Very impressive design and what looks like top-quality components. [UPDATE: It appears to be a stock Xaircraft frame that costs $160. Thanks to the commenters for catching this]. You can back the project here ($999 for the copter, $1,499 for the full deal with APM 2)
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The problem is they have not proven their BOM, they just picked parts, put up some numbers that sounded good and offered up vapor ware to fund an older project that people paid for items as far back as 2009 and have to received them yet. Add to this no pics of their own and using somebody else's model with their name photoshopped out does not sound like the most honest group of individuals. All of what I am saying is already in this post with the necessary links to back up the reality.
I've always had a tendency to be contrary, but I don't think Kickstarter ever had much credibility to ruin.
It's an online art exhibit where starving artists get money thrown at them to put on a dancing monkey act of "creative inspiration". There are some success stories of merit, but they're totally lost in the weeds of "write a book about underwater basket weaving in a clown suit during my child custody hearings". Most projects resemble the "on a unicycle" gimmick for making up new "world records".
The line of "legitimate" is entirely subjective against that noise floor. The value added of an integrator going "Tim the Toolman Taylor" on a CoTs quadframe to increase payload, coupled with customer service overhead, seems to me to greatly exceed the majority of liberal arts stunts that get funded with no criticism.
Everyone in this hobby has invested time & money in R&D expenses on integration projects, and if customer service/running a business were easy, the market would already be way more saturated than it is at present.
There is very real risk involved in taking a proven solution and upsetting the table with untested components. If mitigating that type of risk isn't the purpose of kickstarter then I would consider it a catch-22 based on some of the criticisms in the other direction.
I don't think it is "un-pure" for a project to outsource the frame design/manufacture when that is not their core competency. It's recognizing strengths, and not making the amateur hour mistake of trying to purchase "screw machines" to manufacture your own fasteners right out the gate.
There's an unspoken rule amongst artists as far as I can tell: not to call each-other out on playing up the shock value("weird" seems to be in Vogue in PDX area) and acting pretentious to make their tripe seem more refined.
My contempt for the liberal arts is probably showing but I don't think we should expect a Kickstarter project to break out the tin cup & jeopardize their probability of success by trying to run a BoM with razor thin margins and $0/hr cost of labor. Just because we absorb these costs ourselves when we are the customers does not make them less real. And just because the community is generous with the profits of those investments by sharing them freely, does not mean that the person running this project can necessarily afford to be as charitable.
Anyway, that's my $.02 Normally I keep my rants to myself but it seems like this person is getting crucified by the "I could do it cheaper mindset". Perhaps "just deserts" for overzealous marketing(which no professional establishment is ever guilty of) and a lack of transparency(ditto).
Then again, the marketing ethics and transparency of for-profit are not supposed to carry over in to the non-profit world so maybe the gripes are legitimate.
What attracted me with this Kickstarted project was that they had done the testing (so I thought) and I would receive a well put-together kit. Did the math and found it reasonable.
I do have some RC experience (4-chan RC plane) and would love to get an x-copter (hexa likely) for among other things amateur photography but the options are daunting... I would love to find a reasonable kit or parts listing for something similar. Can someone give me some advice?
Maybe not the right place to ask but I don't know where would be a better place.
The claims are just to exaggerated. I mean they basically took all the DiYDrones claims and blown them up by 2 or 3 times. We already know, from another thread, that even the DiYDrones claims are right on the knife's edge.
As you guys may know I've gotten into designing and printing frames in 3D. I personally think that the best way to design a good camera platform is an frame that's basically a flying camera housing with arms for motors.
"There is a demand for profesional easy to use camera copters... at low prices... (Probably driven by the media hype aound the topic)"
Not just media hype...it's the "in" thing nowadays as I mentioned w/ the HDSLR comment. Realtors are using it, wedding photographers, photographers/videographers are using it to differentiate themselves, so there's a lot of curiosity about it and hence demand.
It'd be a good DIY Drones article to define costs associated w/ a "high end" x-copter that can actually lift that kind of payload. Ellison already had a good start to it. Add a gyro stabilizer, and cost of a wifi video downlink, 2nd RC controller for aiming the camera, and I'm sure you're in at least $5K, but photographers don't understand that, so a $2.5K flyable solution was tempting. Then there's the issue of insurance in case you kill someone with it, etc. (not even sure you can get it since the FAA says it's illegal) so it adds up even more :-)
That picture above shows the default Xaircraft motors and the entry-level gimbal which isn't strong neither has sufficient space for carrying a SLR camera.
This other picture shows GWS HD9050x3 propellers attached to unbranded motors using "clamped!!!" adapters. For sure isn't yet the "super-powerful" and "over-specified" drone which claims be capable of lifting a Hot Valley flying through the neighborhood.
So what´s to learn from this event:
There is a demand for profesional easy to use camera copters... at low prices... (Probably driven by the media hype aound the topic)
Problem is that a professional system including all the service will not be available at these price ranges (more like 10k$+). Additionally the legal aspects come to play (in different forms depending on the country).
Probably additional information and clarification about commercial<->recreational use and hobby<->professional hardware/software should be put on the front page of DIY-Drones since the page will probably be found by interested people...
One week from start to success to death, with nowadays social media everything happens so fast.
And you can't fool public so easily, but couple of days it looked good.
Looks like DJI Wookong controller. That would cut their margins even more, even at the $2400 level.
looked at the place they stored their images and found a open directory, not sure how long it will be open - http://kelliesigler.com/images/ where you can see this pic too among the others that are on the kickstarter page:
the not-yet-modified cnchelicopter's pic
take a look for yourself....
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