RC India

So I finally pulled the trigger and treated myself to the Tbs Discovery. Many thanks to Chintal who saved me the hassle of importing it myself.
I decided to get the frame and arms only for the time being and maybe upgrade slowly later. 
I enjoyed flying my Tarot 650 clone but due to  limited flying area, transporting a 650 size quad with tall landing gear requires a car at least. I need some thing I could strap to my back get on my bike and go fly. I practicing FPV and loving it so the Disco seemed a good choice. 

Anytime sir most welcome
I hope u will enjoy  flying it

I decided to transplant the electronics from the 650 frame, the Tarot clone was a tad heavy but the motors had sufficient thrust. So for the electronics:

Sunnysky 980kv motors,
40amp Simonized ESC,
Trusty Naza Lite,
4S with 9x5 props,

The Quality of the Top & Bottom plates are top notch which should be expected. The provided hardware could have been better. The red anodized spacers are very good but the Hex screws are hit and miss. Iv tried different allan keys, Hex drivers, Imperial, Metric, no matter what, some screws are good where as others just slip.
The build is pretty straight forward with no unexpected surprises. 

what is the cost of top & bottom plates?

₹6500 + shipping
Available on backorder  @ rcmumbai.com

How can i order this? How long will it take to be delivered? I also want to know wat the supporting electronics needed. Thanks for help.

700 to 900 kV motors, 30 amp escs, for the FC you can use NAZA or Naze32, APM or what ever you like.

All done. Build time was about 2 hrs. Weight without battery is under 1000g, with Mobius and Vtx. Did some hover tests and got 10mins on a 4s 2200, so pretty happy with that.
will post some video when the weather improves.

Nice.Can we use a 3S lipo instead of 4S with this motor-prop combo?

Sunnysky 980kv on 3s would be better with bigger props, like 10 or 11".

hey! nice build. i too am about to order a TBS Disco frame and plan to use it with sunnysky motors. first post here i think on the tbs disco!

so, what hassles might i undergo in shipping this thing if i order it from the tbs store directly? also Chintal sir, i searched for this frame on rcmumbai.com, but i could not find it anywhere on the site.  :headscratch:

do give a review of how it flies soon! video if possible!!!1

I cant say for sure if you will face any problems with shipping, but I decided to let Chintal import since he was ordering the Discovery Pro for himself.(Lucky Bugger)
She flies nice on stock gains(naza) I am still fine tuning and will post some video soon.

also where did you get the 9x5 props? looks nice. I would like to try those on my quad....

Chintal again, drop him a pm.

will do soon. thanks for the quick replies. enjoy flying!

Nice. Nice to see discovery fliers. We(3 of us) too fly discos, has very fast forward speed, looks too good but it's a little tricky to tune correctly, go easy on gains, I modified mine to a more square motor layout as the disco flew well only on naza and I wanted to use kk2.
My Disco videos are there at pravesh736 in youtube if someone is interested.
My setup
SS 2212 980kv- Simonk- 4s- 8prop-Kk2.0(much betr than 2.1)

Wow. Pravesh, you're in Bangalore too! Do you think I might be able to come visit you someone to take a look at your gear? I stay in yelahanka. Do you fly fpv too?

I also have the reptile frame (clone of tbs disco ) with naze 32
IT FLIPS!!!!! 😀
Naze 32 is the best flight controller for newbies

Ashimda you should also write about naze 32
You are good at reviews

As soon as my tbs is ready will post videos (waiting for one motor)

@shreeyak- I am in hoskote most Sundays. U can go there to fly and can have a look at stuffs.
@chintal- naze 32 did not work so well with disco. Yes, it's the best flight controller. But Its not the easiest to operate and tune. All acro fc flips.

Its easy according to me
Was a piece  of cake to tune
It is very stable
Will make a post with a video
With the pids
So u can tune yours accordingly

Personally I found the Naze32 way better than the KK board. It flew respectably with the stock settings on my mini quad. As far as setup, the Baseflight configurator software makes tuning a breeze.
The Disco is a pain to tune due the asymmetrical arms. People are flying it with KK's, naze32, Apm etc. From what I have read and experienced, the best gain settings require the pitch gain to be more than the roll gain.  

With disco best solution I found and did was to change layout to square motor layout and recut another fibre sheet plates.
Or shift to naza. Which is not good in acro
 No matter what I did on flight controller settings it never improved to the extent I wanted. Naze32 is the best, It's a multiwi on steroids. But not for this frame. Tuning pids for hover is easy.

What about vibrations, how is your experience?

Hover lol
i fly it as if driving a sports bike

What escs are you using ?

@ashimda- No problems if
1)Use Dji arms, they are stiffer than fake ones.
2) mount fc with double side tape. Hd cam also.
3) balance motor props.

@chintal - I use f20a with simonk. I load it myself.
Here's how I fly (stock-disco cannot fly like that)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgux5FKBBBQ&app=desktop (http://)

I fly stock disco with naze 32 and afro esc the same way
As your video
Will post a video as soon as my mobius arrives

Nice aggressive flying pravesh loved it!!!

Loved the videos, especially the "different view"  {:)}please post a top view of your frame.
Your using the KK Fc but I was wondering, are you using stock FW or have you flashed something like "Steveis's or RC911 ?
What flight times are you getting with 8" props?
I have balanced my motors and props but my arms are not original. I have mounted my mobius on just velcro but am getting vibrations.
I'll try an anti-vibration mount and see if things improve.

@Satya, thank u.
@ashimda, (edit- thank u) . Use Dji arms. It's 2-3 times stiffer.
I use kk2.0 which is much faster than kk2.1... I use kk firmware only but 1.6.
Correct tuning to get it to lock in air at all throttle range is main. I tried few but no firmware worked better than kk firmware for me. Not very sure but with 8 inch and 2600mah 4s I could fly 8 mins fff(fastforwardflight). naze was not as good for disco,  as while yawing the back side of disco dipped which shouldn't happen.

Thanks for the quick response. One last question, what board cam do you use for Fpv?

In my quad I use 520tvl hk cam.

Thanks.

this is a nice frame.  :hatsoff:

i bought APM and other accessories for my first quad. i should have invested more on frame and motors. now it seems kk or naze32 are good boards too.  :banghead:

The APM is a good FC, a little time consuming to setup. I learnt to fly on a KK first and when I felt comfortable then moved to Naza.

i should have done that too.
i am now flying in stabilize mode. it works good.  i am having some issues like tending to go right during take off and hovering mode. i have not not used other flying modes yet.

Check that the frame is balanced. When mounting electronic components try to balance them out.(kichuta ghurir karnik er moton)
If that doesn't work, recalibrate the FC using a bubble level.
When flying in wind drift will always be there unless using GPS hold,

thank you sir.

i'll try it tomorrow. i have checked CG is in good position.

How is the APM on a disco? The I saw it has an option for spider frames? It seems to do good on my RCTimer spider frame....

My tbs is ready will be doing a maiden tmrw
Ashimda lets race

Good luck with the maiden. Racing quads is above my skill level, perhaps Pravesh could oblige.

Sir ji i know your skills......

 sir  awesome frame

Indeed it is the best quad frame according  to me

@pravesh the arms  provided to him are same as   dji ones (in quality) :thumbsup:

Hey,a little ofI have arctim topic here... I have a RCTimer frame. How do I find the cg of my quad? I'm having a hard time getting the craft balanced. Is there a method to find the exact cg of my craft?

Tie string on diagonal motors and CG is where both strings cross each other. In some cases CG will move like when you fit gopro on the front side of the frame, in this case you have bring CG to the center again by adjusting placement of the battery

Yes, but how to find actual cg of the craft?

well for the discovery its different. The blue lines are center of thrust and the green is the COG.

Um... okay, but how do I find what the cg actually is? Like if I change my battery location, what's my new cg?

Shreeyak simple thing is whatever load you put on your copter should be distributed equally to all motors. As ashimda mentioned you should consider center of thrust more over center of gravity. You can try any method you like but concept is simple.

Any method to verify that my centre of thrust is where it's supposed to be?

simply

look the pics to find the cg

Oh! That's a simple technique!!! Thanks for sharing, very helpful! Thank you!

On my quad, I adjust my CG according to take off. When the CG is to far forward, on take off the quad will tilt forward, then adjust. When the quad lifts off perfectly level I know the CG is good.

you must calibrate your sensors to exact level and make sure your roll pitch sticks centered to work your method.

Calibrating sensors is the first job when setting up an FC.

actually if you really want to be accurate .. the ideal center would be at the point where all motors (assuming identical motor / prop combo )
are drawing equal current at hover. the only way to check this would be to have individual current telemetry for each motor.

as I said in a different post ... this hardly matters . the FC will compensate  because multis are inherently
unstable and inefficient.

technically it is possible to just hook up a recieiver and esc's and control a multi directly from your tx.
this would result in a dynamically unstable platform and you would need the reflexes of a jedi knight
to fly it.

Ys you are correct but we can simply do without the help of electronics is by finding center of thrust and hang it by holding @ that point using a rope, then arrange everything until it become level.

this is not like weighing potatoes .... once the aircraft starts flying how do you know
that all your motors are going to produce the exact same thrust ?? if you do not know then
what is the point of going through all this ?

what you are talking is static balance ... what is required is dynamic stability... again a moot point
with multirotors.

also you are only balancing on the pitch and roll axis ... what about yaw axis balance ?

not for arguing,
 if the thrust is different even if the motors and props are identical (as per you said in the previous post) then the efficiency also different and current drawing too then how can you calculate very accurately by checking current draw of each motors?

Exactly my point. This is why I find my method(#55) to work well. The FC will always compensate to keep the Quad level. That's why if CG is off, at take off it will tilt before the FC corrects. I keep adjusting CG until it lifts off level.  

Missing the point again - at take off if it tilts , it is not necessarily a CG issue
 it could be unequal thrust .  you have no way of knowing unless you monitor current draw.

@akhilzid - good point .  That is why it is no point balancing the multirotor when it is static. There
are far too many variables.

Cg is simple to balance . In a square symmetrical layout the intersection point of two diagonals is the cg. Mostly the centre only except for assymetrical motor layout. Tbs is different due to its motor layout.
Also cg for z axis - fc and prop on same height. With load on either side, top heavy if moving around, bottom heavy for stationary stability. multi rotors can not be judged of current consumption because there are many factors the fc is compensating all the time.

CG of Tbs is already shown in post #49 by ashimda, just arrange CG of everything to that point will statically (in X and Y dimensions) balance the quad , and the FC do the rest.

I arranged cg of tbs discovery more than 1 year back when I built mine. :)
I don't have issues balancing quads. I was saying z axis can be balanced too.
What the fc will do is dependant from fc to fc.

Edit- if I remember right, the tbs recommended cg for disco is little off.

That being said, if altering the CG to balance out unequal thrust, which in turn results in level take off and smooth flight, isn't that the goal ? 

Some interesting facts i found from past experience are.
- static balancing not necessary if you are flying LOS. YES FC takes care of slightly off CG BUT if CG way too off you might experience drift in particular direction and need constant sticks input, you can adjust trim BUT you must know FC giving more thrust constantly to that motor(s) to compensate gain. If you have onboard camera you will clearly see that. best example i have in this video.

Check this video, same quad same setup, props balanced with numbers on them, motors balanced as well.
1. from 35 sec to 1:57 sec segment taken in the morning. CG was slight (i mean 1-2mm) off and you can see some jello and vibes.
2. from 2:25 sec to 2:42 segment taken in the evening. CG was balanced (best i could do) and see the results. the video was completely jello and vibes free. i have raw footage of this video (1080p) observed hundreds of time to reach to this conclusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76k1qUp0u2Y#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76k1qUp0u2Y#ws)

3. check this video (on board footage), no jello or vibes however taken at the night but still you can judge from it. CG balanced statically. no trims (all centered) .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iucyd8UzqKg#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iucyd8UzqKg#ws)

Excellent illustration of the point being made. :salute:

Nice demonstration , CG balanced statically is do good job.
and the small variation in thrust is take care of FC,

if CG balanced statically and the thrust difference is too much then its difficult anyway, even in ashimda,s method
bacause the thrust rate is always differ along with throttle changes, if we correctly balance that @ throttle 1400
will not be balance @ 1550

 

In this fpv video i did not even took care to balance my final setup, however props were balanced but i just placed battery visually in the middle of the frame. But when i hooked 5.8ghz tx on the frame, CG moved off and see the results! It was like huge jello and lots of vibes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YORZCahVI4#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YORZCahVI4#ws)

nice one Dharmik   - I have to say the the point is well made.

Good Job Dharmik

Thank you friends.

Hi, I would like to clear something, I fly in Manual with cg off (within1cm) mostly because I don't care to balance it too much. I never have jello and vibes. Jello and vibes are caused due to unbalanced equipment. Also for Fpv onboard recording to be jelo free, pids need to be 5% lesser than LOS setting. Motors to need to be balanced and then props and motors in the end have to be balanced again. And if u fly after doing that ul not have jello at what ever cg. Cg off will cause drifts and dips.

Edit- Having jello with wrong cg means some motors have to work harder which causes faster rotation of unbalanced mass(motor,prop). Havin off cg of quad does not cause cg change of rotating bodies so no reason for them to vibrate.

+ in case of energy, all motors work together while @ CG centered will be  efficient than  1 or 2 motors hard work when off CG.

From what I have experienced, "jello" is caused not only through vibrations but mainly because of the rolling shutter effect. On bright days video will show more jello than on overcast or low light video recordings. Those people using Go-Pro cameras, reduce the rolling shutter effect by shooting video at a higher frame rate.(1080@60fps)
Vibration induced jello can be reduced significantly by flying in manual mode( which scares the crap out of me) I have yet to experience reduced jello effect by playing with the CG.
On the TBS frame getting rid of jello is frustrating, but Im getting there. 

Use original Dji arms. Similar stuffs are all excuses.

Use phone vibration app to dynamically balance motor prop combo.

Dji arms are on the way. I have downloaded Seismograph(android) and balanced my motors and props. I have dynamically balanced then as well.
I have ordered Graupner props, which I hope will reduce vibs even more. In manual mode(naza) I get good results, but Im not confident in that mode.

Ashimda you are right manual mode is bit stressfull

What can I say but, I told you so. Practice practice practice that's what I'm doing.