You ever wanted to have a training quad for quad just for fun flying. Now you can!!

We are really thrilled of this possibility to offer for FREE these micro quads for all our customers who will buy one of our Assembled KITs. This offer is valid between 1.11 - 31.12.2012

You will automatically get one of these micro quads with following Assembled KITs:

• jD-Simplex Quad, Assembled
• jD-Simplex Hexa, Assembled
• jD Original ArduCopter Quad, Assembled
• jD Original ArduCopter Hexa, Assembled

RTF Micro quad kit contains everything else except 4 x AAA batteries for transmitter. It flies just like big multicopters and is really stable even on windy days. 

We have been having a lot of fun with these micro quads and they are great for fly training after you know how to fly multicopters you can use them for stunt or obstacle race flying which is really fun.

Even thou it fits on your hand, it's flying capacity is just amazing. Due it's light weight (32gr including battery) and body design it can take really bad crashes without breaking up. 

Get yours now while they last.. And let the fun begin.

Jani / jDrones

jDrones moving, the pain of brown boxes.... (part 2)

Few days ago I posted blog about construction project of our new office. And I promised to give more updates on how things are going, well now it's time to do that. 

There are some people that like to move just for fun but moving a company is not that easy thing as you might imagine when looking all those delivery boxes etc on picture above. That is small amount for first truck loads of stuff. You can literally feel the pain in back already. Good thing in Thailand is that you can always have a nice relaxing massage after hard day at office :)

Our new packing and shipping area is starting to form up. This will be one main area where Nin, Yao, Thee and few others will be working. We are still missing many tables and shelfs as they will be moved on these following days. 

Gap our main engineer is looking after electric cable assembly and planning out future engineering area.

Speaking of flying area. Closest flying area is just opposite of the road in front of our new office building. We can literally sit at office and fly to test area. But need to be careful of those wires :)

Already discussed with area owner of making small nice flying booth next to the square metal frame. If not booth at least some roof to cover pilots from burning sun while flying.

First set of boxes. This is the time when people starts to ask: "Hey Jani have you seen that screw driver???",  "Yes I have it's on brown box" :)

Engineering side does not look like engineering anymore, it's more like sea of boxes..

Nin is trying to figure how to arrange all her filers/binders to shelfs on admin area. She just have way too many papers. But like they say. On era of computers we will have paperless offices... YEAH Right...

There will be many more truck loads of stuff coming in next few days. Full operation should start on our new brand new office on 5. November. 

So I'm off to carry some more boxes and do more packing. 

Jani / jDrones

jDrones: 1.2.3.. Let's break the wall as it's time to move on....

We already stayed on our current office almost 2 years now and finally after a long search, it is our time to move to a next location. Our current office is getting just way too small and we have already expanded it to hold some of our bigger machines that we use to produce some of our parts. And there are more machines on their way so we can ensure that in future production quality and capacity is getting better and better. 

As we always been big part of this great DIYDrones community, and same thing like 3DR shown their new facilities, it is now our time to show few insiders of our new office. Also if you ever visit on Bangkok/Thailand you are most welcome to visit our office. Just contact us before your arrival so we can send map/destination details for you.

Anyways we did search quite long of this new area. Bangkok is a big city and it's not so easy to find areas with good access, flying areas etc on closeby but we did manage to find one.

First small background details of our new jDrones office: It is a 3 storey "town house" style with 2 units. Total office/factory area is around 420m2 (4500 ft2). Left side of the office we will have all engineering, manufacturing and testing, on right side there will be administration, packing & shipping.

So 1.2.3 let's break the wall.... On first month everything was looking bad or even worse, our engineers just wanted to break everything on the building. Dust and pieces of concrete lying everywhere. 

2nd floor where administration/management will be and oh more pieces of concrete.. You should never give big hammer to engineers, they have a bad habits to break everything.  

Immediately after the wall breaking operation was done at inside, we did build extra rooms on back side of the building so future expansion is easier.

Finally after month or so it was time to start put something back together, floors were done and it's time for first layers of new paint on the walls. Things are starting to look a bit better.

As we are working on flying devices, our walls have nice sky blueish color. Many of our customer know this girl already, Nin who is in charge of admin and shipping. After her daily packing and admin jobs were done at old office, she came to new office to do some paining jobs. She says that painting is really relaxing after packing and administration jobs.

Finally it's time to start closing those big holes that construction engineers made earlier. Time to assemble doors and walls between units. 

After inside doors were ready, engineers assembled front door/wall frames so we can keep precious cool air inside and naturally hot air outside. 

Things are finally starting to look promising and we can start to plan move soon. There are still many things to do before whole office is ready but it will be ready soon enough.

Part 2, coming soon shortly. We plan to move all operations to new office at end of October

Everyone welcome to visit us on new office starting from November 2012.

Jani / jDrones

jDrones: jD-Simplex frame series are available now

Another line of ArduCopter frames from jDrones is now available.Frames uses many of the parts that are already widely used on current ArduCopter frames. 

All frames are fully foldable for easy transportation. Currently there are Quad and Hexa frames ready and more is coming shortly. 

You can fold frames open and arms will lock to their open position and secure them with easy to use lock nuts.

Frames can be directly used with following flight controllers: APM 1.4, APM2, APM2.5, KK-MultiCopter, MultiWii and AutoQuad. 

While new revisions are coming, we will keep parts for old revision in stock. Shipping has already started.

jD-Simplex Quad Rev.A, Empty Frame KIT 68.90 USD

jD-Simples Quad Rev.A, No flight controller KIT, 223.90 USD

jD-Simplex Quad Rev.A, With flight controller KIT (APM) 439.90 USD

jD-Simplex Hexa Rev.A, Empty frame KIT 99.90 USD

jD-Simplex Hexa Rev.A, No flight controller KIT 329.90 USD

jD-Simplex Hexa Rev.A, With flight controller KIT (APM) 539.90 USD

Development: New power distribution board

Some of you might already seen this board on Open-source ESC development post several days ago and some not. As many of you have been requesting and talking about new type of Power distribution board we went ahead and created first version of it. 

We would like to have your comments on it, how would you like to see it and to which way to develop?

Currently we only have 4 ESC version of it but this version is designed in way that you can easily stack them to create combinations of 3-12 ESCs while one layer has max of 4 ESCs.

It can also carry a carrier boards for external uBECs and IOBoards and OSD boards.

It supports PWM, I2C, CAN and UART ESCs 

We can also include current sensors for it if/when needed.

Bottom picture of it, exposes uBEC carrier board under main board:

We have now 10 test boards available for public use. If you want and really need one, let us know. But remember, you need to have good reason why YOU would be a good candidate for testing it. So if you just want it but don't want to really test and give feedback on it, don't bother.

You can send request via our contact page or send a PM in here to me. 

Receivers will be informed in person by email.

Technical details:

- Custom 4 layer PCB

- 70 AMP capacity

- Support all ESCs smaller than 25 x 37mm

- Fits on all Original ArduCopter frames / Holing

- Support for 2 uBECs via carrier board

- PWM, I2C, CAN, UART support

- Terminal blocks for easy cable assembly

- Stackable

Let the imagination flow...

--jani

jDrones NEWS: IOBoard goes MAVLink 1.0

Time has come to make another exciting release. New software has been released for our mini IOBoard. With this software you are not anymore depending on static flashes, blinks and other patterns.

We made blog post about basic jD-IOBoard few weeks ago and you can read it in here. Now it just get's better and better.

jD-IOBoard now listens full MAVLink 1.0 protocol and acts depending on flight modes. Currently we are supporting ArduCopter and ArduPlane style flight modes but more has been planned. Basically all MAVLink compatible systems works fine with this.

Big thanks to Michael Oborne for his great jD-IOBoard Confgurator program that allows users easily to configure and test play different patterns. Michael is the man behind Mission Planner and also OSD Configurator. 

On configurator you can create 16 step patterns and 8 patterns that can be binded on different flight modes. On right hand side of every pattern you have Test box where you can simulate your pattern. Just click Test and then change on/off positions to get your desired outcome. 

With Configurator you can also upload our latest HEX files from Arducodes repository.

Here is quick demo video of how it works in real-life with 3 different patterns. 

Currently we are only allowing REAR pattern to be changed but in future there will be others coming too. 

You can always find latest HEX and other files from our: Arducodes repository (jD-IOBoard 1.4 MAVLink. HEX)

Latest Configurator can always been downloaded from our: Software repository  (Setup.EXE). Setup file is available on our Arducodes repository too.

Configurator has builtin update feature installed so it will make sure that you always have latest version of it. Source code is on our repository.

jD-IOBoard can be found from our store at http://store.jdrones.com and also from our distributors around world. 

Have fun with your flashing lights. Evenings are getting darker but planes and copter more brighter.

Regards,

Jani / jDrones

jDrones News: jD-IOBoard v1.0 update

You had some problems on driving LED strips or something else?? Well no problems anymore.... We have seen people making all type of darlington/transistor and similar hacks to drive their LEDs, Sirens and so on but they all need a lot of hacking and they might not be suitable for long term solution. 

We answered on this call and made fully Arduino compatible called jD-IOBoard that can run Single LEDs, LED Strips, Loudspeakers, Buzzers, Power switches and so on. It's upto your own imagination on what all you can control with this board. 

So what does this board actually do?? It has fully Arduino compatible ATMEGA 328 MCU and Darlington array to driver high power outputs. Also I2C pins are exposed and same as many TTL level IO and Analog pins. As you can see from picture above. 

Board has:

- 6 x High power outputs, max. 500mAh / 50 Volts

- 4 x Analog inputs (6 if you don't use I2C port)

- I2C port for controlling, listening I2C messages

- 6 x TTL level GPIO pins (8 if you don't use FTDI)

- 1 x FTDI port

3 high power outputs can also be controlled by PWM output while another 3 are just normal "On/Off" outputs

How those Arduino pinouts looks like:

Connecting LED's,Buzzers etc is really simple. Just use one of output pins on end of the board. Below you can see examples on how to connect LEDs or LED Strips on it.

Pictures does not give enough credit for how it works so we made small video to show just few examples on how to use it. There are many other ways to do it but this should give at least some idea what/how to run it. So have fun watching it.

Get yours from jDrones Store: jD-IOBoard and have a blink blink.

Ps. There are some nice features coming to this board shortly...

jDrones News: jD-MediaTEK Backup Battery Tray

Few weeks ago we introduced our new and improved jD-MediaTEK GPS unit for all ArduCopter, ArduPlane and ArduWhatEver use. We also said that there will be shortly a new battery tray for it. Well here it is.

What does it give and what does it take. It gives to you and your GPS backup battery power for 8-12 months from regular CR2032 3V battery (according GPS module manufacturer). It also gives 2D/3D locks for you in 2-5 seconds in average. On our tests it's usually 2-3 secs until GPS module reports proper satellite lock.

Board has also small charge/keepup circuit that will powerup battery circuit in times when main power is connected.

What it takes: Soldering 4 support pins and one solder jumper. Job that usually takes only 3-4 minutes.

Without GPS module on top it looks like this:

As you can see it uses regular CR2032, 3V battery that you can find from almost every "7-11" shops around the world. This battery will power internal RTC clock for 8-12 months in normal conditions according GPS module manufacturer. 

If you ran out of battery later on, don't worry. Battery is really easy to replace. Just slide old battery out sideways and put new one in and off we go again for next 8+ monts.

Get your own battery tray from jDrones or jDrones distributors around the world.

jDrones store: jD-MediaTEK Battery Tray

Battery used: CR2032

jDrones News: Upgraded MediaTEK 3329 GPS

Another exciting product update from us. Some people already have seen this new jDrones MediaTEK GPS. GPS is based on same GPS module as original DIYDrones GPS but it has some enhancements. Enhancements such as better groundplanes and optional backup battery board. Better groundplane enhances greatly to get 3D lock and also accuracy of GPS position. 

If you need even more, groundplane can be easily expanded around board. Shape of the PCB allows you fasten it easier with for example cableties. 

GPS is fully compatible with ArduPilot Mega and other boards. 

With optional backup battery board, tested 3D lock times are average of 1-5 seconds. Without battery board, initial lock times on our tests have been around 20-50 seconds. 

Get your GPS from jDrones store MediaTEK

Main board info

• Size: 21 x 33mm
• Weight: 7.9gr  (+5.5 gr with battery adapter and battery)
• Internal / External jumper for selecting backup source
• Engine: MediaTEK 3329 with patch antenna
• Fully compatible with earlier MediaTEK GPS boards.

Backup battery board (optional)

• Size: 21 x 33mm
• Weight: 2.9gr (5.5gr with battery) 
• Backup battery CR2032 3V
• low current charging circuitry on board
• Side load for battery

Picture below is battery board connected to main GPS board (production board is black and same shape as main board). Battery that fits on holder is normal CR2032 3V battery and you can find them from every 7-11 and other shops around the world.

Estimate lifespan for battery is 1-2 years. 

jDrones News: MultiMount for multicopters.

We are proud to reveal another exciting new product from jDrones. We have been working hard and long with this new product and now finally it is available to all people who need highend mounts for their multicopter needs.

Mount has been designed to use with several widely used arm types. It can be used with round tubes of 10mm and 12mm of diameter. Is also fits on all 10, 12, 15mm square tubes.

Mount have rubber cushions that will make your motors run smoothly and silently. All normal motors that have so called X mount adapter (40mm end-to-end) fits on this mount. First you mount your motor on it's adapter and then adapter mounts on top of MultiMount cushions.

You can also use it on coaxial setups as shown in following picture

For technojunkies we have cool looking installation manual (thanks to Max Levine). Manual that is really clean and easy to follow, it just cannot get any simpler than this.

MultiMount specs:

• Fits on: Round tube 10, 12mm / Square tube 10, 12, 15mm
• Material: CNC Milled aluminum
• Vibration dampening: Custom neoprene rubber
• Motors: all motors that have X mount adapter with 33mm hole spacing (most of them have)
• Weight: 17gr
• Size: 35 x 35mm

Set Includes:

• 4 x custom rubber grommet
• 4 x custom alu inserts
• 4 x M3*12 washerhead screws
• 4 x lock washers
• 4 x M3 nuts
• 2 x M3*12mm screws, Black
• 2 x M3*20mm screws, Black
• 1 x MultiMount upper block
• 1 x MultiMount lower block

You can get them from jDrones Store: MultiMount MMSET2 

Design by: Max Levine & jDrones

Beijing Model / Hobby Expo May-2012

jDrones visited on Beijing Hobby Expo this May-2012. Beijing model expo is one of the biggest in mainland China. There are hundreds and hundreds of people around the world visiting on expos every year. This year was not exception. We saw and talked with lot of people from various countries around the world.

It was really pleasant to visit there and to see many of our friends on their exhibition booths. Almost every 5th exhibitor already knew us and greeted us warmly. We also make some new friends on expo area, some will be our members on our global partner network and some will be more closer contacts.

Whole expo area was spread around 3 big halls on Beijing EXPO center. There we not any really big surprise on area. Maybe biggest change on overall was exposure of multicopters and similar devices, almost every 4rd manufacturer had some type of multicopter on their booth.

But in generally whole expo was build around all those traditional areas like:

- Airplanes, Helicopters

- Motors & Servos

- Boats

- Cars

Another thing was battery and motor providers. Those has really big part on this years expo.

So let's first take a look at some of the multicopters over there. 

More traditional looking hexa copters..

Generic folding frames was also present. Frame was made mainly from Kite parts

Also there were really small quad copters on Walkera booth. I mean really small :)

And also one really big monster quad. This quad did weight almost 3kg and it had huge 18" propellers, foldable arms and belt-driven power system. All features were integrated their custom made radio. 

DJI has their big booth too with all their nice frames and helicopters but we never saw many people on their booth which was a bit of surprise for us. 

We also found one possible frame for our new ArduRover line. Let's see what future brings for us. At least this rock crawler looks really great and it's strong. It was size 1/6 full aluminum frame.

Along all those traditional and UAV airplane frames one full RTF Airplane was clearly on top of others. It was just great looking FPV plane. Elegance to the maximum...

This plane had everything what you need to start your FPV career. IT had front camera, flightstabilization, RC controller, OSD. Best of all was the radio, it had it's own video display and possibility to connect even video goggles. 

Radio on closeup... This radio and it's camera systems can be easily mounted on helicopters, airplanes and other devices. It works on 2.4Ghz frequency and manufacturer gives range of 1-2km for it.

Other really interesting thing on whole expo was all those great looking nice toys that growing boy just cannot live without. And by toys I mean all great tools what they had. 

There were several companies selling Milling machines, Millin/Lathe machines and also small hobby 6-in-1 modular machine sets.

One of my favorite was this miniset that can be easily modified from small lathe to milling machine or even tablesaw. It was looking absolutely amazing piece of work. Every home hobbyist should have at least one set. Even thou we here at jDrones have big CNCs/Laser cutters/Milling machines I personally thing that I need to have one of these sets too (when I get it, I will make detailed review of it).

One nice MUST thing is to have your own personal mini robot. It was even dancing some Shakiras football theme.

Robot had 14 servos, ARM cpu and it did rock while doing pushups/dancing and stretching like old Arnold ;)

That's about it for this year Hobby Expo. Thank you Beijing and see you next year. 

jDrones X1 basic frame, foldable

As one of our factories is manufacturing X525 type frames, we were able to make custom made frames for all our ArduCopter users. On this frame you can fit all earlier jDrones ArduCopter parts and extra accessories and we call it as jDrones X1.

Frame has thick aluminum arms that can take a lot of beating and same does those landing gears, they are all spring loaded to reduce forces from "bad landings". 

Motormounts are made from stronger material than original X525 type frames usually are using. Frame also includes carrier boards and power distribution boards. 

Frame details:

• weight is: 430gr 
• fully foldable
• aluminum/fiberglass material
• power distribution
• battery strap
• style: quad

In it's folded form:

and more frames are coming soon..... 

jDrones News: Updates on ArduCopter motors

In last 6 months we have been working directly with 5 different motor factory and finally it's starting to be "harvesting" time for all the efforts. Because of that we are happy to start share more about these upcoming changes.

First visible thing is that we are doing re-versioning on our original ArduCopter motors and working in generally on new multicopter motor product lines. We have changed all our motors to be Black. Original ArduCopter motors are the first one to get this coloring scheme and more will come.

To identify original AC2830-358 and AC2836-358 is always been easy as they had jDrones sticker/marking on them, now it's even more easier.

These new motors are in full production and old pink/yellowish motors are not available anymore from us. 

There are some other internal changes done too for these motors. 

Also after been working long and hard with our motor factories, we have been able to hit new record low rates on mechanical failure on our motors.

Next step will be releasing new line of motors in following weeks so stay tuned. 

Jani / jDrones

jDrones News: New jD-MiniOSD with switching power regulator

(picture from test batch, production boards will be black)

We are proud to precent first set of electronics, jD-MiniOSD v1.0

Heating issues By Gone..., we made upgraded version available of OSD that has full support for MAVLink and ArduPilot electronics. This board can handle input voltages up to 42 volts so you can easily hook up your 2S - 6S LiPos without making overheating it. This switching regulator version of the OSD was originally developed by Sam Kelly from 3DRobotics

Boards are fully compatible with original MinimOSD.

OSD firmware written by Sandro and Jani.

ArduCAM OSD Config writen by Michael Oborne.

Original PCB design by 3DRobotics

Technical details:

 - Atmel 328 MCU

 - MAX7456 Video chip

 - 600 mAh Switching power supply

 - Input voltage 5v (from FTDI) and/or 6 - 42 volts (external)

 - Size: 17.8mm x 44mm

And what is the best, we made it more efficient and price is only 49.95 USD

Deliveries will start mid March. You can Pre-Order yours from jDrones store.

(Above Assembled jDrones Hexa)

jDrones ArduCopter goes color

Original ArduCopters made by jDrones have been getting several upgrades and upgrades will continue to come as promised. First series of upgrades are new and fine looking Black and also Carbon ArduCopters. Kits are now on packing area and after packing process is ready,order pages will be updated with new options.

On picture above is one of our Assembled Hexa ArduCopter with black and slick look.

Not only Hexa was updated also quad has been going through several changes. Our Quad kits have now too several color options along with different materials. You can have quad in black too and even with colored arms.

If you want even more cool looking birds, don't forget our Carbon frame. 

And for people who loves carbon we can provide nice little closeup from central frame. Now that looks cool doesn't it :)

And as everyone knows jDrones high quality frames these all frames follow our original quality packing and cutting requirements that we always been having. You won't receive parts that does not fit, all parts have been manually checked and tested before packing.

There are several other frames coming too on Q1, stay tuned and fly hard but fly safe. 

Jani /jDrones

Joystick flying with ArduCopter

Awhile ago I promised a more postings and so here we go. I know that many of you have been waiting this fun to be true... Now it is.

One our friend came to visit today at jDrones and they wanted to see latest software and other improvements on the whole project so we went to our local flying area next to our office and started to play with our birds.

We tested different combinations from quads to hexas but most memorable moment for our guests was that when I started to fly without any RC controller. Just had Laptop, Joystick and XBee telemetry. Well what else you need?? :)

Ok I would not say that everyone should rush to it but this is a good start. We still need to solve several issues on failsafes and so on but we are close. All I can do is to give big hoooray to our development team on all the achievements that we have been done.

Video might be a bit shaky but so it the pilot (my second time to fly our hexas with joystick).

Have fun and we will be there......

Br,

Jani

ArduCopter Factory update: December

Again it’s been really really exhausting time here at jDrones in past 6 months. Earlier this year we moved to our new location at BangNa area in Bangkok. When we moved to our current location there were only 3 people working and now we have total of 5 full time people and also 3 part time. It looks like that we will have 1-3 more in next 3 months.

Also we are planning to move our current office location to another building close by on current one as walls are getting too small for us.

Top picture is from gates gate at jDrones and just like Chris have been introducing 3DR staff, it will be our time now to introduce jDrones staff. 

From left to right there are: Gap, Thee, Yao, Jani and Nin. This picture still misses Penny who is our latest enforcement for customer relations (some of you have already talked with her). And with help of her we finally try to get all email traffic in order.

As a small introduction of who is doing and what: Gap is the main man on assembling our kits and doing electronics, Thee runs some of our in-house CNC production along with packing issues, Yao is the lady who keeps things running at our office along with the packing. Jani (do I even need to explain my role…) the beast that kicks everyone and tries to keep things in order, Nin is our 2^ndin command and takes care of shipping and all daily operations.

Location, location and location…

Our current area we have nice flying area close by where we can test all our equipment and even have nice evening dinner at our “AirPort Café” as we call it in here.  Could it be better, yeah it could like to have own electric jDrones Office-Airport shuttle service (I wish)

Our office is rather easy to find, just take SkyTrain to Udom Suk Station and taxi to our office (5 minutes).

So if you and/or your friend are ever coming to this corner of the world, please do stop by and we can go to our flying field to do some test flying and others. You never know, if you are lucky enough you might see even Airport Café on it’s full evening glory.

Flying field size is about 300 x 200 meters and no high-rise buildings close by. So air is smooth but hot as out average temperatures in here are around +32 C all year around.

So come’on and come to fly with us.

Man him self and doing/testing video installations for heavy lift jD hexa

I wish I could still have enough time to play with all those nice little thingies but like Nathan from SparkFUN said earlier, after hobby becomes your professions it’s all about hard work and long days. How right we was on that…

Snapshots from daily life at jDrones

Gap, running one of our motor testing rigs. As many of you know, we are constantly working several many motor factories and always trying to improve the motors what we are using. Just as an example on November 2011 it self we tested different motors and motor/propeller combinations worth more than 2.000 running hours. Results of these tests allows us to better modify our motors what we are using here at jDrones and this way all our users will benefit from our findings.

Currently we are testing all motors with 3S and 4S batteries, propellers are starting from 6 inch all the way to 16 inch carbon propellers.

Test rig is custom build for our use along with all the electronics that runs it and software.

From the test rig we can see idle, full load amperages, used milliamps, vibrations, thrust values with different propellers/motors/batteries, rpms of the motors, temperatures of used ESCs and motors.

And as safety is our main concern, operator is always sitting behind blue safety net and having goggles when motors are running. We have been even having some propellers breaking while running them at full speed.

Usually final test of the motors is to see how much they can actually take punishment so we run them as long as they start to smoke out. Poor motors... It's not easy to be in here.

Highest light what we have ever been getting out from our test motors is close to 3kg. Naturally those motors needs huge batteries and big ESCs so they are not really suitable for multirotor use.

Nin at her desk doing bookkeeping and handling all shipping related issues. She is in charge of our daily operations here at jDrones, it’s not always so easy task to do as you might imagine but we all here are giving our best. Looks like it’s been a quiet day today according the amount of the paper at her desk. (I wish my desk would be so clean too).

Assembly area, Thee, Yao and Gap in action. Checking packet contents and doing packing. One of our most common daily routine is to do packing. Some of the products we pack in-house and some of them are packet at our nextdoor company area. There are currently several hundred products that we are packing here starting from the smallest screws and nuts all the way to fully assembled and tested kits.

Just small portion of our daily stocks from where all those boxes are filled up that we are shipping:

That's quick peak on daily life at jDrones main office. If you are visiting Bangkok, please send a message to us and we can give better tour to our office and to let you know what all other things we are doing in here. But before you come, let us know in advance when you are arriving so I can make sure that I will be here to guide you around.

As the New year is closes there are still many things to do before we can go on our Christmas vacation and beginning of next year we have a lot of nice updates coming to all of our users around the world.

jDrones will be closed 22nd Dec - 3rd Jan. Shipping continues on 4th. Packets still ordered before 20th will be delivered before 24th with our 3 day DHL express delivery. Last packets will leave on 22nd but before Christmas delivery is not guaranteed.

Stay tuned, fly safe and we wish Merry Christmas and Happy New year to you all.

Jani / jDrones

ArduCopter GoPro 2-Axis Camera-mount

ArduCopter factory is  pleased to release first camera mount to famous ArduCopter frames. 

This camera-mount fits on all original ArduCopter Quads and Hexas made by jDrones. It has 2 controllable axis that is supported already on ArduCopter software. Miniature ball bearings on all hinge locations. Custom made aluminum nuts to ensure proper mounting of the parts. 2 adjustable push rods with all linkage balls and ball links.

With mount plates this camera mount can be fitted to all Tri, Quad, Hexa and other future frames. On request we can make plates even for other frames.

Material: Fiberglass

Weight: 88 gr (includes mount plate and 9g servos)

Servos: 9g-12g (not included)

Frames: Quad, Hexa

Deliveries for these mounts will start on end of 2nd week of November and it can be purchased first from jDrones directly and later on from all jDrones distributors around the world.

Store link: ArduCopter GoPro 2-Axis camera-mount

Don't forget to have correct mount plate to your frame.

How to contribute on ArduCopter project.

There are a lot of great talents out there but how to get them involved on different projects is always a question. Chris already had few weeks ago a great overall post on "How to contribute to a DIY Drones project?". Here we concentrate more on ArduCopter project and issues related to it.

As many of you know ArduCopter is separated to two sub projects: ArduCopter multirotors and ArduCopter Traditional Heli. Both of them are using same codebase and libraries but as the devices are highly different it is easier , we need more people to test, program, give ideas and so on.

Now that all Arduxxxx software are under one single easily maintained repository under Google code on address http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/ is it easy for people to do Clones and start working on their own (Look under source / clones). After user is happy with their modifications, posting patches and code snippets to main code is easy from clone repository.

Current version management what whole project and project members are using is Git. If you are not familiar with Git, please take a look on following wiki pages on ArduPilot Mega wiki

• http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/Guide - Programming guide
• http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/Git - Introduction to Git
• http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/GitCLI - Using Git from command line
• http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/GitTortoise - Using Git on Windows

• Multi - means all ArduCopter multitorors
• TradHeli - means traditional helicopter

• 1) Multi - Automatic PID computations. How to teach correct or close to correct PID settings while flying
• 2) Multi - Failsafe conditions. How to recover from several failures and allow pilot to land with minimal damages on severe failures
• 3) Multi - Navigation tests and complex multi waypoint missions
• 4) Multi - Takeoff/land tests with and without external sensors
• 5) Multi - Scripted acro / stabile flying
• 6) Multi - Barometer/Z-axis accelerometer algorithms for better altitude hold
• 7) Multi - Verify proper operation on all conditions, throttle reversing, aileron/elevator reversing
• 8) Multi - Better failsafes for low battery/lost signal cases

• 1) TradHeli - Determine best PIDs for LOITER for Trex450 and add to standard conf...
• 2) TradHeli - Make a simulator available to ease tuning and reduce the danger of ...
• 3) TradHeli - Get tail control working sufficiently well to remove the need for a...
• 4) TradHeli - Add better control mixing
• 5) TradHeli - Allow full range of radio channel 3 (collective) to be used even wh...
• 6) TradHeli - Move swash properly when user is setting up swashplate movement ran...

• http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/ - ArduPlane and electronics issues
• http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/ - ArduCopter wiki pages
• http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/issues/list - ArduPlane issue tracker

New Sonar mount for your ArduCopter @ jDrones

We just added those more elegant ArduCopter sonar mounts to our storesystem. This mount was inspired by the mount what Chris created first from his plastic knife and mounted with a rubber band to the arm. We made them a bit more elegant.

This is first of the many new mounts that we are introducing to all our original ArduCopter fans out there. We made it versatile so you can use it on others too.

No need to drill any holes or anything to use this mount, just squeeze it around your arm tubes as you do for the dome arches and landing gears. All parts are included on the set.

You can use it for all MB10xx and MB12xx series Maxbotix sonars.

Check out from jDrones site for more info about it.

http://store.jdrones.com/product_p/mntmx12pc01.htm

 ArduCopter Sonar Mount, v1.2 Arm

Packet contents:

• Polycarbonate mount arms x 2 (Upper, Lower)
• 2 x M3x6mm Nylon screw
• 2 x M3x10mm Nylon screw
• 2 x M3 Nylon nut
• 1 x M3x10 Hexagonal spacer, Female-Female
• 1 x M3x12 Hexagonal spacer, Female-Female
• 2 x M3 washer
• 3 x M3x20mm Polycarbonate screw
• 2 x M3 Polycarbonate nut

Cheers,

Jani