Well, its been a while.

I started a new job last summer, and a lot has happened since then. I'm finding some time and energy again to get back into hobbies and tinkering. So I've picked up the Aspen and we're gonna plant some trees!

So, I figure a natural next step will be to work on an "Aspen V1.1". In all of the flights I did last year, I identified several "bugs" that I'd like to address. Think of this as more of a "Quality of Life" update. 

Allright, so theres some stuff to chew on. Some of these things probably could have been avoided if I knew what the hell I was doing when I started, but alas.....

As much fun as I find doing physical design work, such as the canopy, I think I'm gonna hold off on that until I get some other items sorted. To start, I think I'm going to take the drone out on a series of test flights, this is gonna help me with 2 things.

1. Help me optimize the battery size.

2. Give me an idea of what the issue is with the ESC and measure the power draw.

So for my first task, I intend to do 6 flights, with and without a payload. This should give me a decent picture of the power situation on board. At that point I can start thinking about weight optimization of the battery and / or other parts.

Report Back:

So I didn't really have a firm grasp of the power problems that this drone was facing. My battery seemed overpowered for the drone, but I was getting a massive voltage drop right after takeoff, something like 3v. I wasn't sure why this battery was struggling! The problem made the flight time terrible compared to what I should ideally be getting. I went on a long quest to determine the cause of the issue.

I ended up deciding to re solder some of the connections on my PDB. After completing the resolder work, the voltage drop was reduced by about 25%, but still nowhere near what it should be at. After doing some more digging, I realized that one of the xt60 connectors was using 14awg wire. Ideally, this drone should be using 12-10awg wire for the main power, so I'll be working on replacing those connections. xt60 connectors ideally should use a max 12awg wire, so we'll go with that. If the voltage drop is still significant, we'll look into what it would take to set up the main power with 10awg. I may end up designing a custom PCB since I'll need to replace the voltage monitor at the same time.