Balance props right on a Tarantula X6

guess i never linked these here... it';s an older video so not the highest quality but you get the ideas..

Balance props on the quad..

Balance on a home made balancer...

build a stand yourself...

Simple Light wire covers

Simple, fast, removable, super light wire covers for the arms of the FrankenSpider...

Tarantula X6 Board v2 wiring..

here are some images of the stock wiring layout for the tarantula X6 board version 2 wiring as it comes from the factory..

Beginner advice for tarantula X6

Just a list of simple things to do when you first get your tarantula X6 (or really, just about any basic brushed motor quadcopter could use this as general advise)

Before 1st flight -

1 - Break in the motors! run the thing at the lowest speed you can for about 3 minutes.. If one motor isn't running or is slower than others, you pick it up and tilt it to each corner the lower corner will speed up a tad  ..

1st Flight-
 #1 - most important--- bind and SET GIRO's, - - Do this before every flight!! even when just changing batteries..Put TX(transmitter) in 100% rates (upper left shoulder button 2 times .. Transmitter will beep once for 40%, twice for 60% and three times for 100%) once in 100% rates make sure quad is sitting level as possible.. pull both sticks down and to the left bottom corner ... hold.. it'll take a bit but the quad will rapid blink.. keep holding till it's done.. giros are set and the thing should fly normally and self level/hover reasonably-- it's not GPS so there will be air flow drift...


Mark Billingham - The x6 can be very fast.if in headless mode try not to let the x6 fly behind you as naturally you will turn round to follow it away from your base point making the controls reverse even flying in headless

Mark Billingham If its your first flight stay low and fly into the wind

Unlike · Reply · 1 · December 27, 2015 at 1:44pm

Thom Lamourine What Mark just said X2!!! low and slow till you're used to it.

Like · Reply · 1 · December 27, 2015 at 1:48pm

Steve Huebner When you beat it up then build a franken spider!!

Unlike · Reply · 1 · December 29, 2015 at 9:00am

Jonas Moreira https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8-0fLbSdmY

Trim Adjustments Tarantula X6 YiZhan QuadCopter

YOUTUBE.COM

Like · Reply · Remove Preview · December 30, 2015 at 5:27pm

Thom Lamourine That's actually "setting the giros' not trimming.. but it's good  wink emoticon Trim adjustments are the tiny black buttons on the side of the sticks  smile emoticon

Like · Reply · December 30, 2015 at 5:38pm · Edited

Write a reply...

Bill Markey Always, with any quad basics must be followed.

Unlike · Reply · 1 · December 31, 2015 at 8:30pm

Thom Lamourine As Bill Markey stated, basics or Common sense must be followed! PLEASE DON'T FLY OVER CROWDS OR MOVING TRAFFIC!! as well as the know airport, military installations, or any other obvious threat sensitive property! These things are far from being "rel...See More

Like · Reply · 1 · January 1 at 10:38am · Edited

Thom Lamourine Remember you are flying in a 3D space.. 300 meters along the ground is NOT 300 meters fling space.. as you go up, you loose distance out you can go and keep the quad in reception of your TX.

FrankenLegs extended

OK, sure most have you seen my original FrankenSpider legs made of Zip Ties. They work great, are super light, super cheap and work also somewhat as shock absorbers. But over time, well they began to sag.  They were made of super heavy duty zip ties (120lbs strength not the cheapo 50lbs ones that are common in most homes) which I think I forgot to mention when I did the posting before about how they were made.
Well one new issue, I just got a Runcam2 and it's a tad bit thicker that the older RuncamHD, which when strung under the quad was already a bit to close to the ground and I am not gunna have my new Runcam2 bouncing off rocks and such during landings...

Sagging

No clearance

Well, simple solution is to just use longer zip ties right? well no, they just end up sagging more, and higher strength ones that would hold up wont fit in the holes and such as they are wider.  So, what to do? Well use longer, but actually slightly weaker zip ties (11" 75lbs strength) and just add a short piece of straw slipped over to stiffen up the leg...  :)
Works like a charm! Still light, still flexible and springy, still ridiculously cheap to do.

Straws added

I did pull a bit through the hole in the motor mount and bent it over, tucked it back into the straw and put a dab of glue on the tip to keep it from pulling out of the straw.  Clears the Runcam2 now easily !

Anti Jello for Tarantula using WLToys mount.

OK, been using this basic mount system on the Frankenspider and basically the same setup on the stock Tarantula X6 and been getting near perfectly clear of jello video from both quads. The Tarantula I use the stock anti vibe mount and just cut a hole in the battery door to get the wire out the front, strap the battery and camera to the anti vibe plate and it's perfect.

My Cousin just ordered a Tarantula and I told him NOT to get the camera as I'll give him my old stock one for now and he can get a Runcam or Mobius later. But, no camera, no anti vibe mount! So what if you didn't get the stock camera with your tarantula? they don't sell the mount separately. Well I've figured out how to mount the WLtoys v262 camera mount, that I've been using rather successfully on my FrankenSpider for some time now, and attach it to the Tarantula,..rather easily! So I built this for him and made this tutorial as I went, (sorta, I jumped around building, but wrote this in a better order of operations to save you some of the supid frustrations I encountered)
There is some minor cutting and you'll need a few extra screws and it's probably a good idea to have some glue or epoxy to strengthen a few spots, but generally it's a simple setup and makes for the best I've found mount for a camera to the Tarantula (or FrankenSpider, which it bolts right to ;) )


Here's how I did it. I'm sure someone will come along and figure out how to improve it even more!

 You'll need to have

• WLtoys V262 camera or shock mount. Do a google search for best price and location to buy.. seen it for around $5 bucks and no more that $10
• WLtoys v262 battery holder (can just use a strip of something instead)
• A Spare Battery Door for the Tarantula. Can just use the one you have but I always prefer to mod extras so I can return to stock if I want.. they are usually under $2 bucks.. shipped  
• Some extra screws. Again do a google search for WLToys v262 spare screws.. many of the Chinese retailers will have it, stock changes so search around for availability and price.
• May want some epoxy or similar glue/filler
• Super Glue or similar
• Old Mouse Pad or other rubbery material
• Tiny Zip Ties

Step One - Cut a small hole in the Tarantula's battery door, it needs to be just big enough to get the power cord out the front. DON'T notch the door as you need it to be structural, if you cut that edge lip it can actually let it flex during flight and the front tabs to the body can pop out! Been there, done that, not pretty!!

hole in battery door - leave edge lip for structure!

Step Two - Mount the WLToys mount's flat plate to the battery door. This is probably the hardest part as it's kinda difficult to locate the tiny screw holes. 

First off, cut off the 4 mounting legs from the WLToys flat plate. they just don't line up anywhere that is useable that I could find. 

WLToys mount legs cut off

Line up the door and plate.. NOTE THERE IS A FORWARD-SIDEWAYS DIRECTION! if you turn is sideways the battery will end up sideways, the mount is NOT SQUARE but a rectangle. The notches or indents in the plate need to be on the sides.

Note: notches in plate need to be on sides

Now you need to locate the studs on the battery door. and punch holes through the plate.

(Note- if using a Runcam or Mobius you can probably cut them off, and lay the door and plate flat together, screw through pretty much anywhere, but if using a Tarantula Stock Cam you'll need the height clearance to get the wires and plug in the body of the quad) 

They need to be small holes, I have a rotary tool with extra tiny bits, but a hot pin or needle will do the trick too. The two upper screws you may notice are right up against the rib in the plate, they actually line up right UNDER THE RIB, but, there is enough flex in both the plate and battery door studs so you can flex them over and not cut the structural rib. I did add some UV Glue to make the area stronger, just cuz! (UV glue is just UV light cured epoxy, regular epoxy would be fine too)

touch of glue or epoxy for added strength

Step Three - Now you have the plate mounted you just have to do minor mods to the lower plate.

There are built in "safety catches" with the WLToys mount. basically there are 2 stud in the flat plate that stick through larger holes in the lower plate , you put a screw with a larger washer in the stud and if the balloons ever ripe or pop free the screws catch the plate and keep your camera from falling to the ground. GREAT idea.. but, I found during flight the weight of the battery and camera moves the balloons more than the holes allow, so you end up having contact between the upper and lower plate and all the vibrations transfer right through, honestly I think it makes it worse as when they hit you get an obvious jolt in the video. So I cut them off and make my own safety catch out of zip ties. Cut off the stubs to their safety catch then stick the balloons through and mount the flat plate with the lower plate. 

Cut studs

Now you can just use the WLToys battery box, but I found that it's not the greatest as I have many batteries that are slightly different sizes and some are way too tight, while others are so loose that they fall right out. Plus it's hard to get somewhere to attach anything to hold the camera. So... I knocked out a chuck of the battery box and made a place for a velcro strap to run through. and screwed it in place. 

Cut out chunks of battery box - and mount to lower plate 

Now, glue little pieces of rubbery stuff to the mount and the bottom of the camera. not so much for anti vibration,though I'm sure it helps a little, it's to keep the battery and camera from slipping around during flight. I just use pieces of old mouse pad and rubber floor mat and glued down with a few drops of crazy glue

Rubbery grip padding glued to mount and camera

Step Four - assemble the upper and lower plates together.

Simple pull the balloons through the holes and seat.  I do take some little zip ties and run them through the balloons and around for protection so if the balloons pull out or rip then the camera and battery aren't lost.  you need the one running through the balloon to be nice and straight so it doesn't bind the movement, also make it a bit long as when you add the battery weight and camera the balloons stretches out a bit. 

zip ties kinked to prevent binding the balloons movement.

Lastly, mount up the battery and camera... Slip a velcro strap through the cut battery box mounts, slide the battery in and get the velcro up and over it. When you tighten it up it'll actually press the battery down and into the mount, place the camera on top and tighten up the velcro over it.. done!! 

Velcro needs to go over the battery not under!

All strapped in!

Run the power cable out through the battery door hole and slide the whole assembly onto the Tarantula! Plug her in and go fly!!

Oh, and

 **PUT THE BATTERY DOOR SCREW IN!**

Tarantula Prop Slop

So something has been bothering me about my lovely Tarantula quads..
Prop slop - the motion the blade can have without moving the drive shaft or engaging the gears of the motor.. Uggg it's friggin terrible and honestly I believe it feeds back a lot of the jello and vibration in video when flying with a cam. Even when brand new there is actually a rather large amount of it, and we all assumed it's the prop/screw interface... Well, it's not!  I took a deep depth look at a VERY sloppy one on the Frankenspider and found a few things.

• ONE- the screw is holding to the prop just fine, it's the hole in the drive shaft that is too big. causing a bit of motion before the screw contacts the drive shaft and feeds back as play out at the end of the prop.  
• TWO- the actual lower gear is also slipping a bit on the drive shaft, no where near as much, as the screw goes all the way through, but, it's movement amplifies any slop up top.

   Well I fix it, (at least temporarily) so there is close to zero slop.. and what little is left is the actual gear interface. how? Very simply..
   On the bottom gear I took a drop of crazy glue and dripping it right inside the drive shaft and using one of the smallest Zip ties I stuck the point in and kinda swished it around the inner area of the screw and drive shaft interface, and the little glue stuck to the tie wrap tip I ran around the outer edge on the bottom of the gear and drive shaft (obviously don't do the top because the glue can screw with the bearing and glue it if not dry and even if dry it could mess the "face" of the gear and how it sits on the bearing/bushing)
   The top took a bit more brain power but is actually pretty easy once I thought about it. instead of filling the hole which I was thinking of maybe a drop of solder then filing down smooth.. I stuck the pointed end of the zip tie in the top of the shaft, added another to fill the space more and snipped then off flush.  Now when I tighten up the prop screw it pushes the zip tie tips and claps everything stiff (think bicycle seat post clamp) 

video of how it's done..

(note I forgot to turn on mic so just did text and added music for fun )

   Just did a quick flight and watching the video it has smoothed out a LOT .. (will edit up and post later)  don't get me wrong, it's still not 100% but it's defiantly better. Especially in descents where even with my anti vibe setup I'd still get heavy vibration and jello.

   Now you could probably use anything inside the upper tube to fill it.  Even thinking a Q-tip with some glue or something to harden it, maybe even a bit of softer epoxy (remember the screw still needs to get through)  I'm sure someone will come up with a better method.. but this might get them thinking!

If Prop slop bothers you, give it a try. Honestly, you probably can't make it any worse!!  LOL