I finally received my Makerbot Replicator (makerbot.com) and I am VERY impressed. After printing a handful of objects off of Thingiverse and dialing in my printer I promptly began work on my version of 3D printed quadcopter. I had a fair bit of practice using Google Sketchup from time is spent designing a…

Using EC3 connections on my quad was a good idea...except when it applied to the AttoPilot 90A sensor from SparkFun. The goal for adding this sensor to the system was to be able to remove it cleanly if needed. The sensor pcb design was…

Doug Weibel writes:

I just got the most recent issue of IEEE Robotics and Automation magazine, which has a theme of quadcopters as robotics research platforms.  There is a large article describing the various attitude estimation and control algorithms used in Arducopter, OpenPilot, Paparazzi, Pikhawk,…

I just want to give a shout about a Kickstarter project that I think deserve some…

(More construction…

HefnyCopter Firmware works in KKv2.1 as in the demo 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Ab4BfcQss&feature=relmfu

can switch between X-Mode & Plus-Mode.

there is also HefnyCopter2 that works on KK2 it has more new features:

1- BuddyMode…

I made up these hi tech shock absorber legs for my grandsons quad we are building.  Considering the hours I often spend to find a better design for making copter legs that don't disintegrate on every hard landing, It took me about 10 min to stop laughing from the simplicity of the brilliance of this light bulb…

T-Rex 450 Test flight -- Loiter / Guided / RTL and Alt Hold

APM 2.0   firmware 2.7.3

MediaTek MT3329  and barometer

After replacing the hidden Torque Tube Bearing in my T-Rex 450 the shifts in attitude are gone.

Everything changed to the…

We sent out an email today to all our distributors, if you did not receive it please contact sales@3drobotics.com . We are trying to make sure we have all of you in our distributor mailing…

Hi, I just watched this video, and it seems to me a good ground base for those who want to start with multicopters and don't know what's the best platform.

I seem to be removing my props often, and I worry that my hand holding the motor while I torque the collett on or off is not strong enough and I certainly don't want to use a steel tool like a Channel Lock.  So, I use a small plumbers strap wrench, pictured below.

This one is overkill because it is made for, well,…

Foam Tail Pusher

Range check is always a god idea, especially when using an new rx!

Do not think there will be any more flight test this week due to bad whether, plans are to scale up the frame to host APM.   

My Hitec minima range…

Here's a source of 3mm standoffs, like the ones under my GPS module.  They are available at any computer store that sells PC parts.  Fry's and Microcenter come to mind.…

I accidentally discovered a perfectly fitting cover for my APM stack:

Yup - a cold-cuts box.

I am using a set of thumbscrews to hold my stack to the hexacopter frame , and the cold cuts plastic box fits over the thumbscrews perfectly.  The cover doesn't budge in a hard landing or while…

New video from ETH Zurich’s Flying Machine Arena, you can read more on Robohub: 

http://robohub.org/video-watch-flying-robots-cooperate-throw-and-catch-balls/



PS. …

We've covered this before, but Hackaday has a good update on the latest ground-based power techniques:…

The Google Earth blog reports:

Over the years we've seen quite a few games that use Google Earth as their platform including gems such as Ships, Google Earth War and the …

Green doesn't mean that this version is lower power consumition, it is the board color in that series of clones of our ArduPilot …

Most of the pro multicopter set-ups have feedback from the ESCs so the controller knows the status of the motors.  This is useful for all kinds of reason including:

    1. debugging the causes of crashes - the controller could log when a motor has stopped running.

    2. allows faster and better reaction to a motor failure perhaps saving you from a crash at least for…