Hello all, I am just beginning to get into multicopters and had a few rookie questions. I have been doing tons of research on this over the years but finally have an opportunity to begin working on my first UAV. I am planning on building a rather large rig capable or carrying upwards of 20 lbs (~9 kg). I know that it is a big undertaking, but I have plenty of time to work on this to get it as close to perfection as I can. I have a general idea of all the parts I need to get it in the air such as flight controllers, power regulators, motors, props, and all that, however I do not know which companies have the best parts and which are most trusted by the community. If anyone could help me out with this it would be greatly appreciated because I would like to know which specific parts I am going to use so that I can begin designing the main frame of the beast as detailed as possible. I'm sure I will have plenty of other questions along the way, so thank you so much in advance for all the help. 

Cheers, Aaron

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  • I am working on getting a small quad to learn a bit more about the flight dynamics and finer points of multicopters, and I have found a way to completely control the camera in the air, but I think I am sticking with some relatively small cameras such as the Canon D70. That should make things a bit easier however I would still like to make it rather large to add lots of room for improvement. Has anyone tried putting a robust superstructure above the booms to minimize flex? I was trying to think of different ways to make it more smooth in flight. When is comes to prop and motor matching, how do you calculate how powerful of a motor you need for each prop because I was thinking of some larger 13" props with a moderate pitch to them. Thanks again for all the help.

  • I also need help for upgrading parts or if i'm doing it wrong or right for aerial video productions/photo, here is my set up:

    http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/multicopter-not-lifting-too-heavy...

  • Shoulder mount cameras are heavy, expensive, delicate and require lots of fingers to operate. (as do the smaller canons that are designed for professional handheld use.)   How do you plan to control zoom, focus, iris, pan and tilt at a minimum on different camera payloads?  

    PTZ cameras exist that offer excellent, broadcast-grade image capturing and are designed for remote control over a serial interface.  I'd start by looking there.  I know I'm stepping on your big idea here...  but I'd REALLY strongly recommend you pick a single camera that will work for most of what you want to do and build a system around that... and I recommend that it not be a 20lb shoulder mount camera.  That's just not what they're designed for.

    If you really can afford to keep rebuilding this $5000 dollar copter and replacing the $20,000 dollar camera, I'm sure you'll find an engineer willing to design it for you.  But realistically - if you're thinking about (illegally, at the moment) using this thing to shoot commercially...  figure out exactly what it needs to produce, footage wise, and find the smallest, lightest, easiest to control camera that can do that.  Lifting an HPX-300 isn't the mission goal - getting footage of a certain quality and character is.  Lifting a shoulder-cam on a quad is like trying to drive a VW bug across the ocean just because it's the vehicle you're most familiar with.  You need to get a boat if you want to sail...  not spend a lot of money and effort waterproofing your car and still arriving at a sub-standard end result. 

    I'm really not trying to be argumentative or negative, though I feel like I am.  I'm just trying to help!

  • I can't give a reply that you'll find directly useful, because I've got little experience with coptors... or ANYTHING on that scale.  

    But I hope that when you say you know it's a big undertaking you understand that this means both expensive and dangerous.  For something that heavy I'd never rely on the bargain motors and escs from HobbyKing...  you need to spend top dollar because with that much weight - every time this thing comes down it's going to be REALLY expensive to fix, so you're going to want to minimize the number of times that happens.

    Which brings me to the next point - these things come down.  If you don't have extensive experience building and flying multicopters you really need to spend a year or two getting that experience with a smaller aircraft before you get into this or you're going to lose the bird MANY times as you try to learn to fly the monster.   No matter how experienced you are as a pilot/designer/builder... these things do occasionally come down.  For the inexperienced, they come down frequently.  Cheaper and smaller copters survive these crashes, get new props and get the frame straightened and go back up again.   A 20lb payload and the 12lb bird that lifts it don't get caught in a tree or get stuck on a neighbor's roof...  they smash through the roof or the windshield of a car.  They kill people.  And that much inertia may well destroy the frame, motors, electronics and payload.  And there WILL be crashes. 

    I'm sure you've thought of all of those things, but they're worth saying again, and you may already be an expert flyer, in which case I apologize for assuming you weren't yet!  I'm not sure you'll find many here who are able to help with something of this size, and I'm not sure those that are able to help will be willing to do so, since it's your first post.  If you post a little more about the mission you're trying to accomplish (what you're lifting, how long you need to keep it in the air, what altitude and distance, etc.) you might have more luck getting suggestions for ways to work up to it or ways to accomplish it with smaller lighter equipment.

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