So, yesterday was eventful. Took the copter out for a stroll in the morning breeze and before you knew it she slammed headfirst in to a brick wall. Literally. One of the motor mounts cracked, five out of six arms snapped and we lost four propellers. The top junction was torn to pieces as you can see below. After picking up the pieces and heading inside we quickly stated that all of the electronics survived. And there was much rejoicing, yaay yaay.
Sad copter.
After spending most of the day supergluing the chassi back into a state that looked not quite as mangled (I actually think that we should be able to fly again) we quickly started printing version 2 of the chassi.
This collision gave us a few valuable insights:
1. The sockets used in rev1 cannot withstand the kind of strain we are putting upon them (This we already knew, rev2 has had this flaw fixed since long)
2. Layer orientation when printing is of the UTMOST importance regarding durability of joints and how/if it breaks.
3. It is important to be able to rotate around your own axis so that you know which end of the copter is forward.
4. Nothing gets you working on a new design as efficiently as when the old one breaks.
We have started printing the arms for the new revision, the new sockets are looking really promising! They fit very snugly and the sockets passed the inoffial ArchQuad durability test. This test consists of two people, each equipped with a pair of pliers, grabbing one end of the piece each and bending it downward (or upward, according to preference) and seeing if it breaks. It did not.
Printing away. It's slightly cross-eyed but nevertheless happy to see you!
The new arm with improved sockets. Also a wee bit slimmer.
New arm with socket ends attached. One could hardly guess that this isn't one single piece.
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