Blogs

nextpod

Posted by crystal garris on March 23, 2013 at 8:09am

hear is what's happening next-

this is a conceptual model. next come aerodynamic refinements then comes the structural design.

I have been working on a 2 axis 360 degree constant rotation gimbal to go along with the new fuselage. I plane to start an open source progect for the gimbal its self I was thinking about calling it "open gimbal"

It will use common servos with a constant rotation hack and 12bit magnetic encoders and $15 slip rings.

here is an example of the servo and encoder in action.

stop by hobbyuav.com for all the latest info on the techpod.

drone, fpv, hobbyuav, techpod, uav

E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

Jack Crossfire March 23, 2013 at 2:35pm

You need to be using direct drive brushless motors on the gimbal. Servo gimbals dropped dead in the last 4 months.
Dave G March 23, 2013 at 1:15pm

Sorry: above should read: "from pitching forward and scraping the dome ON LANDING?"
Dave G March 23, 2013 at 1:14pm

Hmm, thinking about it a bit more, how are you going to prevent the plane from pitching forward and scraping the dome? Landing gear would seem the obvious answer but would also interfere with the FOV from the dome. I guess getting the center of mass down as low as possible and reducing skid friction are the most likely directions. Or maybe a servo-driven protective cover for landings? Or gee, put the whole ginble platform on a servo, rotate it up 90-degrees for FPV mode and down for flight-mode?
Moderator

Gary Mortimer March 23, 2013 at 1:06pm

You will never ever put yourself in a spot if you need a quick to build low cost tough platform then one day.

I fly built up, foam, cardboard, plastic anything... they all have there place.
Alex March 23, 2013 at 1:03pm

Foam wing ??? Never ever, thank you...
Distributor

Stefan Olofsson March 23, 2013 at 1:02pm

Dave: You can do this with the current Techpod. There is a "bomb bay" for a second camera in addition to the one in the front.
Dave G March 23, 2013 at 12:52pm

Wayne, so this fuselage must be targeted at a fully-automated flights? Personally I don't like & have a bad record at judging LOS landings. My ideal setup would include both a low-resolution FPV camera and a down-looking camera on an A/B switch to the transmitter, switching to the FPV camera on landings but look-down for judging video footage. Obviously the down-looking camera (love your continuous gimble effort by the way!) would be high-resolution that can record to media. You could get the best of both worlds by adding a split on top of the nose and making that part clear plastic. Or even just adding provision for an external mount on the nose. These are just some knee-jerk ideas I had when I saw your concept, obviously I haven't thought them through. I'm more of an Autodesk Inventor user (rare, I know) for work though. Oh well, good luck. Do you have any ETA for availability of the new fuselage?
100KM

crystal garris March 23, 2013 at 12:05pm

Dave, the airplane itself is already in production. This will be an optional fuselage. The current model in more geared towards FPV flight if that is what your interested in.
No its not open source, not yet anyway.I use solidworks.

in.no - IP telefoni og bredband

IN.no leverer IP telefoni fra Telio, Nextgentel og ventelo bluecom.
Dave G March 23, 2013 at 11:01am

Impressive! At the conceptual level looks quite optimal. The only suggestion I might make is to add the provision to add a forward-looking fixed-mount camera for FPV-mode operation.

Which CAD package are you using for design? Is the model open-source?
Peter Meister March 23, 2013 at 10:29am

It's really nice you can already imagine the great imagery it will allow for, I have done gimbals with the servo mod you discussed, it works very well. I look forward to seeing your design progress!!!