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Now, development of an actuator for Marcy 1.  After all that static testing against gravity, the restoring force from the air wasn't enough to get the flap to straighten.  She just cocked up like a wing at 45 deg.

Since air exerts less force than gravity, maybe actuating the entire wing with some kind of spring as a restoring force isn't too crazy.


With Vika 1, we had low voltage transients, due to CPU usage at 40Mhz, sending the flight computer into reset.  Brown out voltage of 4.6 was making it reset.  Set it lower & it started working.


Did the same brown out voltage change to a Marcy 2 board we had since 2010 & it also started working.  That board was dead on arrival, last year.  Showed it during interviews & carried it around in luggage, not fearing it being destroyed by man handling, knowing it was dead.  Who knew it actually worked.  The Marcy spirit can't be destroyed.

The goal with the Marcy 2 board is now an autopilot for a cheap, 3 Ch copter, just to demo sonar.  Since these copters only go forwards & backwards, they basically have to constantly turn towards the waypoint & fly towards it.  Real workout for detecting heading.

Since they're extremely weight limited & have a limited number of flights before the brushed motors die, that means leaving it untouched. The best way into the controls is to bypass the receiver's IR signal with our own & use our own remote control.





There it is.  The $25 pink special everyone on RCGroups raves about.  $3 tax.



What's not discussed on RCGroups.



It should be passively stable because it's a counter rotater.

FUGGEDABOUTIT.  It doesn't have a gyro, so it spins & spins.  The controls have a serious lag.  It's no more dynamically stable than a Picco Z.  Forget about hovering over a waypoint.  The control lag kills any chance of substituting a gyro.

So what about letting it spin & using the tail rotor as a cyclic.  The pink copter has a lot more payload than the Picco Z.  It has a 150mAh battery.  To keep the demo under budget, we're back to a photodiode azimuth sensor.


The easiest sonar demo is a Sumo robot of some kind, that roves in a 10x10 ft area.  Even better, make it solar powered.