About

Gender

Male


Location

Dallas, TX


Please tell us a bit about your UAV interest

Research & development with autonomous UAV platforms for commercial operation, in addition to fixed wing & multirotor hobby flying and aerial video.


Hometown:

Dallas, TX


Activity Feed

Nick McCarthy commented on Jacob Cereteli's blog post 3-Axis Gimbal with Sony HD camera 30x
"Nice work, Jacob!"
May 31, 2016
Nick McCarthy commented on BonaDrone's blog post BonaDrone Launches IndieGoGo Campaign for the Mosquito - The World’s First Customizable, 3D-printed drone
"I think it offends most of our sensibilities calling this the "The World’s First Customizable, 3D-printed drone". Most of us have been doing just that for years."
Apr 11, 2016
Nick McCarthy commented on sander's blog post DeltaQuad VTOL autonomous maiden flight
"Very cool! I'm also thinking about making one for novelty, perhaps with a FX-79 or smaller FX-61"
Apr 4, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Euan Ramsay's discussion Particle electron instead of telemetry radio in Telemetry over cellular IP
"I also just received a Particle Electron and am considering how it can be integrated with a drone. I'm not sure what kind of bitrates we can expect with 3G data, and it may not be cost effective to use Particle's MNVO for large amounts of data. Let…"
Mar 16, 2016
Nick McCarthy commented on Chris Anderson's blog post Solar-powered launch system allows totally unattended operation
"I think a lot of what H3 Dynamics is selling in this video is hype. There appears to be no demonstration of moving energy from fuel cells or solar panels into the drone, and their Iris seems to be unmodified (except for the IR-Lock beacon). Still, I…"
Feb 18, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Felix Meissner's discussion LidarLite working correctly? - SOLVED
"Best I know, they unfortunately stopped production. It's not clear if Lidar Lite as a product will fit into Garmin's line-up, or if the technology will be integrated into other devices."
Jan 25, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Felix Meissner's discussion LidarLite working correctly? - SOLVED
"And just like that, I'm having the problem again. This time on the new copter using PWM (where data initially looked good on first boot).

Pretty dumb-founded on this one. I also switched to APM:Plane, where I'm seeing the same issue."
Jan 23, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Felix Meissner's discussion LidarLite working correctly? - SOLVED
"Problem Solved:

After considering the strange Lidar readings I was getting, even in PWM where sonnarrange did not match sonarvoltage were not from the following:

Bad Lidar-Lite (Works fine on other copter)
Bad Params (reset to defaults)
Bad…"
Jan 19, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Felix Meissner's discussion LidarLite working correctly? - SOLVED
"Felix, good thought - The 5V supply is looking clean, coming from a BEC. I think I just discovered the fix, posting below."
Jan 19, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Felix Meissner's discussion LidarLite working correctly? - SOLVED
"So I've connected this Lidar to another copter I have, currently running 3.4-dev. Using PWM, I see sonarvoltage and sonarrange both correlate well to actual distances.

So it seems the problem resides with my original Pixhawk, on a 3DR Iris+. I…"
Jan 19, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Felix Meissner's discussion LidarLite working correctly? - SOLVED
"Thanks for the details Stephan, 

I've just rewired my Lidar Lite to connect via PWM. Here's where things get baffling:

sonarvoltage reads what appears to be proper voltage levels to distance: IE: 0.80 v for 80cm. This looks great - however:…"
Jan 19, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Felix Meissner's discussion LidarLite working correctly? - SOLVED
"@ Felix and others:

I'm using a Lidar-Lite v2 connected via I2C, and I'm trying to make sense of the readings. It seems to me that there is a scaling being applied. I'm seeing similar readings in Copter 3.3 as well as 3.4-dev


Ruler (cm)
Lidar…"
Jan 18, 2016
Nick McCarthy commented on Thomas Stone's blog post Copter Localization w/ IR Landmark
"Thomas, this is excellent work and a great example of development to come!"
Jan 13, 2016
Nick McCarthy commented on Chris Anderson's blog post Disney applies to use 3DR drones as "flixels" (flying pixels) in theme park shows
"Sounds like a cool project, although I'm pretty amused by how Disney will now have to fight their own "No Fly Zone", with Disney World having been legally declared prohibited airspace: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibited_airspace#United_States"
Jan 12, 2016
Nick McCarthy replied to Paul Epperson's discussion PX4 Star Wars Startup Tone
"This is great work, thanks for sharing! "
Jan 11, 2016
Nick McCarthy commented on Tom Rearick's blog post Drones Make Love Not War
"That's a pretty fascinating analysis. I've experienced this as well. My experience was that the bees chased my 450 sized quad while in the air, but had no interest as soon as I landed. I assumed they were attracted by the noise, but it's interesting…"
Nov 8, 2015
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