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Permalink Reply by Russell B. Sutton on May 22, 2011 at 12:25pm

Well your on the right track..  ArduPilotMega kit comes with all the sensors needed for basic quadcopter control.  The only sensor not included is the DIY_Drones Compass. When you order you APM kit it gives u the option to  buy.  You 3mm Acrylic should be enough. but might be kinda britle.  I made an ultra light quadcopter frame out of foam and carbon fiber arrow shafts.

I covered it with brown paper and clear water based acrylic to help protect it.  It only ways 180 grams raw frame.  You can see my build picks on my page.  I have heard somewhere on this forum where people are using the 2.4 Xbee and 2.4 RC radios with in the same aircraft and it seems to work, but i would do some more studying.  Word to the wise Be very careful Not to plug in a battery backwards to you new turnigy radio.  It will go up in smoke.  FOR REAL.  I've been waiting for my 2nd radio for almost 5 weeks now. UGH!  I will be adding a MOSFET to the Battery curcuit in my 2nd Tx to protect it from this again.  I'm also going to flash the new ER9c firmware to unlock this Tx full potential. 

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Permalink Reply by Gerard on May 22, 2011 at 12:53pm

Hi Russel,

Thanks for your response! I indeed read something about the Acrylic being bridle, so I hope my frame will hold.. I used the 3mm Acrylyc also for carrier board, that's maybe overkill. Your copter is really nice, 180 grams is awesome!

I'll do some research about the 2.4 xbee / radio combination, would be great if it works. And thanks for the tip regarding the radio. It would be a bummer to see the radio go up in smoke when I've waited a long time for the parts.

Thas MOSFET, is it some kind of current direction detection / blocker. Sounds like a good preventation, a mistake is easily made, especially when plugging in a battery.

Interesting to see you are going to flash the FW, I'm curious what functionalities are added when flashin the FW. I'll look into that, thanks!

Gerard

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Permalink Reply by Gerard on May 23, 2011 at 4:00am

Anyone who can answer tihs particular question:

2 - Will my 3mm Acrylic will be strong (and light) enough to function as a center plate?

Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Dom on November 23, 2011 at 4:27pm

Did you end up using this thickness of acrylic for your center plates? If so, how did it hold up? I'm asking because there is a laser cutter at my university which would be able to fabricate 6.35mm (1/4") thick pieces of acrylic for my own quad project and I'm wondering how well they would work. 

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Permalink Reply by Darren on May 23, 2011 at 7:03am

see this pdf from Digi on new firmware for the xbpro900 for international users.

Does this mean you can use it since it doesnt touch the down and uplink frequencys they use on the cell phone?

 

System	Band	Uplink (MHz)	Downlink (MHz)	Channel number
P-GSM-900	900	890.0–915.0	935.0–960.0	1–124

 

http://ftp1.digi.com/support/firmware/pcn.xbp900.20110119.pdf

Notice:
These modules will be programmed with production firmware 21061 which is similar to firmware 1061 but only allows RF radiation in the 916 to 928 MHz frequency band. These modules have C-Tick (Australia) certification.

 

----International Cell Phones

An international cell phone is classified as a GSM mobile phone that operates on the GSM 900 and GSM 1800 frequency. An international cell phone with the appropriate sim card, will provide coverage in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Rim including Australia. A world cell phone with the GSM 1900 frequency will expand coverage to include the United States, Canada and a growing part of South America.

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Permalink Reply by Gerard on May 23, 2011 at 7:48am

Thanks Darren, I believe using the 900 band is illegal but I have to check that one.

Anyone have any idea if my 3mm Acrylic (same as dome) main square will not break? In the frame delivered by DIYDrones it's made from glassfiber or something? I think 3mm Acrylic will stay in one piece and can hold the load, but I want to check it with you guys before al my electronics are killed during a crash =)

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Permalink Reply by Gerard on May 23, 2011 at 8:07am

The aluminium legs on the standard frame is 15x15mm or 10x10mm?

 

Edit:

I loaded the design in Adobe Illustrator and measured the distance, seems it's 15mm. 

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Permalink Reply by Gerard on May 26, 2011 at 9:57am

I just went to he local steel store for some aluminium tubes. The smallest they had were (15mmx15mm) 1.5 mm thick. So I thought that should be fine. But I just got a little bit in doubt by the weight and the thickness of the tubing in comparison to the 'standard' aluminium frame arms on the wiki.

 

So are they 1.5, 1.0 or 0.5mm thick? :)

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Permalink Reply by Gerard on May 26, 2011 at 10:02am

I guess they are .5 mm right...? :(

 

So maybe can I use these tubes to make my first (prototype) frame. 

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