Greg's Batch 4 build, maintenance, repairs, upgrades

[quote=“Privatreal, post:84, topic:1937”]
good crimp
[/quote]

Ok then that’s my problem right there. I did not crimp the xt150 connectors. There isn’t much vibration of course but enough I guess. I should not trust any of those connections as they are now? Lesson learned the easy way!

Connection to the CF frame is a very low risk. The wires are well secured and the hole through the frame has a grommet of sorts with split rubber tubing. Yes, running on two batteries would be not good for the batteries but better sacrifice them than land in a tree. In this case neither happened.

Stay safe Privatreal and thank-you

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Actually, unless you found different connectors than everyone else is using, those connectors aren’t designed to be crimped.

You need to flood them with solder with a powerful solder iron. It should be hot enough to melt the solder into the wire on the opposite side as the iron is on. Need to put a small amount of solder on the tip to get the heat to transfer good first but as much as possible the solder should be melted by the wire and not the iron.

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Yeah that’s what I thought when I saw them at first. There’s no crimp collar and the metal is plated. I think I simply had one not quite hot enough solder so I’ll redo it.

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A friend, aka ground crew, aka video crew, loaned me a large enough soldering iron to do the job. Worked a treat. The business end of the thing is 2cm in diameter. In fact I did it twice. Soldered it, then de-soldered it, fed the plastic insulator down the wire, re-soldered it and finally pulled the insulator over the connector until it went ‘click’ into place.

Flew it this past evening. Eight minutes. No problems at all. Batteries barely get warm, nothing else gets warm at all.

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If I build the new batch 6 coming out… what tools do you recommend I need before it gets here since you’ve built this before. Like large solder gun and straps and connectors and all? Even the detailed items you used such as your bottom edge bumpers that goes around the Feet would be nice to have than waiting until after it gets here.

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Hey Cougar. Welcome to the crazyness.
Have you perused the Guide section here? There’s a bit of a tools and materials list. Your exact needs are going to depend on how you wire everything. Are you going with the preload switch? Are you going with a single switch or two? How will you mount the batteries? How will you route wires? How will you mount the voltage regulator for the hub? … There are a lot of little decisions. Take your time, this thing doesn’t go together in a weekend (may they do for Zack and Paul). You will have time to shop for stuff.
Things I didn’t have:

  • Locktite
  • Crimp connectors 18ga as well as 12ga and 8
  • Yeah a BIG soldering iron. I did a lot of stuff with a propane torch but that tends to be dirty. Esp for the XT150 Connectors on the main power leads a big soldering iron really works best.
  • Heat shrink tubing.
  • Plastic wire ties (aka zapstraps)
  • 3/4" velcro wire tie for the battery mounting

I used 3/16" high pressure fuel tubing as a sort of grommet around the hole where the main battery connections come through the back plate. I also put some pieces along the bottom of the ‘feet’ just to protect the floor in the house from scratches. They fell off and I don’t worry about them in the garage or at the field or in the car.

More serious lessons:
Keep all wires tied securely away from any carbon fibre or aluminium edges. They’re all hard enough to wear through wire insulation if ignored long enough.

Do not accept anything but excellence in your workmanship. Anything not right could be a very bad day at some point. This is particularly true of your solder connections. I got lucky and that XT150 popped off when I tugged on it to unplug and it didn’t just get loose enough to vibrate free in the air.

I’ve nicked a prop tip folding it up. Not sure how as I’m pretty careful. Either be more pretty careful than me or perhaps fashion some prop tip covers. The tiny chip is not a problem either for prop balance or thrust but I wish I hadn’t done it.

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I picked up one of these to do big battery connectors (AS150 in my case) and other large-gauge soldering jobs and I’m glad I did. It makes quick work of them. I also discovered that it’s the right tool for a lot of other soldering jobs (XT60, other smaller power connectors) that I was previously doing with my underpowered butane soldering iron. It was well worth the money.

The one I borrowed for re-soldering that XT150 was something like this:

That big copper head makes it very quick and easy to solder heavy guage wire. But I see these things are not cheap. Perhaps the leaded glass type are enough. The larger the tip the faster and easier it’ll solder.

This one (no longer in stock but maybe you can find the equivalent) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07R4SDSP8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Is what I have been using, crank it up to 450 degrees and it works great.

Since I’ve essentially logged the construction of my X4 here and I’ve applied to register it I’m thinking this is a public version of a maintenance log for my aircraft. Therefore I will log the maintenance. Back in May the magic smoke came out of the electronics. Voltage regulator quit regulating. I’ve received new parts from Paul and Zach. Took a while but they did solid support sending out all updated parts: dc-dc converter is a beefier unit,


the new hub includes overvoltage protection,
the new controller board has the updated batch 5/6 programming including altitude above field and outside air temp. I did have to remove the buzzer and pot (the part you push to go up) from the old controller board and solder it onto the new board. Used a much smaller soldering iron for that. Sorry I didn’t get a pic. Too excited.
Here’s the new dc-dc, and hub installed.

The new controller is set for right hand whereas the original was left. Haven’t decided to reset it for left hand or reroute the cable to right hand. I seem to be ambidextrous for throttles. Flew it Wed with the readout upside down in my left hand. :grin:

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Looking good!
You can change the screen orientation by plugging in you throttle via USB and visiting Redirecting to https://config.openppg.com/configurators/x4/ in Chrome.

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Done! Man that was easy. Selected the 6S battery limits and metric temp & alt while I was there. Spent a few seconds looking for the “apply” or “save” button then noticed it was changing the settings in real time like flipping switches. Very nice!

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Registered!
C-ILXQ
:smiley:

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Break in the flying season. :confused::dash::sweat_drops::dash::sweat_drops:
Pulled out all my velcro battery straps and started working on a new idea. I want room for eight. I want to keep all the wires short. I think they’ll fit if they’re stacked four across and two deep. Made a shelf.


I’m using the 15/16" holes just below centre to take the weight. They’re spaced really nice. These plastic tubes are for proof of concept. I’ll use aluminum of maybe CF.

They support the shelf which will be an aluminum or CF channel. Not sure if I want to tape the batteries together into a single brick. It’s a lot of weight to handle.

Batteries clear the motor arms and props nicely. I have a piece of white foam in the gap to show it.

The motor arm swing bolts are in perfect position to anchor straps holding the “brick” against the frame. Just velcro for checking the concept, will switch to some hold down straps.
It seems to be pretty solid. I’ve put it on. The higher cg is ok. With four more batteries on a bottom shelf it’ll be lower again.

Upper battery mount created. I made a couple of aluminum tubes from 1" tube stock. These are miles down to fit through the holes but I left one end too big. They fit through from front but don’t push through.



Flew it with the four across the top batteries and everything was fine. I noted the vibration may be slightly higher. Perhaps due to the weight of the batteries connected solidly to the frame through the mounting tubes or perhaps something else (props are fine), or perhaps I was just paying more attention to it.

I’m going to tape the set together with strapping tape into a single brick with the shelf included. This will reduce setup time and steps at the field and will be safer I think.

Next it to figure out how to hang a lower tray for four more.
Speaking of four more I need to get them shipped to Canada and there’s no solution for my address on the order form so waiting to hear from OpenPPG with an option there.

Battery mount refinements
The battery straps coming through the motor arm mounts were getting pinched when the unit was folded. Since my X4 is folded when stored and transported this would have eventually cut the straps. I rerouted them over the arm mounts
Left side - Pinching!

Right side - routed safely

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Net hooks
I also have changed the net cord hooking. I originally was simply hooking them together behind the leg hinge. It worked but this is better.


I knotted the cord as needed to get things pulling tight. The loops are made from knotted paracord coming through extra slots in the frame. I shaved the CF to round the edges where the cord rides on them.

Updated pic of the batteries mounted and plugged in.


I decided to tape them into a single brick and to the aluminium shelf. I’ve used double faced tape between the packs and between the packs and the shelf. Then fibreglass reinforced tape to hold the assembly together.

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Part of the reason for the battery mount redo is to get another set of four Bonkas on there. To that end I needed a way to connect them. Rather than a pair of “Y” plugs I decided to add another pair of main power leads to each side.

On the rack and opened up for the new cables.


I’ve connected the negatives. The positives are waiting for ring connectors to bolt then to the switches.

I also opened up the holes to make room for four wires and grommet … On each side.

This is a lot of battery. My wife is skeptical of me running with all this on my back.

They’re currently :smirk: being discharged. Weather was good yesterday but I left the net and hoop at home so spent the afternoon kiting my new APCO Hybrid. Now it’s snowing and don’t expect to have flyable weather for at least a week.

Also just wanted to note here that I noticed a 3m bolt missing on the bottom of the leg assembly. :flushed:
Replaced it then checked the torque on all the bolts. The bolts on the motor arms were all tight. The bolts on the leg assembly all moved about 1/8 turn to tighten. Of course I’ve pulled the back plate of so those will all be re-tightened. I’ve also noticed a trace of surface rust on all the hex head bolts.

Back plate reinstalled and some grommet cut in to protect the wires where they come through. Through firewall plug mounts would be ideal but this works too. Since each pair of cables are connected at the other end it doesn’t matter which two are used when I fly with two pair of Bonkas.

Two sets of plugs on each side. Total, for sets of plugs.