Assembly and Adjustment of the DJI F450

Document to be completed according to each person's experiences

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ASSEMBLY 3

Assembly 4

Chassis 4

Engines 4

ESC 5

Pixhawk / Battery 5

Propellers 5

Pixhawk 7

RadioLink R9DS 7

PPM encoder 8

ESC 8

CALIBRATION 10

Calibration / Mission Planner 11

Installation Mission Planner 11

Install Firmware 11

Frame Type 11

Calibrate the accelerometer 11

Calibrate compass 13

Calibrate ESC 14

Test the remote control 15

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Adjust Fail Safe 16

RTH (Return To Home) Configuration 17

Set flight modes 19

Testing the engines 19

RECOMMANDATIONS 21

Troubleshooting 22

Recommendations / Security 22

First flight 22

Ressources 23

Model 3D 23

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ASSEMBLY

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 1. Assembly
a. Chassis Everything is simply screwed on, the white and red parts in order to allow you to
easily see the front of the rear of the drone once in the air. As for me I put the Reds in
front and the Whites behind. Attention to the direction of the bottom plate, it will
accommodate the battery, it must be in the axis of the drone (front / rear) as in the photo
below:

b.Moteurs
Attention there is a direction for the motors. We have two types of motors that rotate in different
directions (gray = CCW and black = CW). The appropriate assembly is as follows.

Front

Rare

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 C. ESC

We can simply fix the ESC under the arms with a colson:

D. Pixhawk/Batterie

The battery is placed in the bottom part and is fixed with Velcro tapes.
https://www.leroymerlin.fr/v3/p/produits/bande-auto-agrippante-id-scratch-l-2000-x-l-20-mm-
e1500243982
The Pixhawk is attached to the top (with a piece of double-sided foam where it clips into the room
I designed) for easy access to the wiring.

Be careful there is a direction. The arrow on the pixhawk indicates the front part of the drone.
It must be correctly oriented. The GPS must also be oriented in the same direction.

e. Propellers

Just like Motors there is a direction

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WIRING

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 2. Wiring

a. Pixhawk It’s pretty intuitive for most components:

- The buzzer on Buzzer

- The safety switch on switch
- The power module on Power
- GPS over GPS and I2C

The documentation for the map can be found at the following link
http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-pixhawk-overview.html#common-pixhawk-
overview

b. RadioLink R9DS

The good connection between the radiolink and the PPM encoder is essential because this is
where the various drone commands are affected. At home it was badly connected. Here's how to
connect it properly. We can check later. The CH5, Ch6 and Ch7 are not connected.

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 c. PPM encoder
It will connect on one side to the Pixhawk card, on the other to the Radiolink R9DS. The
connection to the Pixhawk is as follows (the green MUX wire is not connected)

d. ESC
ESCs are the modules that control the power supply to the motors. On one side they are
connected to the motors: Connect the three blue wires to the motor as follows.

In reality it does not matter the order of connection of the wires (it will only change the direction
of rotation of the motors, we can adjust it later).

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Regarding connections to the pixhawk it must be connected as follows:
- On the pixhawk it's always high = brown, middle = red, low = Orange
- For motor 1, connect the three wires
- For motors 2, 3 and 4 it is necessary to connect only the orange and brown wires

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CALIBRATION

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3. Calibration/Mission Planner

a. Installation Mission Planner Before launching it is necessary to check that the parameters of
the drone are good. For that we will use the free Mission Planner software:
http://ardupilot.org/planner/docs/common-install-mission-planner.html

b. Install the Firmware Once the software is installed, you can connect the Pixhawk and update
the firmware of the card: http://ardupilot.org/planner/docs/common-loading-firmware-onto-
pixhawk.html There are then a series of calibrations to be carried out to ensure that everything is
fine

C. Frame Type This allows us to define what type of drone we are using:

d. Calibrate the accelerometer

The calibration is done in two stages:

- Calibrate Accel allows you to calibrate the accelerometer, you must follow the procedure
putting the drone in the different positions requested.
- Calibrate Level allows you to calibrate the ground level (to be done on a desk)

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Once the calibration is complete, you can check in the Flight data tab that everything is fine thanks
to the real-time display of the tilt. If it is not good, repeat the calibration.

e. Calibrate the compass Just click on Start and turn the drone in all directions in the air (as
much as possible), the software will tell you when it's good for it. For the rest of the
parameters, here is a configuration screen for me

Once finished you can check in the Flight data tab that everything is fine thanks to the display of
cardinal points. If it is not good, repeat the calibration.

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 f. Calibrate ESC
II. Just follow the procedure:

g. Test the remote control

Here you have to make sure that everything is well wired between the PPM encoder and the
R9DS

The left joystick allows vertical modification of the Throttle

The left joystick allows you to modify the Yaw horizontally
The right Joystick allows you to vertically modify the Pitch (the controls are reversed and this is
normal)
The right joystick allows to horizontally modify the Roll

If it is not good, then check the wiring of the R9DS

h. Adjust FailSafe FailSafe are degraded flight modes (loss of signal, no battery, visual loss
...) Here is my config:

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 i. Configuration RTH (Return To Home)

I advise you to configure in the Flight Data tab a Home position. Otherwise if you accidentally
launch this command (RTH: Return to Home) without having correctly configured the drone is
likely to leave for China...

To position the home go to the Flight Planner tab

Faire un clic droit, “Set Home Here”

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The coordinates are then updated on the right side of the screen:

j. Régler les modes de vol

There are different types of drone piloting. Switch C on the remote control allows you to change
the mode. Here's how it's set up for me.

k. Testing the motors

The test verifies that the motors are well wired and that they are turning in the right direction. To
test it is necessary:
- Set Throttle to 10%
- Remove the propellers
- Connect the battery
- Arm the drone by pressing the red button
- Test the motors one by one

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If the motor you are testing is not the one that is running, you have made a mistake in the wiring
from ESC to the pixhawk.
If the motor turns in the wrong direction, reverse the connection of the red wire with that of the
yellow wire on the motors and test again.
Make sure everything is working well before moving on.

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 RECOMMANDATIONS

For the sounds see the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-CMLrAwlco

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Pour
les sons il y a la vidéo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-
CMLrAwlco

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5. Recommendations / Security

- Do not use the drone indoors

- When mounting and testing it is better not to mount the propellers and mount them
last moment
- For the battery it is important not to do more than one recharge per day and
to wait until it is completely discharged before recharging

6. First flight

- Go outside
- Fix the propellers in the right direction
- Make sure to put the left joystick of the remote control up
- Make sure to put the switch C up
- Turn on the remote control
- Connect the battery
- Leave the card a few seconds for it to initialize
- Press the safety switch until the light turns solid red
- Move back
- Hold the joystick from left to bottom right * a few seconds until the
Card emits a long beep
- The drone is ready to fly if you do not hear the beep, disconnect the battery and try again.

If you put the joystick only at the bottom (and not at the bottom right) the motors will still arm but
the drone will not work properly, it will rock (I was blocked for a long time because of this)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aHklnCiLSrQVVPbnbnS2dkW9z66799Pd/view?usp=sharing

7. Resources

Assembly, calibration and first flight, everything is there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfQ-9MIHKkU

Site extremely well documented on the flight card and software:

http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/introduction.html

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8. 3D model

1.Protection around the propellers https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:544217

2. ICAM box This box allows you to clip the button, the GPS and the buzzer and contain all the
elements.
To print in ABS without support.
There is a bit of a file to go. We can add colsons so that it fits well on the drone.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LRK9qEDRGFOuL1lNAXb3ov6NHGRFA_hS/view?usp=shari ng

3. Case for the Pixhawk

This box clips onto the top of the drone and can accommodate the PixHawk.
To print in ABS with support.
. The first assembly is a little dry but when worn it clips and unclips very well.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13mW-ZVeXF3x9sDX-zuRZAfRslY3QJJ6J/view?usp=sharing

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4. Complete modeling

Full 3D modeling
Autodesk link: http://a360.co/2EYKb6a Password: DJIICAM450 You can view the model,
manipulate it directly online and save it in the format that suits you best.

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