The Piccolo’s first flights went well. The original NiCd pack, at only 250mAh, doesn’t last long and is further hampered by being quite old. It had enough poke to allow for initial flight testing and fine tuning of the Picoboard. A few small turns with a miniature screwdriver was all that was required.
The Piccoboard mixes the main and tail motors and allows for adjustment comparable to revolution mixing; once used to mix tail pitch with throttle before the onset of heading hold gyros.
I think it might be an idea to replace the double-sided foam tape I used to affix the servos with something thinner. The current foam allows to much movement with the result of inconsistent trimming in the hover.
We have lift off!
The trick with a the Piccolo, and any other low rpm fixed pitch machine, is not to hang around in ground affect for too long or risk rapidly and uncontrollably drifting about due to rotor wash. The trick is too quickly ‘leap’ into the air to above 30 cm where things are calmer.
Fully charged the battery only gives 2 minutes of flight time. Interestingly the pack accepts over 240 mAh from completely flat. So despite it’s age it’s working as new. The flight time is nothing to do with the cell’s condition, just their capacity.
A soon as the new NiMh packs arrive (and providing this weather holds) its next flights will be outdoors.
James, Planes and Automobiles 