Greg's Posts (2)

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Sonar Quick Connector and Power Filter

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I thought I would share a couple of photos of the quick connector I soldered on to my arducopter Sonar which incorporates the power filter I posted a while ago (Link).   I started experimenting with different sonars from MaxBotix and wanted a way to incorporate the passive filter and connector together.  Over time having everything wired up including the resistor in the +5v line seemed to eventually break with the cable moving / being unplugged from the APM.  If you look closely you can see I have the 10 ohm resistor going into the +5v on the Sonar board and the other end connects to the appropriate edge connector pin.  I find this setup very reliable when swapping out parts for testing.

Here are some other photos:

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The above photo shows the 100uF Electrolytic mounted across the +5v and gnd.

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Simple GoPro mount and test video

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While I am trying to decide on several dual axis camera mount options for the GoPro HD Hero2 and other cameras, I have come up with a very simple direct mount for the GoPro.  Whilst not ideal, it has allowed me to enjoy the camera and capture a few flights with my medium lift arducopter quad.  If you have not spotted it already I have used the reinforced light plastic display base that the camera is sitting on when it comes from GoPro boxed up.  In fact the the camera properly clips into the base and the only modification I made was to put a small square of electrical tape on the base of the camera mount where it slides in to stop it rattling in flight.

I drilled two holes which match one side of the Jdrones battery mount and two others that match the centre frame; which can be seen in the next photo.

 

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Given the great flight stability from the current arducopter code you can operate in either X or + mode, but the camera does sit in nicely forward for X frame setups.  At the moment I am still flying with the + alignment and the camera hangs to one side which gives nice side on flyby footage. Since I am well below the maximum payload lift at the moment, the motors compensate easily for the slightly offset camera weight.  The next photo of my quad makes this a little clearer in terms of the camera mount position. You can see the black tape on the forward pointing motor arm.

 

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Here is is youtube video I shot over the weekend at our local (Namagi) Heli flying field.  I ended up being surrounded by cows who unexpectedly moved towards me and seemed to be very interested in the Arducopter quad.  Perhaps some potential new multi-copter customers :-)  Sorry I could not resist adding a partial  audio track to the video. At the end of the video it looks like I am flying but actually I am carrying the copter towards the cow.  Enjoy

 

Below I have added one more photo showing the arducopter battery mounted in the normal position.  This is not really offsetting the camera weight but my quad is flying nice and level with no obvious issues.  The ideal setup would be to rotate the battery mount so the battery is offset and inline with the camera mount over the CG.  I will be changing to this setup shortly.  To be honest I just wanted to test the camera out and have a secure mount.  I will now refine the mount so it looks a little better and balances the flying platform.

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