In January, we decided to make our own Flight Controller, with the objective that it to be easier to tweak and customize it. However, we came to a standstill because of a few bugs in the code and compatibility issues. We tried to make an Arduino based flight controller but it didn’t come to fruition as there were some problems with the IMU(Inertial Measuring Unit - MPU-6050MPU-6050). We succeeded in rectifying the issue but still, there were some left with the Transmitter - Receiver coupling.
After much deliberation, we decided to move to an actual Flight Controller board, SP-Racing F3 Deluxe. Then, there was a period of time where things were going well but it was short lived. Mounting, calibration, and testing of FC, ESC, motor, transmitter, and receiver were done. It was almost operational but a problem with the battery developed which needed to be looked at. Ordering a battery with a different adapter certainly didn’t help us beat the deadline. We tried to find a workaround to the problem by soldering a new battery connector but that caused it to damage the battery, which had to be replaced yet again.
After replacing the battery, we finalized the mountings on the drone and its bodyworks and proceeded with testing the motors. On testing the motors we found out that one of them was not working so we replaced the damaged motor with a new one. Next, we found out one of the ESC’s was not working too! After replacing the ESCs we were finally good to go and so we proceeded with testing the Transmitter and Receiver connections. It had a few problems (surprise surprise) because of compatibility issues, which were rectified to a certain extent by changing some connections. In the tests after that, all the motors worked fine and responded to the inputs given through the Cleanflight app that we were using to make all the calibrations on the Flight Controller.
After sorting out the above-mentioned bugs, we moved to the next step, which was calibration of the ESCs. We followed a few tutorials but couldn’t get any positive response. We tried to update the firmware on the FC, thinking that it might help us, but it was to no avail. Upon further testing, we discovered new issues with the FC. Time to debug (yet again).
