Hello everyone! I've been lurking and toying with the idea of building my own copter drone for a while and I'd like to get some more information and guidance to see if I can do what I want in the budget I have. I'm mostly interested in doing it as a hobby project with the goal of setting myself up with an aerial photography copter- I am a professional photographer and artist and I'd like to combine my geeky and artistic sides with this project.
My goals are to be able to lift a relatively modest camera package (Micro Four Thirds, so camera weight around 600g-1kg), get a live feed for compositional purposes (ideally straight from the camera's HDMI but I'm open to other solutions if they are cheaper/easier/lighter), and the ability to trigger the camera manually. A pan/tilt mechanism would be wonderful but not necessary to start. Endurance time is not very important at this point- 30 minutes would be perfectly adequate as a starting flight time. Altitude is also not very important (I live in the prairies, local terrain is pretty flat and elevation starts off around 250 metres above sea level).
I have some basic electronics, programming, and RC skills. Nothing fancy, but I have worked with Arduino boards and programming, I know my way around a soldering iron, and I have built RC cars in the past. I don't have any machining skills, nor do I currently have any easy access to someone who does.
What I am trying to figure out is essentially the following:
1) What kind of copter (quad, hex, etc.) design should I be looking at to loft a cargo payload of no more than 1kg with a flight time of 30 minutes or more?
2) What is the best way to remotely interact with the camera? For composition, I need to get a feed from the camera's point of view. For triggering, the camera can take a wired cable release that should be hackable into the copter's electronics. I realize that "best" is subjective, so for simplicity's sake, assume I'm willing to go with a cheap/crude solution over an expensive/high quality solution.
3) Budget permitting (now or in the future), where can I find/how can I build a remote controlled pan/tilt mount able to fit within my cargo payload limitation?
I'm hoping to get started under the USD/CDN $1,000 mark for something flyable, with camera view and manual triggering capability.
I've tried searching through the forums here and while I've found a lot of useful information, none of it has been quite able to answer the questions I have. I'd appreciate any helpful advice and information, whether it has to do with all of the project or just one piece!
Replies
I think you could do it for around that price. The best pre-made camera mount that I have found is Here It you can hook it up to the APM2 which will keep it level via roll and pitch servos, and use the pot. on chan6 of a TX to adjust roll manually.
I would Recommend the Arducopter so you can worry about the camera instead of tuning a custom quad.