Hi diydroners,
I am a complete newbie to this forum. I have not flown any RC aircraft yet but am very interested in avionics and robotics. I have flown a Cessna solo using VFR so I understand basics of aviation. I am software engineer so am handy with coding . I have some experience with soldering and electronics but it was a while back. Came across Chris's article in Wired and have got this major itch to make my own quadcopter :) I have a few questions for the community -
1. Is it better to get some experience in RC flying or would you recommend directly trying to fly a quad using Autopilot? My interest is mainly in autonomous flight at this point not the aviation per-se. What do you think.
2. Sparkfun has an autopilot board for http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8785 which costs about 30 dollars. http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/APM2board costs 200$. What are the differences between them and what would I need for a quadcopter ?
3. If the above question sounds stupid, please point me to some websites or articles that I can read to understand the difference.
4. I don't have a lot of cash to burn but can spend around 500$ on this project? Is this doable? If not , what is realistic considering my experience level?
5. I am upto any challenge related to learning, soldering , assembling , programming etc. Can I bring the cost down by doing some of these things myself?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
-Amit
P.S. I live in the San Jose , CA area in case that matters
Replies
Hey Amit,
I started my Arducopter experience in a similar way. I had some basic RC, electronic, and soldering experience from building 120 pound Battlebots in school but no experience with any RC flying platforms such as a quadcopter. After browsing around the forums and Arducopter manuals on this site, I decided to build my own quad from scratch. After a few crashes and playing around with the PIDs, I'd like to say that the time and money investments in this project were completely worth it. I came across many skeptical RC hobbyists on various forums when I started my second RC project: an FPV Ritewing Zephyr platform. People told me that (with 0 experience in RC planes) I should start with a smaller glider, go to flight school, etc. And while I appreciated all of the helpful criticism, I was too eager (and maybe dumb), so I started flying the zephyr in a field near my home. One year later, I have only had 1 crash with virtually no damage and many successful hours in the sky. Moral of the story is that if you have the curiosity and interest in something, by all means GO for it! Just be SAFE too and be prepared to do a lot of repairing.
I agree with Ray K on his opinion with the two boards. You should go with the APM2 as the arducopter code is written and updated for the APM2. As Ray said, Sparkfun's Ardupilot is the original and less-powerful version of the modern APM2.
$500 may be a bit low considering you need to purchase an RC transmitter, batteries, battery charger, the APM2, frame, motors, ESCs, props etc. But it may be doable.
I'm just typing as I think now, but If you buy a
$200 APM2
$50 Turnigy 9x or other cheap hobbyking transmitter/receiver (http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__309__190__Tx_Rx_Systems_...)
~$100 for 4x brushless motors and 4x turnigy 20amp ESCs (http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__2163__TURNIGY_Plush_25am...)
~$50 for a LiPo and charger
~$40 for a quad frame (http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_power_search.asp?idCate...)
~$10 for props and spares (http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=...) It may be able to fit your budget. As for bringing down costs, I think the APM2 is the same cost with pins not soldered or pre-soldered. If you buy everything else above from hobbyking or other cheap outlets, this would save you money. I may have missed something though, it is very late!! or should I say early morning.... Good Luck!I'm in the same boat you are with the "quadrotor itch". Most of my experience is with electronics and I'm working on some User Interfaces in Processing for controlling a quadrotor using a Logitech Dual Action joystick controller or a TouchOSC layout running on my iPod Touch.
Anyways, in regard to the two boards: the $200 ArduPilot Mega is completely furnished with sensors such as an accelerometer, gyro, magnetometer, pressure altitude sensor, and GPS. It has an atmega2560 which has 4times the power of the atmega328. The $25 sparkfun board is running that atmega328. It is similar to a barebones arduino pro, it has a port to plug a GPS into, place for servo headers, etc... Bottom line it requires the purchase of lots of additional hardware, soldering, and is not a ready-to-plug-into-quadcopter solution.
As you can see here: http://www.diydrones.com/notes/ArduPilot/ The $200 is a newer version of the $25.
I'll let the experts handle your remaining questions; I'll stick with my experience in electronics for this post.
Welcome aboard Amit, I would definatley start HERE. Everything you will need is in the Wiki. The DIY Drones store HERE has frames, electronics, etc. as well as complete kits, so check them out for pricing. You can also build your own frame to save some money but the kits have been tested and there is a lot of support on these forums relating to them.
Hope this helps.