Comment by Drone Savant on February 22, 2013 at 3:58pm

Did you tell Chris that you use Evil clones before the interview? ;) 

Comment by Britt on February 22, 2013 at 4:15pm

I don't think I did, but trying the clone has got me wanting the real deal. Also, it can be a bit tedious getting it them to work, but I like to tinker around with stuff that most folks don't.

Comment by J on February 22, 2013 at 6:08pm

"It runs all of the same Arducopter/Arduplane code and was designed by our partners at ETH, technically the University of Zurich."

This board was designed to run software developed at the ETH over the past five years, not Ardupilot.  git clone https://github.com/PX4/Firmware.git

https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/start

My guess (unfortunate that so much guessing has to happen in a supposedly open source project)  is that as much as they would have liked you to build on their superior architecture, they are not interested in support, thus the choice is yours. It's not at all clear to me why you would steamroller over such clean extensible code.

Comment by J on February 22, 2013 at 6:12pm

"I will most likely do a series of blog posts similar to what I did with my “Easy DIY Quad”, where I will go into detail about how I set up and fly a quadcopter piloted by the APM 2.5+."

Have you received or do you plan to receive payments of any kind from 3DRobotics or associates?

Wiki Ninja Comment by Gary McCray on February 22, 2013 at 6:31pm

Good and germane interview and gives us insight into Chris and 3DR's current and future directions and emerging capabilities.

Comment by Drone Savant on February 22, 2013 at 7:10pm

Hah who censored the following comment? 

"We have a fantastic dev team lead by Randy Mackay (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/meet-the-developers-randy-mackay), Andrew Tridgell (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/meet-the-developers-andrew-trid...), and a whole bunch of other developers. We probably have 100 developers at this point. They are a bunch of dedicated professionals who came in and re-architected a bunch of the software, people with control theory expertise and people with underlying software architecture expertise and digital and analog signal processing expertise. A lot of really smart people came in and almost rebuilt it from the ground up."



mac% git log | head -5000 | grep -i author | sort | grep -i tridge | wc -l
     442
mac% git log | head -5000 | grep -i author | sort | grep -i hickey | wc -l
      78
mac% git log | head -5000 | grep -i author | sort | grep -i mackay | wc -l
     151
mac% git log | head -5000 | grep -i author | sort  | wc -l
     733



The 100 developers are now gone, or they don't submit code?

Comment by Britt on February 22, 2013 at 7:23pm

@J,

I haven't recieved anything from DIYDrones, but I may receive a demo board and would like to be set up as a 3DR affiliate. What I currently get from other affiliate and ad programs covers my hosting costs, but nowhere near pays for the equipment I buy or compensates me for the time I put into blogging.

When I started my blog, I was a total newb, and I found simple, step by step explanations for stuff like setup, wiring, tuning, flashing ESCs, etc. were hard to find. When people started coming to the site it motivated me to stick with it. I mostly post quadcopter related news, do walk-throughs and builds, and some high level informational posts. I only post about stuff that has worked for me and that I think are good products. I think the KK2.0 board and Simonk ESC firmware are both amazing and have posted a lot about them, Recently, a company sent me a demo board that I think is a bit expensive and the firmware needs more development. I will be sending it back and not doing any reviews are walk-throughs.

I tried an earlier version of the Arducopter port and thought unlimited waypoint missions were very cool. But, I felt the altitude hold needed work. I was interested, but not enough to buy a board. The more recent releases obviously rock! It is the first reasonably priced board I have seen that compares with DJI Naza on Alt Hold and Position Hold, yet it has a TON of additional features. I am interested in APM only because I think it offer the most features for the money. Have you checked the price of closed source, unlimited waypoint controllers? Also, it is an American based company who supports the development community. What is there not to like?

I see from your profile that you are an anonymous “DIYDrones Hater”. I hope this helps quell you skepticism. 

Comment by Drone Savant on February 22, 2013 at 7:45pm

I see from your profile that you are an anonymous “DIYDrones Hater”.

I am not at all anonymous I am Kevin Finisterre... there are several closet supporters that post in proxy via me. 

I "hate" as it were for a reason... lack of quality and attention to detail. I am one of the guys that bought into this stuff early on. I paid to have Mighty Mouse fly my gear, that isn't what I got. Nothing more, nothing less. I just like to keep people honest. 

Not at all skeptic... glad you did the interview. I just thought it was funny that you pointed out that you fly clone gear when in most cases people around here get jumped on for that. I hope you enjoy the hobby! 

Comment by J on February 22, 2013 at 7:51pm

@Britt

Thanks for your candor. I find it a useful site as well. I added the label after perusing the sum total of my posts. I'm an independent noob with no affiliations in the community commercial or otherwise.

"Simonk ESC firmware are both amazing and have posted a lot about them"

Check out  http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1799000

Comment by Britt on February 22, 2013 at 7:53pm

@Kevin Finisterre aka Drone Savant,

My comment was directed @J, not you.

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