Hexarotor, folding multirotor helicopter

It is a folding 6 rotor helicopter, inspired in X6 helicopter.i would like to build in polyethylene technical plastic, it is light, shock resistant and easy to work with my cnc mill.propellers are in a circle of 500mm diameter, i think best option in order to use standard RC parts is to use 6 x 12" counter rotating propellers.3 (counter rotating) propeller of 12" have an 8% more surface than 4 propellers of 10" (like typical quadrotors)Probably 14" propellers are better in order to get more performance but i think is not possible to find very low Kv motors with the necessary low power and low weight.Any idea are welcome!jlcortexnmine.com

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  • As you can see, I didn't quite follow Jose's design. I do have some experience with sheet material frames, and this size would mean that there is a substantial amount of vibration from the motors.
    So I went with the standard centerplates -and-aluminium approach.
    The milled parts where done by a friend. The glowing stuff is basically makrolon (polycarbonate) with those self adhesive LED stripes inside.

    As for the technical data:
    Mass: 980g (1100g including the camera)
    Akku: 3s 2300mAh 10C Wanma (Hellpower)
    Hovering current: ~13A
    Hovering power: 133W ohne Kamera (about 7,5g/W - 10g/W is my goal)
    Motors: 3x AHM 23-10 0,47mm² wire on top and 3x AHM 23-10 0,53mm² at the bottom
    Camera: Pentax Optio S7. This can be triggered using an IR-LED
    Frame: Y6 Fold-Down by Dukedolphin (thank's, Duke!)
    Cameramount: by PhilSU

    Takedown or build-up takes well under 30seconds - it is just 3 screws plus the plug-in antenna.
    Hook up the battery and go.
  • It is great!!! which controller are you using?
  • Well, mine is finished ad flies great so far. I do need to fiddle with the parameters a bit, and GPS is not installed yet (I need do calibrate the compass again and did not have the time do to so yet - due to bad weather mostly).
  • How is this project going so far?
  • @xemone:

    But there already is such a system (more than one, in fact):
    Both the Mikrokopter and the Armokopter consist of one PCB for sensors and controller, and have separate BLCs (in case of the Armokopter even off-the-shelf china BLCs that have to be reprogrammed, though). They both go all the way including compas and GPS (if you want), have telemetry downlink and i.e. GPS waypoint uplink. The MK supports up to 8, the Armo up to 12 (or 16?) motor concepts.

    Frames are modular also (for some reason I tend to recommend the Bogoframes... but there are also others, like Q4 and Powerframe), with one core module and arms in different lengths.
  • Yeah this does remind me of the X6 but it's better because the camera design seems to be integrated into the airframe vs. hanging from the underside. I read this thread http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/bidireccional-rc-transmitter?id... and I think both your idea and the other could greatly compliment each other. What do you think?
    I wrote this in another thread
    I wish guys like you (guys with the technical know how) could work together, design and build a modular UAV. Have the MCU/DSP and all the sensors on the main board. Have the motor controllers separate from the main board so anyone can use different size motors (scalability). One can build a 10inch wide quad or tri- rotor or a 3 or 4 foot wide version.
    Another option is a board with everything except the MCU/DSP/CPU board. This should include the sensors, servo controllers, FPGA et.c that can be controlled over USB by a gumstix module or some other powerful module (or even a pico ITX motherboard). Coupled with a controller like your idea. Anyone can make anything out of it. I'm sure the software developers out here can cook up something modular to handle all the stuff.

    What d''you guys think?
  • Using an even number of motors (especially 4 or 8) it is easy to see how to control such a 'copter as they work in pairs and counter rotate. I have a problem with 6motors. Can you tell me how you control pitch, yaw and roll?

    Peter
  • Hi Stefano, no!, arms are not controlled!, only for transportation
    jlcortex
    nMine.com
  • Hola Jose,
    perhaps a silly question: are you planning to use the folding arm to actively control the trim of your heli or are they just for transportation purpose?

    Thx
    Stefano
  • On a quad, you can get up to 2200g with stock parts, but then you would end up with 10-12min of flying time only. I did that with one of my first quads, using AXI 2217/16 and APC SF 12x6" props.
    <---- not this one.

    The problem is to get usable props. There are not many to be had that come in conter rotating pairs, are large enough and also stiff enough.

    Above 1300g - especially with expensive cameras mounted - I would consider 8 props (but not coax - it makes things a lot more complicated). In fact, I am working on an octo, using the ArmoKopter board.
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