3D Robotics had a great weekend at the First Annual MultiRotor Challenge. We were there both Saturday and Sunday and competed in most of the events, including a fully autonomous demo mission with a Stock 3DR Hexacopter. In the Auto-Land Competition, APM powered Multi's got 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place! We also won…

This Is what happens when my little brother forgets the #1 rule: Stay Behind Me! So, to avoid hitting him I had to crash off to the side. At least I got a cool Video =)

Hi,

I had fun designing acrylic arches to build a protection cage (and GPS holder on top) in the style of the classical arducopter frame. The base frame is a 3DR quad revision C.

I added also a bottom plate beneath the battery space to attach cameras and gimbal.…

Hello all,

I have read many comments on the sensitivity of the Sonar sensor, i.e. mainly two types of issues:

-first electromagnetic interferences, electric interferences that impact the distance measurement stability. Especially the sonar sensor should be as far as possible from all magnetic/electric…

While looking around for a 433 tracking antenna we found out that:

1) There isnt much…

'Made in USA' not just Apple

By Parija Kavilanz@CNNMoneyDecember 7, 2012: 10:43 AM ET…

Making a 3D model of something with pictures isn't something new to most of us, but there have been a lot of people getting into drones recently and I wanted to show something useful you can do with your drone. Autodesk's 123D Catch has a very useful feature not everyone knows about; Once you have your 3D…

After numerous bench tests, re calibrations, and more bench tests I was finally brave enough to take my 3DR quad out for it's first flight -albeit tethered.  I did some initial outdoor ground testing in which I brought the throttle up to the point of takeoff but noticed that the quad was showing a tendency of tilting forward and right so I killed the throttle, ran…

Hello,

A colleague of mine asked me to build a quad copter for him for where he can do photography with his GoPro, so I drew up some prices and with the 3DR quad frame and a GoPro Gimbal it was over $300 excluding motors and esc's so I went on ebay and found the frame above (Quad Frame on Ebay).

First I was concerned about…

3DR ArduCopter kits are back in stock at the 3D Robotics store. The kits have gone through a slight redesign both in mechanical design and documentation. Our new facility in Tijuana, Mexico as well as better suppliers for parts have allowed us to greatly improve the…

Hi everyone! I'm very happy to announce our new u-blox based GPS board. The development teams and 3D Robotics have been working on this GPS unit for some time, and we have seen very good results on ArduPlane, ArduCopter and ArduRover. The Sparkfun AVC and the Quadcopter Rodeo were excellent opportunities to observe this GPS…

More good weather to test the FPV on my quad. I'm quite happy with the GoPro as both the recording and FPV camera. I just need to invest in a better mount with added roll stabilization. Also, as always the copter needs tuning. It has spontaneous wobbles that I need to figure out. I always dread the tuning process since some things seem to have no effect until they…

Finally managed to get everything together in reasonably working order. Lucky for me, the weather has been mostly perfect as well. The video is taken at about 9:30 pm, with plenty of sunlight to spare. Gotta love Alaska!

I figured the parking garage at the UAA campus would be a decent place to fly around. Not many people, no wind, good view - a good way to…

After painfully waiting for the Alaskan spring time to do its thing, I've finally got my 3DR quad all set up and FPV-capable.

I managed to get some test runs in beginning in April to get the hang of flying a quad. It's been cold so I haven't done nearly as much as I'd have liked to. On the other hand,…

Hey everyone, it always bothered me when my Quad hit the ground hard, so I started looking on a way to add a suspension to it and after 2 weeks of…

Not being overly chuffed with the battery mount on the 3DR and wanting somewhere to mount a camera, I decided to make another layer to the quad. A third plate below the quad seemed idea. 

I fished out a scrap of unused fibreglass PCB I had in my goodie box. I took the quad apart to get at the bottom plate to copy as a template.

The normal plates have a series of 3 holes in the middle of each edge which seemed a perfect option to mount stuff. I…

Hi there...

being a complete novice with autopilots and quadrocopters in general, I just got my stock 3DR kit completed and was able to fly.

Some observations that might help newcomers to get the stuff together:

• If you think you have checked everything - do it…

Hi guys, I just wanted to share some photos of my minimalist ArduCopter 3DR. The APM is using Jason Short's power hack, a Spektrum adapter, and a DSM2 remote Rx. the OilPan is standard except for the compass, which is one of the first ten or so HMC5883L prototype boards from a while ago. The rest of the frame is mostly stock (arms, ESCs, motors), but the stack-up is a little shorter than usual, and…