Over the past eight months I have been reading and studying the multicopter world in the interest of building a professional level hexacopter for airal video and still photography. Around six months ago after some planning I started buying the componants. In the past three weeks I have been starting minor flight tests and PID tuning.
Then my house was gutted by fire. All my possessions have been destroyed. My wife and myself narrowly escaped out the bedroom window. Even with this hardship we walk around now with a big smile, because we are alive! If it was not for the loss of our cat I would not morn the loss of all the "stuff."
My question is this, how do I value my hexacopter and all the related things? If I could find a compatible Ready to Fly unit that would provide the insurance company with a start, but all I can find is Multicopters that amount to,"fun toys." If anyone knows of sites that have a RTF package close to my drone please let me know.
I have roughly $2,500 to $3,000 in parts and supplies into this. I feel that the so nearly finished unit is worth more than the sum of the parts.
The configuration, as I recall now, is as follows:
ATG 750mm carbon fiber hex frame, Not really recommended for this big machine. Needed substantially more hardware and carbon fiber plate to make it strong. Motor mounts where woefully inadequate and not the correct size for me, so I made custom from aluminum spacers and 3mm carbon fiber plate.
Six SK-3 4240 Moters with Delux 55Amp ESC's mounted under the motors. 795 what max output each. 13" x6 three blade props. A nice balance per ecalc.
Circular high voltage bus, double 10 gauge, with 10 gauge to the ESC's thru the CF tubes. Two LiPoly batterys Parallel 10ga feeds to the bus. 5s, 17500mah each, assembled myself from TrueRC componant packs. And a 7 amp balance charger.
Circular six volt bus fed from a UBEC. Step down resistor to feed the APM.
ArduPilot Mega 2.5 with sonar, mediatec GPS, 3DR telemetry package. Aotto voltage and current sensor.
Video transmitter, and receiver
Camera gimble kit from Rusty's AGL Hobbies, highly recommended, with 2 heavy duty Savox servos, and one tiny servo for the shutter.
Devo 10 transmitter. and lots of rechargable batterys.
Analog to digital converter.
I was using a cheep digital camera until the flight part was figured.
Thats all I can remember now,
It all worked, Last weekend I lost a prop tuning the PID loops and was waiting for the replacement, it came yesterday.
If anyone has a sight that has a RTF unit or even a kit that's compatible it would be a big help.
Replies
However, in my experience insurance companies will comply if the request is reasonably documented, so providing picutres of the assembled hex, dimensions, weight, capacity etc, and an equivalen RTF example might suffice.
There are makers/sellers of big photography systems, S800, cinesomething etc. Usually around 2500$ and up depending on options etc.