Hey everyone! In case you haven't been following us on our website or here on DIY Drones, we are two guys who have been tinkering with gimbal design and other aerial photography related projects. Over the last few months we've been developing a brushless gimbal and we're almost ready to make it a deliverable item. We have aspirations to turn our tinkering habit into a business, but we're quite new to the scene, and we are experimenting in that regard. Special thanks go out to all of you who have encouraged us with comments and emails! We appreciate it!
Today we would like to introduce you to our first official product, our 9 Inch High Rise Multicopter Legs. By selling these legs we hope to...
- Develop our order fulfillment and customer service process with a simpler product.
- Raise some funding to support our current and future projects.
The kit contains 4 Garolite leg parts which make one pair of legs. The legs have been pre-drilled to work with 3DR ArduCopter arms but they can be easily modified to work with other kits. All required hardware and fasteners are included.
We are listing the legs at $17.50 which is currently cheaper than 3DR's "long leg set." These legs are also around 3 inches longer than those available from 3DR.
We've been using these legs for our project for months now and we're happy to tell you that they are quite strong. They've survived many hard landings (some while carrying payloads up to two pounds) and if they can survive our terrible piloting they can survive a lot! They are available for purchase now on our products page.
In other news, as we mentioned above we are nearing the final stages of our gimbal development project. We've recently tested it and the resulting footage was excellent (videos coming soon). We just need to make a few more modifications before we can begin pre-orders.
We also have a new and exciting project in the works! More info on that coming soon.
If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or you can email us at skyrisfx@skyrisfx.com. Many thanks to the community for providing encouragement and useful knowledge. Cheers!
Jeff and David
Comments
Thanks
@Quadzimodo
No problem! Your questions were valid. We were unaware of the many nuances when we started doing this as well! So much trial and error! And believe us, we feel your pain when it comes to fasteners. :)
Our current gimbal prototype weighs around 8oz without motors. We could have made it lighter had we designed it to be GoPro specific, but our current goal is to create an adjustable balance gimbal that can work with cameras up 4.5" wide. There are a few modifications we are planning to make that will reduce material and weight further. We'll be posting some videos soon. Thanks for the comment!
I see, that looks nasty!. Clearly there is more to this than meets the eye. I have never worked with a CNC router before, so am unfamiliar with the nuances of manufacturing parts this way.
I hope my questions don't seem too retentive, it is only that I have been working on weight saving lately and have spent a small fortune on fasteners.
That gimbal of yours looks light as a feather. May I ask what it weighs in at?
@Euan Ramsay
Thanks for you interest! We don't have any horizontal mounting brackets currently but if there is enough interest we can add them to our product line. For now, I can think of a few easy DIY solutions that might solve your problem. You could use a 3 quarter inch by 3 quarter inch by 1 inch piece of wood with holes drilled on the sides and on the top for mounting. If you're interested in purchasing, send a note to skyrisfx@skyrisfx.com and maybe we can help you out.
@Quadzimodo
Thanks for the great questions. In regard to your suggestion about rounding the edges, this is something we would like to do for the next batch. However we ran into some technical problems this time around. We decided that the rounded edged version of our legs weren't going to work out for our first run since they caused the CNC router to leave some jagged and pointy remnant (pictured below).
We decided that the non rounded versions were safe given that they're just not that sharp as a result of the material properties. That said, we agree that many parts of any copter can be potentially dangerous. Safety should always come first and it's dangerous to fly around other people.
To answer your question about the nylon nuts and fasteners, we've found that they work just fine for our projects. The leg kit comes with nylon spacers, metal nuts, and metal screws. This was a cost consideration. We wanted to keep the kit as affordable as possible and the weight variance is negligible.
I like these.
Would you consider making a horizontal mounting bracket available as well for mounting to bottom plates, rather than arms? I need to find a supplier of legs for my forthcoming frame, and these look perfect.
I assume that these are cut by a CNC router or similar. You may consider rounding edges off the bottom corners a worthwhile consideration? Seems a good opportunity to minimise risk of damage or injury in event of hard landing. Also would help to limit the tendency of the bottom edges of the legs grabbing the ground on takeoff and landing. It is probably the first thing I would do with them.
I see that your gimbal uses nylon screws and SS bolts, were the nylon bolts not good enough? Or worked loose? Or are SS bolts just what you had handy at the time of assembly?
In the shot of the complete airframe above, the legs appears to used nylon spacers and screws, but in the image at the top of the page it shows that the legs are supplied with nylon spacer but SS nuts and bolts. Any reason why you went from nylon to steel on the legs? Was nylon not cutting the mustard? Or are the SS fasteners just cheaper to supply?
@Adam and Raph,
This isn't exactly my finest product photography work (my workbench tends to be a bit messy) but here you go! :)
As for your question about the 3DR Y6, I'd have to look up the dimensions, but from eyeing it I would say it's likely that you would need to mount the legs closer towards the copter's center of gravity (which would require some drilling). If you would like to try them out and find that they don't work for you, we'd be happy to refund your money. If there's enough interest in high rise legs designed for the Y6 we can add them to our product line. These legs will work very well right out of the box with 3DR Quads and Hexas. Thanks!
curios on the Y6 as well. would not longer legs for it.
Any pictures of the legs on a 3DR copter? Also, would these fit the Y6 Copter due to the prop clearance?