Page 85 - Build Your Own Quadcopter_ Power Up Your Designs with the Parallax Elev-8

64 Bu il d Y o ur O w n Q u a d c o p t e r

1. Connect the receiver to the receiver port, with the five signal connections listed
below. Use the 3-wire extension cables included in the Elev-8 Electronics Kit.
A = Aileron
T = Throttle
R = Rudder
E = Elevator
G = Gear (ON: EPA value is Primary Gain, Altitude Hold is off.)
(OFF: EPA value is Altitude Hold Gain, Altitude Hold is on.)
2. Connect each motor’s ESC controller to the corresponding pins on the ESC port.
3. Match the motor numbers in Figure 3.32 to the port numbers in Figure 3.41.
4. Double-check your connections—it’s easy to make a mistake here.

Mounting the Propeller Blades

Caution: Mount the propeller blades only when you are ready to fly.
I would highly recommend that you balance all of the propellers before mounting them.
Balancing the propellers will greatly reduce the vibrations that result from slight imbalances
that are likely to be present in the plastic propellers supplied with the kit. Even very slight
imbalances create considerable vibration because of the very high propeller rotations.
Reducing vibrations will also improve the performance of the in-flight video system
described in Chapter 8. I used a magnetic propeller balancer from Top Flite, which is shown
in Figure 3.42.

Figure 3.42 Magnetic propeller balancer.