Developer

ArduCopter factory updates..


ArduCopter Factory Update....

Jordi showed his electronic 3D Robotics facilities some weeks ago and Chris posted some more after he visited there, now It's time to give quick look on how Fah Pah Electornics facilities looks like and where the magic happens for ArduCopter frames and other parts.

Small history about early dates and today: Earlier Beta frames were made in smaller scale and without proper production facilities on my friends office but now that we are doing them in a bigger scale and we want to provide good and reliable service to all DIY Drones customers, we needed to have proper production and storage area. So me and my partner created another division under Fah Pah Elecronics Co., Ltd. (Btw. Fah Pah means Thunder/Lightning in Thai language).

We had a possibility to get another office area from same building where main office is, so we got it and did move all Drone/UAV production/packing/shipping there. Also to make life a lot easier on people on main office where all electronics design and assembly is done, I was driving them crazy running CNC's all day long.

And now finally we can start show how things looks like and where the magic happens. There are another factory that does all fiberglass/polycarbonate parts for us. On this area we make all smaller parts and packing/testing/shipping.


Picture: 3 weeks ago when first furnitures started to arrive:


Because we were in hurry to get production up and running so people can start flying their ArduCopters as soon as possible, we created temporary walls around CNC machines to keep voice down.


Picture: CNC cuting room where all small parts are made. Even tho there are automated machines, a lot of hand work is done to get them ready


There are now 3 table size heavy duty CNC machines running constantly and doing various parts. Covers are still missing around CNC routers so it's rather noisy room when all three are running at full speed.


Material size that we can use on those is 30 x 60 x 7 cm and they cut even 3 cm stainless steel.


(Mr. PIK examining cut quality on motormounts or something else parts)


Other tools that we do have is milling machine, grinding machines and polishing machines. Plans are to have few more tools to help on some production issues. Like belt saw, air compressor etc.


Picture: Preprocessor software for CNC routers, Mach3


Softwares that we are using on production floor are:

  • Mach3 - CNC processing
  • ArtCAM - CAD/CAM drawing and design
  • Cut2D - CAD/CAM drawing and design, mainly for importing simple customer drawings
and few CAD programs to do initial drawings like TurboCAM 5 for Mac, AutoCAD for Mac, Solidworks for Win.


Picture: Storage shelfs are starting to get populated (filling up more every day)



Picture: Closeup for motors and other parts for ArduCopters



Picture: Packing are is used to unpack nuts/screws and propeller shipment that arrived today (16th of Nov)



Picture: People always says that it's hard to find CW & CCW propellers, not anymore.. We have them now and more will come :)



Video: Last but not least... Quick video tour to production floor. (Watchout, loud noises)




There are still many things to do before shipping will start, but it is close only few items are missing and they should arrive this week Thursday.


Many things are still looking their places on this production floor and many issues still needs to be resolved but over all it's looking rather ok.


After shipping has started there will be time again to do experimenting and prototyping for other nice add-on parts for ArduCopter like camera mounts, IR Sensor mounts and all other things that our users would ever need.

If you have a good idea or needs, share it, maybe some one else has similar needs.. Also if you have special needs, just ask and we can look what we can do.

Few more picture will come after packing has started to show how new packets and contents will look. Not any major changes on beta frames but still :)

Happy flying guys & gals...
and remember.. fly safe.


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Comments

  • By the way I really liked your manufacturing setup. Well organized.

    Regards
    SID
  • Thanks a lot Jani..

    SID
  • Developer
    @Simone, just checked #44 and it's marked as paid correctly by PP. Do you still see open saldo in your account?? Should not, if you do let me know immediately and I can contact Volusion about that. Like said, in store backend your open saldo is 0.00.

    @Sid, added and we are shipping with DHL. Will keep your order open till we know it's shipping prices..
  • I also sent an email to the store email: my order still shows I still have to pay part of the money (the magneto I added later) but I paid the remaining a few days ago with paypal. My order num is 44.
    Sorry to use this channel but I'd hate to have the parcel not shipped because of a bug in the communication process between paypal and the store
  • Hi Jani,
    Me too have sent couple of emails. I can understand , so no issues with that but also please add one Mag in my order and I have also asked for trackable shipping not ems. WIll pay the difference.

    My order no. is 229 dated 17/11.

    Thanks in advance.
    Regards
    SID
  • Ok, Jani, I understand that. Thanks for your attention! Waiting for instructions from you. Regards.
  • Developer
    Joao, will add those and saw your email and but forget to answer and been a bit busy so have not read mails for 1 day or so except few random.. will add them.

    We are working to get better email handling system, now all goes to my email boxes and there are now aound 1400 unread mails. This is due all store related mails are coming in and currently i'm only one who looks after those.

    We try to improve it as soonest..
  • Hello, Jani,

    Sorry for asking this here, but I sent two emails to FahPah in the last two days but got no answer. Please, see my email about order #122 as I want to include two HMC5843 and I don't know the right way to do that.

    Thanks.
  • Seems like site is back up and working!

    I gotta ask, any idea how many you were able to ship today?
  • Developer
    DOH yeah seems to be. Tho it seems to be more global problem on Volusion. Even AQ store is down too only main store.diydrones is up but that runs on separate server as far as i know..

    Well gotta write "#%%€/€##€(SENSORED) email to Volusion :)
This reply was deleted.