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Due to a time waster (not from this site) and needing to sell this, price reduced to £645

X8 Coaxial Octocopter UAV Drone Quick Sale!

Coaxial Octocopter for sale. Bespoke designed by an aeronautical engineer, the design focusses on simplicity, ruggedness and minimising weight. The frame itself is made from top quality carbon fibre and aluminium, CNC cut by a professional engineering design company in the South of England. We have used this UAV very successfully for capturing aerial imagery with a 2 axis gimbal (available separately – see below) but it is also just great fun to fly. We are looking for a quick sale – hence the price – as we are upgrading and purchasing a fixed wing UAV. This cost us £1540 to put together and countless days of development and assembly so we will be sad to see it go.

Price: Was £745.00 Now £645

Specification:

Carbon and aluminium frame.
20.8mm OD roll wrapped carbon fibre tube arms
Motor – Motor shaft diagonal ~800mm
Frame area ~600mm x ~600mm

Tall landing gear
~190mm tall landing gear allows for gimbal to be mounted under the frame
Carbon fibre 12mm diameter mounting rails allow numerous gimbals, battery trays etc. to be mounted to the frame

Redundant design
The X8 coaxial configuration allows the loss of one motor/propeller with the UAV being able to continue to fly. Indeed, we have unintentionally tested this! Early on in our testing regime, with the UAV in loiter mode (altitude and position hold) one motor became unattached to the frame and was flailing around, restrained only by the power wires. The UAV continued to loiter as if nothing had happened at all. The motor detached itself due to mounting screws vibrating loose; these have now been secured with loctite and the situation has not repeated itself. The motor and propeller were replaced.

Arducopter Flight Controller
The UAV flies using an Ardupilot 2.5 running Arducopter. This open source system is long established and hence really well tested. The free mission planning software is simple to use and allows fully autonomous flights to be planned. The loss of transmitter signal failsafe is easy to setup and we have tested it (by turning off the transmitter) and it has worked perfectly. We have been really pleased with how the UAV flies – it is super stable yet still responsive, accurately loiters and performs well in a moderate breeze.

Flight time and usage
We have logged just under 4 hours flight time with this UAV. Apart from the aforementioned motor detachment, all of these hours have been without incident with the UAV performing flawlessly. With the 2 axis gimbal and point and shoot camera, 10 minutes of flight time can be achieved with no battery cell going below 3.75v. Obviously without the gimbal/camera, the flight time would be longer.

Specification
Motors: jDrones 880kv
Propellers: Aeronaut CAMcarbon Light carbon reinforced, 11x5 top, 12x5 bottom
Aircraft Batteries: Turnigy Nanotech 4s 4500mAh x 2
ESCs: 30A flashed with SimonK
Power Distribution: Ring of audio quality copper wire acting as as busbar
Flight controller: Ardupilot 2.5 running Arducopter software
Weight, excluding batteries and propellers: Almost exactly 2kg

What is included in the price
There are some parts shown in the photographs that are not for sale. Below is a complete list of what you will be purchasing.

    Carbon fibre and aluminium frame including landing gear, motor mounts and flight controller/receiver plates

    8 x jDrones 880kv motors

    2 x Turnigy Nanotech 4s 4500mAh batteries

    8 ESCs

    All required wiring

    Ardupilot 2.5 flight controller

    GPS receiver

    8 Aeronaut CAMcarbon Light carbon reinforced propellers plus a couple spares

    Miscellaneous landing gear spares

Condition
The UAV is in excellent condition. The aforementioned motor detachment did cause a couple nicks in the insulating sheath of one motor's wires. The insulating sheath of one of the GPS wires has been slightly melted by a soldering iron. Other than that, it is in almost as new condition.

Optional Extras

If you are interested in the receiver or gimbal, send me a message.

Spektrum AR8000 DSMX receiver - £50

We have used this UAV with a Spektrum DX7s transmitter and Spektrum AR8000 reeciver. We have been very pleased with this setup and have encountered zero communication issues. We are so pleased with the transmitter that we are not selling it. However, for an extra £55, we will include the Spektrum AR8000 receiver which is already integrated with the UAV as you can see in the pictures. This can obviously be used with your own existing compatible Spektrum transmitter or we would encourage you to buy a DX7s as it is perfectly suited.

Gimbal - £250

We have used this UAV to capture still images for mapping. The gimbal is a GrouseHouse carbon fibre 2 axis gimbal. It is super lightweight (entire gimbal approx 400g) and really well designed. It uses a martinez control board and is really stable.

We have used a Canon S110 and a sample image is included in this advert. The gimbal will take any normal sized point and shoot digital camera. It has an adjustable mounting tray and the camera is secured using a tripod screw. As with all gimbals, proper balancing of the camera position is crucial for good performance as well as some tuning of the PIDs using the free open source software.

We chose to run the gimbal off a separate battery to keep the flight power system completely separate however there is a UBEC wired in to the main copper power distribution ring if you wish to use that.

We used this gimbal for capturing images. To record video you will need a vibration isolation system.

This UAV is NOT a toy. Without proper care, experience and knowledge, this piece of equipment can be very dangerous. Only purchase this if you have experience flying model aircraft and/or UAVs/copters. If in doubt, seek guidance from your local model flying club

Postage and packaging
It would be easiest for this to be collected from Edinburgh. We would be prepared to drive in a one hour radius from Edinburgh to meet somewhere equidistant if that were easier.

UK delivery only.

Otherwise this will be shipped fully assembled using Parcelforce express48large at a cost of £55.00.

Very happy to answer any questions. If interested, get in touch.

Cheers!