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Arducopter Quad with eight motors.

Posted by Markus Jahn on January 24, 2011 at 2:28am

I just got finished my octocopter with Arducopter electronics. It is built to carry DSLR and should fly 7-8 minutes with 1000g payload. Copter is actually just a quad which has two ESCs and motors on each end. It proved to be really stable platform on first tests last weekend.

I fly with 5000 mAh 14.8V Lipos and have eight 750kv/100W motors. Still the flight time with such a heavy camera will be short. But actually from previous experience I know 5 minutes is long enough for photographing a target. After that you can land, change battery and make a plan for next 5 minute flight.

Images of my build can be found:

http://www.markusjahn.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=45850

and first flights:

http://www.markusjahn.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=45735

Youtube -video shot from another Oktokopter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viEoOtErBnU

arducopter, octocopter, oktokopter

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Comments

Markus Jahn February 19, 2011 at 12:37pm

Yep, sonar panels are nice. You would only lose couple minutes of flight time with them. :)
Bryan Steelmon February 18, 2011 at 11:40am

oh yah.... how come nobody attaches an android phone with video chat rolling to there drones?

thats one of my faviorite parts about my plans....

it came to me in a dream one night..... how cool would that be with it hooked up to my big screen.
Bryan Steelmon February 18, 2011 at 11:38am

with a frame like that.... i would wire up some solar panel area's
Markus Jahn February 10, 2011 at 2:56pm

I don't think those would suit for me as I will never have to go fast with this one. What I need most is stability and workin PH+AH.

Early this week I was flying in +-0 weather and managed to get the electronics wet. It broke the APM. Waiting for new one to do more flying. Next time will be protecting APM+IMU with Plastic Spray.

Propellers are 10x5 Graupner E-Props. Motors are RC Timer 750kv 2830/14.
Tero Koivunen February 10, 2011 at 12:38pm

I got these instructions are from Randy,
If you need more "speed" without losing PIDded stability:
To get more movement, change these variables in Heli.h.
#define HELI_STICK_TO_ANGLE_FACTOR 2.0 // To convert ccpm values (-50 ~ 50 ) to absolute angles. larger number means less lean #define HELI_YAW_STICK_TO_ANGLE_FACTOR 0.5 // convert yaw (-50 ~ 50) to turn rate in degrees per second. larger number means slower turn rate
I've set them to 1.2 and 0.4 respectively. also in Heli.pde you can change the -100 and 100 below to -200 and 200. This controls the maximum turn rate that the heading hold will cause.
control_yaw_rate = constrain(control_yaw_rate,-100,100); // to limit max yaw command
I haven't yet tried those instructions yet in my quad (too cold weather) , so be careful ;-)
Which motors and propellers you have?
Markus Jahn February 7, 2011 at 12:41am

I'm still using the RC2-version. As it seems to work fine I'll stay with it until the next versions are in Beta phase.

Will be flying again next weekend making some weight tests and more PID tuning.
Mauro Rodriguez January 30, 2011 at 8:18pm

Hi Markus

Wich soft did you use?

Thanks.-
Markus Jahn January 25, 2011 at 2:40pm

I added one video of last weekend to youtube. This one is with standard arducopter PID settings. You can see copter being sort of wobbly and it responded really slowly to controls. I increased P value for roll, pitch and yaw. It totally changed the behaviour of the hashcopter. On the later flights it was really responsive and corrected itself fast to hovering position. And I am flying with stable mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCVNwp-5vFs

Would have been nice to have video of the last flights of sunday for comparison, but will take that next time.

Is there anywhere instructions for PID tuning on Altitude Hold and Position Hold? I noticed that to get this bird working I had to increase P value quite a lot or PH/AH wouldn't have any effect.
Alex Lee January 25, 2011 at 5:53am

Thanks Markus. This is exactly what I needed. I love the simple design.
steve January 25, 2011 at 2:06am

Thanks squawk! My favorite store but I didn't imagine they had :-/