Dear friends,
This is my first post since I've joined this wonderful community.
My interest for multicopters comes from the possibility of expansion of the possibilities of aerial photogrametry with outstanding quality at a much lower cost than traditional photogrametry.
Nevertheless my electronic knowledge isn't very advanced, compared by what I see with our peers in the community, and that's why I've ordered an (almost) ready to fly hexacopter from udrones, which I'm still waiting to arrive at the moment.
After weeks reading this forum, and feel enough confident to go forward with this, I find that when my machine arrives I'll have two main problems.
- 1st - Which batteries are more adequated for my hexacopter.
- 2nd - How to shoot pictures remotely by the RC or automatically when the copter arrives at the designated waypoint.
The 1st problem I'll leave it for another topic, in case I don't find the solution in the meantime by more reading.
The 2nd problem I find it a little harder for me. For what I've read in this forum, there are three main solutions for this problem. One is mounting a servo to press the camera button when ordered, the second is by using an IR control and the third by simply hacking the camera (which for me is totally out of question).
Then I've found an alternative in the mikrokopter site, and would like to know if there is a similar thing for arducopter, or better, if it's compatible.
What I've found is this:
http://mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/ShutterCable
Basically it's a genuine shutter cable that connects to a very small and (seems) simple circuit board that connects to the mikrokopter's flightcontroler. That page also shows the schematics for that little board in the cable.
I guess this shouldn't be a problem to make such a similar thing for any of our diydrones, since there are so many components available to buy. Too bad I haven't find anything for this particular case.
I hope I have kept your attention and hope I can have a reply soon.
Best regards,
António Cabral
Replies
Thank you guys, you've been very helpful!
Hi Antonio, the shutter pinout is the "A9" output in APM2/2.5, but at the moment not supported by the code.
I'm talking about this thing and other (related) in the dev list, stay tuned!
Marco
Hola Antonio,
the second point first :)
there are many solutions to trigger a cam: with the cable you found, servo actuated, with or without timer, intermittent over the whole flight, a.s.o. Today that should represent no problem. Settings with MPlanner.
the first point is more complex. what kind of LiPo: Depends on a variety of things as - the total weight, size of props and blade angle type of motors, rotation speed of motors, this research leads you to select from 3s, 4s, or 6s LiPo where you also have a choice of the 'C' rate, a discharge factor.
what I did as a newcomer: look to nice flying and well performing hexacopters from other users or shops. that setup will work. with more experience and knowledge you later design you own creation from scratch to your needs and taste :)