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Permalink Reply by Dave C on February 3, 2012 at 6:01pm

What like this one? Now what does that look like :D

I'm trying to find the waterboatman inspired one, its a bit of kit. Although I think now i prefer the attached.

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Permalink Reply by Ellison Chan on February 3, 2012 at 6:19pm

Well, any kind of electricity generation is going to suffer from the inability to store large quantities of electrical power.  It just can't be done at the density and efficiency that's needed.

Permalink Reply by Steve Warren on April 9, 2012 at 2:48pm

Only if you can hook up 4 big rotors to them and fly them around!

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Carl Campbell on June 18, 2012 at 2:23pm

Actually, I was an early adopter of the Hybrid electric car. I had a 2002 Honda Insight and set the unoffical Columbia MO to STL MO endurance record of 99MPG.  However this is my biggest compaint with hybrid technolgy, The Batteries,  After 110,000 miles the battery pack failed on a 2 year old car this was unacceptable as previously I was getting 300k  out of Toyota corollas with only maintenance items.  The replacement cost at the time was $6000 and 75% of its value as the car depreciated 10,000 as soon as it was driven off the lot.   Needless to say the whole experience soured me on hybrids and on Honda as a company.  

And then you have the Nickle mined for the NiMH batteries,  Heavy metals into the local canadian water supply,  No air regulations from the chineese smelters that refine it into batteries, and then the slow boat to Japan to be assembled into packs.   Granted battery technology has improved but I still dont trust it as my daily driver.I now drive a Hyundai Veloster get 40 MPG and dont have to worry about the hybrid battery pack shooting craps and 40Mpg is better then the hybrid models of some medium size cars.  The Veloster is only slightly smaller then an Accord.  I think an inch or 2 in each direction.  

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Permalink Reply by Ellison Chan on June 18, 2012 at 2:50pm

I had a Hybrid Camry, got thousands back on government rebates, even for a leased car.  Also Toyota has up to a 10 yr warranty on the HV batteries.  Oh, also saved lots on gas.

http://www.toyota.com/html/hybridsynergyview/2006/fall/battery.html

All in all, wasn't that bad an experience, for me.  I'd get another one in a few years, when the tech matures even future, to plug-in.

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Permalink Reply by Ramesh Tahlan on January 28, 2012 at 7:52am

u bet i will be one of the new commers to multi copter who will need help, so thanks for opening this forum

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Permalink Reply by Rod Cole on January 28, 2012 at 7:52am

Thanks Ellison, great move. I don't have any complaints though. Like everyone else, I am anxiously awaiting receipt of my APM2.0 board.

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Permalink Reply by Gareth Rens on January 28, 2012 at 7:54am

I have some SERIOUS COMPLAINTS! Bu they have nothing to do with DIY Drones or anything RC related...

;)

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Permalink Reply by Ellison Chan on January 28, 2012 at 7:56am

Sure, anything goes here. But it's not Vegas. (You know their slogan)

Oh, and you do realize that Karla, can read this too, right?

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Permalink Reply by Gareth Rens on January 28, 2012 at 8:01am

We'll see if she can find it! lol

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Permalink Reply by Don Brooks on January 28, 2012 at 8:34am

Ok, here's one, and it's taken directly off of following the recent arducopter alpha and beta monster threads from the last few weeks.

It's impossible to tell what is a problem report, what is a misguided newbie call for help, and what is real honest testing feedback. I'm reassured by some of Chris A's posts, that a lot more testing goes on behind the scenes than is publicly discussed here on the forum. With a few exceptions, like Jean-Louis and Marco's reports, the forum threads (my impression at least) boil down to 'OMG my copter did something I didn't want it to do, so the code must be terribly broken'. There is no perspective, and nothing to balance it out. It has people's confidence in the project shaken, and in some cases outright lost. The test reporting and feedback needs to be managed and more structured if code and feedback threads are going to be public. The fact that Chris, Jason and others may (or maybe not, I have no idea) have flown dozens of batteries without issue is totally lost.

On an alpha or beta code release thread, WHY are we humouring people who can't get Arduino to compile, arm their motors, get the HIL to work, or any number of other issues, that have nothing to do with the code release? These kinds of comments and requests for help should be addressed of course, but people who post their illegible google-translated calls for help should first be asked to post their own thread asking for help on their issue. Thread hijacking and off-topic posting has always been a pet peeve of mine, but tolerating it is part of being a member of a forum, regardless of topic. I just think that a code release thread started by a dev should be more stringently moderated. The delicate part is to do so in such a way that encourages user participation and keeps feedback public, without getting to the point where reading 2 or 3 comment threads sounds like 'arducopter doesn't work'.

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Permalink Reply by Ellison Chan on January 28, 2012 at 9:09am

Don, imo, the forum is for everyone to discuss the issues.  If there's a specific problem with any of the hardware bought at any of the stores, once the discussion is concluded, the stores customer support needs to be contacted.  Even so, anyone can start a discussion, with comment moderation on, and filter out irrelevant comments.  Also, if someone has the desire and skills they can ask to be put on the dev team too.  That's the beauty of open source!

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