News

We have found the the mounting and orientation of the lipo has an effect on the MK compass. As seen in this image when you look at the NaviCTRL (arrow pointing forward) the compass (IC4) is located on the right edge. Route the main power lead off to the left from the pads on the power distribution ring.

Keep all power wiring short in length and bound together using zip ties ect. Also note that the lipo is mounted on the battery tray on its side. To further attenuate the magnetic interference some integrate an EMI shielding that is composed of tinned MU-copper. An example of this expandable diameter tubing:

The MU-copper shielding is installed on both the DC cable from the power distribution ring as well as the cables on the lipo battery. Special attention should be taken as the shielding is a very conductive material. All MU-copper shielding should have a complete shrink tube enclosure. A complete shielded assembly will look like this:

Sources for MU-copper shielding:

Europe/UK vendor

North American vendor

Quadrocopter has secured exclusive rights for the distribution of Herkules II v3 boards in the US. We are currently going thru the final stages of testing.

The Herkules board consists out of 4 integrated ESC’s that can be controlled over PPM / PWM and I2C bus. It will remove most of the wiring clutter caused by ESC controllers and power supplies.

We are expecting the this board to be available to the public within the next few weeks. A cooler for the boards will be available as well.

This platform is especially suitable in conjunction with the DJI wookong system.

Design / Weight

* Even smaller: quadratic-handy shape of only [b]60x60mm[/b].
* Minor [b]Weight[/b] of only [b]28g[/b] (35g with high current connector).
* Total weight saving compared to single ESC solution of 180g at Quadro- and 360g at Octocopter because the heavy and mess wiring harness can easily be replaced.
* Flexible mounting. Drill-hole distance fitting to Mikrokopter, CADMICOPTER etc.
* Minimal build-up time due to all signal lines (I2C, PPM; UART, Power Supply) to FlightControl are inclued in one Micromatch connector.
* Big WAGO motor connectors removed.
* The motors phases could now be connected either on top or on bot via big solder pads or soldered 3.5mm gold contact connectors.
* The programming connector for all controllers is integratd in the Micromatch connector. Therefore no additional solderpads are necessary any more => saves also space!
* The PCB layout was optimized t reduce impedance of the power-rail and became even low-ohmic. So power dissipation on PCB is also reduced.
* The whole powerboard could be mounted on a flat cooling plate because all components on the bot have same height.

Operation / Reliability

* One machine-made PCB. No hookup wire. No High Power distributor. No defective contacts. And everything again “Made in Germany”
* Even more powerfull and robust by using low-ohmit N-chanel MOSFETs (Imax up tu 100A according datasheet!)
* Proper, fast MOSFET pre-drivers for clean and saturated controlling of the N-channel MOSFETs. Drivers are build discretely.
* 4-layer high-current PCB with 110um copper.
* Central curreent sense and battery reverse circuitry removed to save PCB-space.
* Optimize switching of MOSFETs avoids parasitic opening and shoot-througs.

Flexibilty

* Stone-prooven ATMEGA8 or ATMEGA168 with mature BLDC firmware.
* Firmware-Updates by simple bootloader and USB connector possible.
* Selectively UART, PPM or I2C on Micromatch connector.
* Simple Micromatch-Connecctor with all signals. Only one ribbon cable between Herkules and FlightControl needed.
* One blue LED for each channel signaling motor and BLDC status.

High-Power

* Exclusevly N-channel MOSFETs in high- and lowside with propper pre-drivers.
* Only one type of MOSFETs for all positions due to bootstrap driver on highside => cheaper, more powerfull than P-channel.
* Extended power supply range from 2-6S (6-26V)!
* Power up to 10Arms/40Apeak per motor (40Arms/160Apeak for quad-board) without any cooling when using activer freewheeling. With some cooling up to 100A peak per motor possible.
* 100% part load confirmed due to switchable activer freewheeling!
* Optimized motor start-up strategy, tested with a numerous amount of different motors.

The new firmware

We invested lots of time in developing and optimizing our own BLDC-firmware and can now offer new features.

* Three different control variants, PPM, UART, I2C available.
* The I2C- and UART adresses are programmable by USB programming too. No solder jumper at all needed!
* Motor commutation timing programmable between 0 and 30 degree for differnt motors.
* For extra powerfull motors or missing cooling posibility (e.g. mounting in a closed case) powerloss can be reduced by almost 70% by activating activer freewheeling.
* Start-up strategy optimized and tested with lots of motors.
* Safe detection of wrong commutations avoids blocking or burning of motor.