Comment by Hasufel on February 17, 2013 at 7:07pm

Very nice! Can you take a pic of underneath to show how you managed to stack the two bases? Thanks!

Comment by Carl La France on February 17, 2013 at 9:07pm

 Looks  great! do the extra 2 motors  shorten flight time significantly  or did up up the battery size?

Comment by Stefan78 on February 18, 2013 at 3:27am

@Hasufel

Sure. Here you go. Note that it took a bit of experimenting to have the right use of the screws to find out what works best. The arm underneath is secured using 4 screws. Two pre-drilled holes can be reused and I had to drill two new ones. It works very well!

Comment by Stefan78 on February 18, 2013 at 3:32am

@ Carl La France

Thanks! With my current battery (3S 3600 mAH) I used to get about 10 mins. of flying time (fully loaded with camera) and now it's about 8.30 mins which is more or less what I had expected. Now I would want some more flying time than this so I'm going to try and see what happens when I use two batteries (3600 + 3000 mAH).

Of course, it adds weight, but I notice that the 6 motors have more excess power than the Quad did (which also makes sense).

Curious to see what happens. It's a challenge to find out what the best performance ratio will be, flying time vs battery power and battery weight.

Comment by Stefan78 on February 18, 2013 at 3:37am

@ Hasufel

The above image shows not the final setup of the copter. I still use a riser there so the cover plate at the back is raised so the the hexa is not yet as slim as in the final version. This is what is showing in the very first picture in the original post. You can see the top is flatter there.

Comment by Mark Böhm on February 18, 2013 at 4:32am

Maybe it's possible to remove two of the legs of the landing gear? (to save some weight)

The copter looks great. Good job!

Comment by Stefan78 on February 18, 2013 at 5:19am

@Mark Böhm: I'll give that a try. It should be able to support itself with just 4 pairs of legs (though I like the look with 6 pairs). Tradeoff between Looks and Performance. The legs a pretty light, but any weightreduction will help extend the flying time.

On a side note about looks: my wife keeps telling me that it doesn't look 'friendly'  enough and that I should put something on it to make it look more friendly. Even thought I am not really considering that, because of the weight, I have no idea what that could be.

How to make your drone more friendly? Paint a smile on it?

Comment by Carl La France on February 18, 2013 at 7:54am

When you try something different it is always a compromise and you work the new issues as they appear what I like about this web site people like yourself actually "Do Stuff ' . As for making your drone look more friendly

tell your wife" form follows function" maby one of those happy face stickers on the back of the camera (let your wife pick it out ) or  some of those "big bug eyes on  springs and a smile" or  have everybody stand back and deliver some teddy bears to a child care center with it the women would love that  Have a Great Day 

Comment by Craig Fraser on February 18, 2013 at 10:31am

Cool. I think longer "H-style" central platforms just has to be in the future. Space is our friend when there's lots of electronics, and close vertical stacking just doesn't cut it beyond a certain point.

For "looks", you might consider a longish light plastic, probably opaque, cover over your two central bases. This can weigh almost nothing since it's only for looks and not necessarily protection. Some prepared "deli" food comes in black plastic containers that would probably fit well. Or you could put a big ribbon/bow on it...

Comment by Craig Fraser on February 18, 2013 at 5:20pm

Here is sort of what I meant, except it's round and much stronger (salad came in it, still "free"). It is large enough that it should just cover your two hubs.

[I was wanting to use two of these at one time, one on the bottom too, but didn't work at it long enough to figure out a secure way to attach the bottom one so I could get at the main battery easily. The secondary reason (after protection) I like to cover my electronics is they get filled with bits of grass and dirt (yup, I'm that good!) and it takes me ages to clean them off. Sorry for the surrounding mess I didn't clean up first...]

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