Number 1 was short lived http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/list?user=3vlhdj1afps2z

Number 2 was much better http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/share-your-drone-info-thread?commentId=705844%3AComment%3A772970&xg_source=activity

Number 3 is perfect..      3DR Y6.

I didn't have enough room to squeeze in the gimbal in the space provided so, I had to make the mount for the gimbal from a piece of aluminum, which was fairly quick. They gimbal is fantastic, after you get it tuned which is a whole ordeal by itself. Lots of new understandings with that thing.. Basically, your expectation should be to keep the camera level in two planes, emphasis on the 'keep'. it won't just move it around itself, it has very little torque..

It's the same gimbal previously posted a month back.

http://www.goodluckbuy.com/dji-phantom-brushless-gimbal-camera-mount-w-motor-and-controller-for-gopro3-fpv-aerial-photography-blalck.html

enough about the gimbal..

Here's the flight. Flight

  

The wind was about 10-15 up there. the Camera nods when the angle get's to a certain point but it does stabilize. I did hover for a min to get the below air shot..

The Y6 is sooo stable. I have APM 2.6 with telemetry, Turnigy 9x radio. I purchased it as a kit. I wanted to see how much easier it is to buy a kit than build it myself, since that's what I did last time. It was so easy to assemble

Current code is also a great leap from the old Ardupirates code of my last one.. I'm not running a sonar and alt hold is within a few feet..

Putting the kit together was straight forward. Make sure you check the holes on the motor plates for alignment.. Better yet, 3DR, why not just drill a 4th hole? I didn't touch the PIDS one bit. Stock ones were right on the money. Yaw is tight also..  Lastly, I did have to cut off the deans connector that came with the power module. I have tons of the XT deans from Hobby King and the one that came with the module didn't connect securely enough and caused the apm to reboot.. Thank goodness I found this on the bench and not in the air.

What more can I say.. I've had so much fun with it..

 OH.. the ZEAL/Velcro Band works wonders...

After 6 months of watching the rest of you, I finally had a free weekend to begin the build of my own ArduCopter. I really was inspired by Markus's H-design of his eight engine quad copter.

When I checked the store, they only had four of the 2836's but after I ordered 30 more showed up instantly so I purchased 6 more for a total of 10. (in case the first flight went south). I was hoping the 6 would show Saturday morning but they didn't. So, the above picture is testing throttle with the 4 in an X flight mode. This didn't work too as the apm is at 0 degrees and the motors are off alignment. I plan to change it to + flight mode and just double up on the motors and escs like Markus did. I have GWS 3 blade 9030 props and a 6000 3s battery. At 1/3 throttle, it really lifted off quite well and I had difficulty holding it down at full throttle. I don't know the  weight of it right now but it's pretty light. I can only wonder how much it'll lift after the  other 4 motors are installed.

Using the H design gives plenty of space to mount esc's and run wire, plus it keeps the  central area clean for the brains. I had two 8' lengths of aluminum moulding that held garage door water barriers. I cut them into 12" pieces and used them for the central beam and some foam tape to lessen the vibrations of the copter.

I can't find any square aluminum in town but we have tons of the U stuff at the local big box store. I just found thinner sized and "doubled up" to make the motor mounts. I was really hesitant on the U aluminum as it's a little less rigid but it seems to work just fine.

The 25amp Turnigy "Basic" ESC's I ordered didn't come with 3.5mm barrel ends so I had to solder 3 for each ESC *10 esc's I ordered. I discovered an easy way to do this quickly, not sure if the rest of you have done this but it worked very well.

Just drill 3 holes, put in your barrel plugs (will also work with the male ends), heat, dump in some solder and hold the wire in till it hardens.. piece of cake. I did 10 esc's in about 15 min..

Here is my power distribution, I made one for the left and one for the right, they'll connect together of course and be fed from the 6000 miliamp nano tech battery.

That's it for now. I plan to have it carry my go pro for  aerial photography. Perhaps my DSLR in the future after I know this is rock solid.. It's looks promising.

More to come.