikrokopter or 1hoch4. Also you may use patches "Chinese BLCs" with Quax Software (See the HOWTO section how to alter them to work with the I2C interface).

This Hardware is not yet released! We developed our own BLC which has 4 BLCs on one PCB: NGBLC-4mini

Construction of a Frame

To build a simple Quadcopter frame you need some square aluminium rods and a bit a GFK or CFK as a center plate. Take two alumininum rods with a length of 35cm to 60cm and make a nut into the center of them. Then put them togeter and put a squar GFK or CFK center plate over the center. Drill some holes to fix the whole as a "sandwich" with some screws. Drill some more holes at the end of the aluminium rods to be able to mount the motors.

Amir wrote a nice article how he built his first frame for an UAVP a while ago.

$/!\$ If you have a CNC-Mill or are a CAD-Designer/Engineer be sure to check out our CAD-Section for some interesting parts.

Mark the front or the rear of the frame or you could get into serious trouble while flying!

Putting all the stuff together

The Flight Control

Depending on your hardware revision you have serveral PCB for the flight control. For them you can make a handy cube by using PCB spacers:

$/!\$ Note: Be sure to undock the sensorboard from the frame to avoid vibration issues! For dampening you may use the bumpers from Conrad Electronics (546382 - 62) or you build some elements out of earplugs or similar foam. Another cheap technique is to use silicone RC fuel tubing. A tube of 2.1mm inner diameter x 6mm outer diameter has been used successfully in the past.

The frame

Second is the frame, it should also be preassembled in this stage, if you built an aluminum frame be sure to have no more shavings left in the rods, it could be fatal for the copter.

I used my 11.5mm concave centerplates from the package above.

If you use an aluminum frame I recommend to attach the motors to something that absorbs vibrations at least a little. I used shrink tube between frame and motor. It will reduce vibrations and the copter will be less noisy as well.

Drive Section

Third is the drive section, motors and speed controllers.

If you have these three groups of parts together you can start mounting everything on the frame and connect all the wires. Here is an example how I wired my speed controllers:

Note the order of the controllers: They have IDs 1, 3, 2, 4 counting clockwise from above and front to left.

I used some tiny board and put loads of soldering tin onto it. To avoid bridges to the frame I used foam tape. You can also solder the cables directly together or use connectors. If it turns out like in the picture below it will work.

It is also possible to cut the insulation in the middle of two cables that connects two controllers, halve the copperwires in this wire and put the battery cable and the other cable that connects the controllers (also without insulation in the middle) through between the pushed apart halves of wires. Then twist the split cable so that the slit between both halves shrinks, put much flux and solder on it and heat-schrink it together.

Cables are heavy, the shorter the cables are, the lighter the NG will be in the end. A lighter Copter will perform better and fly longer. You can save about 75grams with smart cabling, enough for a small camera or some extra PCBs/LEDs etc.

If a motor turns in the wrong direction simply switch 2 of the 3 cables and it will turn the right way round.

Cabling

Depending on your chosen motors the cabling of your NG will have to use different cable diameters. For most motors the shown diameters will suit.

Note

Remember that the two cables from the battery up to where cable splits for the 4 Brushless Controllers needs to have a bigger diameter than the rest.

If you ever built a Mikrokopter then be aware that the NG uses almost the same cabling.

$/!\$ Make sure that the cables cannot hit the props. Use cablestraps or heat shrink tube to fix the cables to the frame.

If a motor turns into the wrong direction, swap any two of the three cables connecting it to the BLDC.

The Cabling Page has more examples for other configurations (X4, Y6, ...)

Connecting the tower and the controllers

Now that you have the controllers on the frame you can also mount the PCB-Tower and connect it to power and I²C.

Don't confuse I²C Data and Clock: The I²C pins on the FC are marked with a "D" for data and a "C" for clock the third pin on the outside of the FC is ground ("-"). The four I²C connectors are all in parallel (I²C is a bus). The order of the plugs on the FC-Board doesn't matter, the mounting position of the controllers and their addresses do! If you connect BL-Ctrl then "SDA" = "Data" and "SCL" = "Clock".

Also note that the Sensors have to be aligned with the correct controllers, front of the Sensorboard is where the gyros are (same for frontX but not the standing but the lying gyro):

The receiver and the antennas

The only thing left to connect now is the receiver. It just plugs on the UART port if you use ACT receiver(s). If you use a standard sum-signal receiver it will be connected to the three pins right behind DSL 1.

You can find the pin assignment on the Initialization page

Now you have to place the antenna somewhere, I recommend to put it straight up. Use antenna-tubes or some kind of wooden sticks or gfk sticks of something like 2mm diameter and mount it with cable ties. Don't use CFK for mounting the antenna, it conducts eletricity and will shield your antenna. Don't use a wobbly or heavy antenna as it may transfer vibrations to the sensorboard, it may also deteriorate your copters flight characteristics!

$/!\$ Make sure that your antenna-cable can not go into the turncircle of any propeller. If you cut your antenna-cable with a prop you will not be able to control or even shutdown the NG anymore, just pushing the off button on the FC-board will NOT suffice, you will have to unplug the battery. And grabbing through the turning props WILL hurt.

The propellers

If you are done with that your hardware is ready to fly. Don't mess up the turning direction of the props! Front and back are clockwise, left and right counterclockwise (all seen from above).

A very common choice are the so-called EPP1045 propellers. These propellers are very cheap, but may be less efficient for heavier helicopters. Good results have been achieved using Graupner 10x5" propellers. These are about the same size than EPP1045 propellers, but VERY tough. Do mind that you need faster rotating engines (around 1000KV) for these props.

Next step is calibrating and configurating the NG, check out the initialization page for more informations.