After spending hundreds of hours building and testing the WizeArtz Hero, foldable quadcopter, I decided to take some time out and sink some R&D into something lean, mean, and a lot simpler.

The RiotQuad is born.

Motor to motor 380mm, and boasting an immensely strong main sandwich of 1.5mm plates clamping onto 6mm G10 arms and spacers, this 275gram (naked) aircraft can take up to 10" props.

Built around the excellent CC3D, and the roadmap to also include the APM and the Revo flight controllers, initial flight tests show it to have stable flight characteristics, and be very agile and fast!

Frame kit is about to be handed over to another local pilot for parallel testing and a build log, before hopefully releasing it for sale in the Oceania region.

Test flight video will come, once I've shoe-horned the GoPro on :)

FRAME: Droidworx CX-4

Main Camera: GoPro HD Hero 1

FPV Camera: ReadyMadeRC RMRC-600XV

Video TX:FPV Hobby 5.8Ghz 500Mw

Motors: 4 x RCTimer BL2830/13 850Kv with 20A ESCS*

FC: APM1 with Sonar

Battery:Turnigy 3s 5000mAh

More beautiful gear from the Droidworx crew, and even moreso with 3M Di-Noc controltac Carbon Fibre wrap.

Waiting for some decent motors, as these are grossly underpowered for the 1.8Kg she weighs!!!!

Also upgrading shortly to the APM2 as I'm hoping I won't need the sonar now with higher resolution Barometer, and far superior MEMS gyros onboard.

On my 3rd major rebuild of my custom-framed AC2 after losing her to strong wind (stupidity really) and I'm again relishing the opportunity to change further aspects of the design. I'm REALLY hanging to see the OSD integration the boys are working on (come one Jani, hook me up!!!!!). The thought occured that if I wanted to fly really close to the ground in Alt-hold mode, might the sonar be more accurate if it were mounted on a servo plugged into the Tilt output on the APM? That way if she's really moving, and at an extreme pitch, it'll still be pointing directly at the ground. Or have you clever clogs somehow written an algorithim to compensate the Sonar reading based on the angle of attack?

Damn I love this project, best fun I've had in ages!

After several crashes my frame has finally evolved into something I'm fairly happy with. It uses all standard AC2 kit electronics, but custom built frame/arms, etc. It has a modular base so I can easily change out Camera mount for just plain, centralised battery mount. The camera mount has an offset battery position to keep COG towards the middle. The camera mount base has silicone dampeners (from CD-Rom drive) to minimise vibes, as well as velcro on the final mount.

The pictures show the wooden prototype and then final 3mm Acrylic flying example (above and at the bottom.)

Some specs:

-1280 APM, 850Kv 2830/12 standard motors, and 20Amp ESC's from jDrones

-5000mAh 3S Lipo Turnigy

-GoPro HD, outputting to 1.2Ghz Tx for 7" TFT & Fatshark goggles on ground for FPV flying.

-2.46 Beta code

-Current sensor, sonar, Turnigy scale light kit

-12mm Aluminium arms, (Carbon ones on way from Hobbyking) PDB in middle of frame sandwich with ESC's.

-Laser cut 3mm Acrylic double sandwich long legs to keep GoPro clear of grass

-Frame plates are 3mm laser cut acrylic (wanted Alum, but quotes too expensive to get cut so far, still looking)

-Modified Motor mounts to allow 4 rubber o-rings on screws for Anti-Vibes.

-Droidworx PetG dome

Here is a video of it:

Hey all, though I might share the attached photo with you to show off some mods I've been working on whilst I wait for spare props to arrive from Thailand, after not loading code properly and flipping the copter on its maiden voyage.

Widened the landing gear to more stability, as well as increasing ground clearance for my GoPro, converted the dome to just two complete pieces rather than the fiddly centre piece, trussed arrangement, and hacked a standard USB cable to it can be plugged in easier for uploading etc.

I'm working on a new battery mount as well for fixing the GoPro, until I figure out how I'm going to do the pan-tilt, FPV setup.

Material is laser cut, 3mm black acrylic.

Cheers!