CDIO/Propeller

Problem Statement

Follow a previous work documents to run a smaller model of a propeller. Testing two motor with a Zagi 5 ESC to see which one is better for the ball

Designing the Implementation Process

Follow the instruction from the documents made by Shatton9111:

Videos of me Figuring out the Newly Connected Thunderbird 9 ESC and Motor:

These are the crimper, Thunderbird 9 ESC, butt connectors, Hacker A10-13L brushless motor, and wire stripper I used.
Here's an "exploded view" of the ESC, connectors, and motor.
Here the parts are, laid out for assembly.
I'm about to connect them...
...and then I'm done! How'd I do that!? Find out how in the videos above. :)
Now, I test them with the ESC burn-out program.
The connections might be good, but there are intermittent outages.
Apparently, the wiring of the power supplies is either wrong or indicating a mistake in my wiring.

Later, I made another ESC/motor pair. This time I made two mistakes. First, I had crimped too close to the center of the butt connector and missed the ESC's wire. This let it slide out of the connector. Then, I tried again closer to the wire. I found out after this that the motor's connector didn't have enough room to fit inside the connector's inner conductive sleeve. So, I cut the ESC's wire at the end of the connector, stripped 2 - 4 millimeters, inserted the motor's connector into the conductive sleeve first, inserted the ESC's wire, and then crimped just the ESC's wire. This allowed the ESC's wires to be permanently attached to the connectors and let the motor's self-adjusting connectors to also be used. This way, the motor could still be reused.

Work flow

Connect the wires from the ESC to the Arduino as instructed in this picture

The connections might be good, but there are intermittent outages.

The propeller didn't run, but this is fine because the previous work had the same problem, so then I did exactly the same as this video: Part 4: Success & Confusing Results

I moved the wire connected to the 5V pin to the grounding pin and plugged the power in. Nothing happened. Now this is not right since according to the video, the ESC should have made a beep sound. I kept disconnected and reconnected the power source several times and the ESC did chirped once, but when I repeated it, it never happened a gain. So I reconnected the wire to the 5V pin and then disconnect the wire. But I couldn't find the reset button on the arduino as instructed, so I unplugged the power source and plugged it in again instead. According to the video this should be the final step to run the propeller, but in fact it still didn't work.

Connect the PC power supply, the ESC and the Arduino together

Red wire connected to 5 vol plug and black wire connected to ground plug on the power supply
Red and Black wire outside connected to the motor. Red wire inside connected to red ESC wire. Black wire inside connected to black ESC wire
Orange wire hooked from 9~ plug to white ESC wire. Red wire hooked from grounding pin to red ESC wire. White wire hooked from grounding pin to black ESC wire

Then try the two different motors

Extra motor

This motor runs stronger and faster but heavier. Its base is round and neat so it might be easier to attach to something in the middle to the ball, maybe an empty bottle. However its heavy weight might cause difficulty controlling the ball drone

Zagi5 motor

This motor runs slower and weaker but lighter. Its light weight would make it easier to control the drone. However its base is complicated and unbalance so it would be difficult to attach to the bottle

Test, Verification, Validation, and Certification

Here are the videos showing the test results of the two motors

Extra motor test

As predicted this motor runs faster and stronger, however I discovered more that it creates wind upward. This is not good since we need the wind to go downward to push the ball up

Zagi5 motor test

Also as expected this motor runs slower and weaker, contradict to the extra motor this one creates wind downward, which is what we need to fly the ball

Implementation Management

According to the test the Zagi5 is the most qualified motor that the ball drone needs. However the biggest problem is it is very difficult to attach it to the drone. Its unbalance base surface would not fit the head of the empty bottle.

Zagi5 motor doesn't fit on an empty bottle

Maybe I should try another material. I'm thinking of designing something with the Makerbot. Something to place the motor into that would make its base balance

Poster

Next I'll try to figure out the shape to something to build from the Makerbot that would fit the motor and the head of the bottle. Or it would be easier if I could find another material, like wood or a lot of duck tape

Next Steps

I would try replacing the wires and get a usb cable to power up the arduino