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Hey Folks,

I'm currently working on DroneCafe.com to provide people with a place to hangout and talk about drone politics/politicians, drone/robotics news, and also a place to openly talk about militarized drones.  This website is more for entertainment and not tech based or open source based like DIY Drones allowing for you to discuss things on DroneCafe.com that have no place/business being posted or discussed on DIYDrones.com!  

Feel free to make an account on DroneCafe.com and mess around with blogs/photos/forums/etc!  It will help me get an idea on how I should finish setting up the website.  Also you can check out Ning 3.0 which is what DIY Drones will be migrating to very soon.  Ning 3.0 also allows for very easy posting of Vimeo videos so you can test that out if you are an avid Vimeo uploader

Take it easy DIYDrones.com, 

Joshua Johnson (DIY Drones News)

Eventually I got around to part 2, part one is here recorded with a laptop from a TV card.

Part 2 was recorded on-board the quad with a 808 #16 v2 keychain cam, the flying was done FPV with video glasses and a 1.2 GHz BOB Fox 700mW video Tx & Rx. Quad is my own design EPP folding H-frame quad. Editing the vid down to size wasn't not easy as I took about 120mins of video but any way here is the result (but watch out for part 3).

Please excuse the bit of Jello on the video at times but this #16 cam is very sensitive to any vibs.

Ok, so I've not been that impressed with the whole compassmot thing, given it ruined a perfectly good quad. I did the whole compassmot thing, and eventually got 148%. It flew and loiters ok (eventually) but one pack to the next the toilet bowl kept coming back, and I had yaw issues and loiter took ages to stabilise.

So, I admitted defeat, and vowed to resort back to 2.9.1.

Or I did, if I wasn't so stubborn. Never one to admit defeat gracefully, I decided to give the compassmot one last chance, after a few mods.

Here are my mods to my quad (QUAD heavy from www.quadframe.com)...

My setup:

1. Mumetal on the underside of the APM board, in a single 8x8cm sheet. This overhangs the board slightly, but that's intentional - I wanted some screw tops covered by it.

2. Ferrite rings on the 4 servo leads from the ESC's, wrapped twice each.

3. Errr....that's it. And I refuse to do more! I want to fly, not be constantly tweaking!

Result? With no other mods, Compassmot has dropped from 148% to 43%, and I did the compassmot to 100%, not the 50% suggested in the instructions. Once I've got the kids down later tonight, I'll re-run live compass calibration then have a test flight. Hopefully it will be the last damned time I have to do this, and I can actually get back to flying...

If this still fails...well, I'm going back to 2.9.1

I love this video clip, hands down the best I have seen to date from a multirotor. Can you guess I am a little bored of endless reveals and pans ;-) No bits of an airframe in shot, no GoPro distortion and filming exactly what they want it to. Brilliant! Watch in HD !

The images tell the story and yes we are told its from a hexacopter but that does not really matter a story is conveyed.

It´s been two months since we posted our first flight report; time for an update!

Here's what we've been up to:

As you may have seen on Chris Anderson's Blog, our Wingcopter now uses the APM2.5. The agility and stability seems much better compared to the old APM1.0.

Above is a video of one of the longer flights, including some maneuvers:

When there´s no wind, the wingcopter performs just as expected/commanded. However, in turbulent air the flap's control commands are still slightly too extreme. It wobbles a little bit. In order to solve this problem, we'll have to play with our PID Parameters again.

In last report's comment section, there where some question concerning flight maneuvers. As a result, we tried out to tail sitting and landing as a conventional plan.

Tail sitting is possible, but it´s not as easy as we initially thought it would be.

We tried to land in "conventional plane mode" at the end of this video

and this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SyScUKdqH8

slightly harder landing than intended ;)

We also tested the maximum payload. After a couple of increases, we tried a 636g beer bottle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCZO6b1MROc

At this level of payload, the plane is harder to control, especially if there's a certain amount of wind (like in the video). So far, we would prefer up to 400g of payload, as the plane's behavior changes very little compared to flights without any payload.

We hope your enjoyed our little report.

Regards

Andy and Jonathan

PS: our wingcopter is now available on our website!

Hobby King has come out with 2 new multicopter motors in the 9014(!) size. One is 105kV, the other 135kV. With 385g, they are surely on the heavy side, but they are designed for 6S with a max current of 40A. According to the description, they were made for 26" props.

Surely nothing for your everyday sport quad, but now there's finally motors available which would allow building really big quads (MD4-1000 class and bigger) with reasonable air times.

105kV: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__29067__Turnigy_9014_105kv_Brushless_Multi_Rotor_Motor.html
135kV: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__28105__Turnigy_9014_135kv_Brushless_Multi_Rotor_Motor.html

Second test (much better image quality!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmOXCuAHAe4

My first night test.

Hexacopter: 810mm wheelbase

APM 2.5

Firmware AC3.0

Running a full auto mission witn 5 WPs and RTL /autolanding

Soon I will upload more pictures and the flight log. Very impressive the xtrack correction

More technical details just ask me ;-)

http://www.diydrones.com/video/night-flyer

2013-07-04%2018-34-07.tlog

The flight starts at 51%

B.O.D is a VR Copter with this configuration :

• VR Brain 4.5 with Arducopter 32 rev 3.1rc3 on board
• 1 3DR Ublox GPS
• Use 4 VR ESC prototype 30A with MultiWii ESC .
• 4 T-Motors
• 12 APC Inch Propeller.
• 1 Lipo 5.800 Zippy compact.
• 1 3DR Telemetry Module.
• GoPro Hero 3 Black on board

With this configuration i doin 3 hours of fly test , normally the drone fly for 20 minutes with this configuration this is a good result for us.

With Arducopter32 rev v3.1rc3 our drone fly very well i testing all functionality :

Stable mode.

Loiter - Atti GPS mode with ovverride of position.

Return to landing point work fine .

Waypoint navigation work fine , too 

I found only a problem on hard stop when reach waypoint and RTL , some suggestion about the reconfigure parameters for have smooth stop instead of hard ?

Do you like our first RTF drone ? 

original blog post : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/profiles/blogs/vr-copter-x4-b-o-d-some-video-preview-from-the-first-3-hours-of-f

Best

Roberto Navoni

We are developing our own FPV Frame called Freedom, it's all done in South Africa.

FPV SA's own frame - Second prototype. Thanks Daniel. We are planning to test the frame next weekend.
1. Designed for FPV
2. Use DJI plastic arms
3. Integrated power board
4. Vibration free zone for a camera etc..
5. More space for electronics
6. Mounting place for upcoming brushless gimbal

7. Build-in circuit board for Power distribution and for FPV system

8. Build-in Leds

First prototype:

Earlier this week I was able to fulfill one of my long-time goals of making an FPV assent of one of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks (14ers in local lingo). I flew my Deep Reaper XL flying wing to the top of the 14,065 foot Mount Bierstadt.

Flying at high altitudes can be a challenge. My launch point was at the top of Guanella Pass, which is around 11,600 feet elevation. This was the first time I've tried flying at that altitude, and I wasn't even completely sure my plane would be able to launch. But because I have around a pound more thrust than the plane's weight and there was a stiff wind to toss it into, the plane launched just fine.

The weather wasn't terribly favorable, and was constantly threatening rain. On my second flight I ended up getting myself and all my equipment drenched in a sudden downpour. The air was very turbulent in the lee of the mountain and my plane got tossed around quite a bit. I also had a very bad video signal near the peak--I suspect because of multipathing off the mountain combined with interference from the thunderstorms in the area.

Despite all the challenges, the flight was a success and the video turned out beautifully. I'm hoping to do a lot more high altitude flying in the Colorado mountains before the end of the summer.

Filmed with a Contour Roam2 HD camera. Edited in Sony Vegas Pro 12.

Gear:
Crash Test Hobbies Deep Reaper XL flying wing
1250kv Turnigy SK3 motor, 10x6 APC propeller
2x 4000 mah 4S 20C Zippy batteries
800mw 1.3ghz VTX w/ Mad Mushroom antenna on the plane; crosshair antenna on the ground

So, I set out to create a quad from scratch and thought that it would be cool to document the process here.

The first part will be an overview of the frame build, components and final assembly. I'll follow up later with tuning and the first flights. The thought is that this may be useful to someone else that wanted to create there own.

Frame

For the frame I decided to go with aluminum, 6061-T4 to be exact. Light and strong. I have a mini mill press so I just went to a local place and found .08 in aluminum sheets that they cut down to 5.5 inches square and some 1/2 inch square tube with 1/16 thick walls. I then milled out as much of the extra plate material and almost cut the places weight in half.

Here are the 2 halves laid out. But I will end up going back to mill out more to make room for the wiring and such.

A note in finding the aluminum locally.  I think most areas with any sort of industrial zones will probably have similar suppliers, they just aren't as easy to find for the hobbyist, as they cater to more knowledgable clientel. But if you hit the yellow pages and search for metal working or fabrication and ask around you will eventually be directed to a place that will have what you need.

I dry fit the booms to the plates to see how it all fit together and it seemed to go together well. All I can say here is to double check your measurements. I actually messed up one plate and had to go get another. 

With the plate I messed up I created some custom motor mounts. These are just oval shaped so I can bolt all 4 screws in the bottom of the motor and get a good flat fit against the boom arms.

You can also see that I drilled out some extra holes in the plates to make them lighter and I fitted a plexy glass landing strut.

Once all the pieces were done I painted the frame and mounted the motors. I also cut more material out of the plates and drilled a series of holes in the bottom of the booms to eliminate more weight.

Wiring

So, here I was able to run all the wire through the booms and tie it all together in the center between the two plates. I created my own power distribution harness by soldering together 2 groups or 4 bullet connectors, one for each battery connector wire. This ended up being fairly compact. I also put a bit of 4mm foam rubber in the booms to sandwich between the main body plates. I'm hopping this helps with vibration.

just before adding the flight control board.

More soon

The new 3D Robotics Tijuana factory is up and running! Above is an overview from the inventory area (drop ceilings are still being finished)

The big new Manncorp four-head pick-and-place machine (our third!)

QA and hand-finishing

The PCB washing station

The PCB examination microscope station

In use!

Inventory area

Power Module PCBs 

Finished power modules

Outside the CNC clean room

Ok, after shooting some video in "third person", I've realised that to get good video (within my budget), I need to go FPV. To that end, the first of the purchases arrived today...a Bluebeam 5.8ghz set and a minumOSD. Fatshark Atitude kit is in the post.

The video Tx will be mounted in the port pylon (nose is to bottom in this pic). The onboard 3DR telem radio has been removed, and the minumOSD located under the output servo leads:

The video itself will be a VGA feed from the GoPro. The gimbal has since been re-stabilised to accommodate the weight of the cable. It's not a pretty picture with the cable hanging loose, but the gimbal glitches at the slightest snag of the wires otherwise.

Already planned my test flights. The advantage of living in Switzerland is that there are often easy spots overlooking uninhabited farmland valleys. This makes LOS vast...a good test of range, and allows to me to practise with no real obstacles to worry about either.

The only unknown element, is power.

I can power the v0.1 OSD from the telem cable (5V), if I solder the pad, and this is recommended since there are stories of overheating on 12V. No problem there. The GoPro is self powered too, so no problem there either.

It's the tx...It comes with an in-series filter for the balancer port on 2S or 3S, but I'm wondering if my 900mAh Lipo is enough now - It's already powering the APM, 2 x remote LED's, GPS, telemetry, navigation LED's, spektrum rx + telem, the alexmos + 2 x tmotor 2208...and now it will power a 250mW Tx as well.

My 10900mAh flight pack is giving just under 20 mins flight time (landing at 3.5V under load - 3.6/3.7V idle) with gimbal + go pro, but my little 3S is already feeling the strain - the difference between idle and load is 1.5V - 10 mins into flight it's already reading 10.8v, which is worryingly close to the 3.5v alarm!

Can't wait to get this all fired up though...

June 2nd, 2013 was a good field day for photo collection! I flew eight flights with Crimson, the Arducopter hexa with Mikrokopter motors and frame. Five flights were for the "matrix", this summer's big project of comparing the effect of different flight conditions on 3D scan quality. This condition was diffuse lighting, high wind, flying 40m above the canopy, with 50% side overlap. The last three flights were to test our georeferencing method. Jonathan and Dana set out orange buckets over known GPS coordinated, which we will check for error in the georeferenced point cloud built from this day's photos.

The white flags on the ground represent the eight spots the copter landed on in auto landing mode. All eight flights were fully autonomous, all I had to do was rev up the props and enable auto mode, then disable auto mode to cut the motors once it touched back down. The GPS in the copter seems pretty reliable for auto landing, seeing as the copter always landed within the same 2m circle. The white flags coming out of my hat are "antennas" which actually help me gauge the wind speed, because the flags flap more in stronger wind, which I can feel with my head.

This is the ground control station. Aside from the orange bucket and Dana's lunch on the left, everything except the copter, tarp, and umbrella gets packed up into the backpack for easy transport.

This is representative of the eight flights. As you can see, the path sometimes curves. I suspect it is due to the high wind gusts we were flying in. These kind of curves were not present on calm days, so they will hopefully manifest themselves as a measurable difference in scan quality. That is the point of flying the "matrix" of different conditions. This flight is the standard 250x250 meter collection

A typical photo from repetition 1. All photos were very detailed, I'm not seeing any intermittent blurring like I used to with the SD4000 cameras of old. The color is a bit dark, but it looks like this in full sun as well, since the color is always calibrated off of our grey camera card. In the future, we may try using a darker card to obtain brighter pictures. Note the orange bucket on the lower edge of the photo.

Cross posted from the Ecosynth.org blog.

Hey everyone, Here is something cool that I have been working on that I think you may enjoy.

So, I had been pondering how to make an inexpensive variable prop. I was thinking about using a heli head from a hk450 or perhaps a tail rotor. I eventually saw a post here, on diydrones, where a guy was using a tail rotor from a HK500 (can't find post). I got inspired and found a HK600 tail rotor has the same shaft diameter as the turnigy G10 I use on the techpod. this is what I have come up with.
 
I measured 15 degree max forward pitch and 12 degree reverse pitch. at 15 degrees forward pitch it drew 40 amps from a 3 cell lipo and puts out just under 5 lbs thrust.
I got the blades here and the tail rotor assembly here. I removed one side of the tail rotor plates and replaced both the shaft in the tail rotor and the shaft in the motor with one long 5 mm shaft. I had to notch it a few times for the set screws.I then made a plate to help support the rotor plate so I could then brace it with some 4-40 all thread rod and nyloc nutsI also made a custom motor mount for the techpod.
After the motor was secured, I cut out a mount for the pitch servo. Then I cut a hole in the foam so I could attach the servo mount to the techpods rear fuselage brace. I grabbed a bell crank from the local hobby shop and mounted it to the rear brace as well.
I have the techpod mostly assembled and should have the batteries for it later today. I hope to be able to start test flying over the weekend. If everything works out well, I plane on offering this as an mod kit for the techpod.

Check out this and the latest techpod news at Hobbyuav.com

Ziphius

So I have been obsessed with robotics for quite some time and up until this year it was all based on walking - Humaniod,  quad & hex walker robots.  I have put together kits, pulled together parts from Lynxmotion - I have stuff all over, I am constantly tearing apart updating as new controller boards, sensors and the like come out.  I even worked on a very slick robot from Japan like 5 years ago - Speecys SPC-101C which unfortunately never made it into production - you can check my Chuck Durham Youtube Channel for some of my robot videos.  I was all about servo control and interfaces via Bluetooth, ZigBee and Wifi

Last year I had the AR Drone 1.0 and I got the Minds-i Kit and started learning more about ESC, R/C transmitters/Receivers - I owe most of this knowledge to this site.  I have followed Arducopter for a while but never had the nerve to try.  I got the AR Drone 2.0 this year and found myself wanting.  So I have dug into the RC world like a mad man, I want to try everything so I have been buying up all kinds of things to try.  Now I think most of you will find when you start a project, it's good to have a few to do, while you wait for parts to come back in stock.  So in the quest to build the Arducopter (APM:Rover), I have stepped into the ArduRover (APM:Rover) figuring APM 2.5+, Mission Planning and Telemetry would be smart to start on the ground, the minds-i is also not a super fast platform with the single motor option I have setup, so I can out run the rover.

So today, I am waiting for parts,  I got 3D Robotics order for the Telemetry to try on the Rover.  I am waiting for a replacement motor from 3D Robotics and some parts coming from China from Hobby King.  So we have air, land and (wait we are missing something) - Sea.  

Found a water based Drone - Kickstarter:  Ziphius: The Aquatic Drone.  They have a decent way to go, I am going to keep my eye on it and become a backer to get one of these.  I read and earlier article and there was mention of $25K to fund, but it is actually $125K, they are at $38K.  Anyway this may be something to rally the community around for a possible hackable base for ArduAquatic.

There is also another more open project out there for a submersible: OpenROV

What could be the potential with this community and the APM 2.5+ on something like these.  How will the GPS work underwater, thinking of other type of sensors to integrate, etc

This great Kickstarter near-infrared project blew past their $30,000 target and are now at $61,000, with three days to go. Check out these GoPro farm images above, after NDVI processing and before. 

Latest update here. 

A chance to hear Chris and other movers and shakers speak, coming up later this month in San Francisco. The 3DR team will be there with try and fly platforms as well. Yes this is a shameless sUAS News conference plug. All things being equal video should be available on G+ as it happens.

Drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, as the industry refers to them, will be the focus of the Small Unmanned Systems Business Expo at the San Francisco Presidio July 25 -26. Speakers from throughout the country will gather at the Presidio to speak about the huge growth potential of this multifaceted industry.

“With respect to jobs, and economic growth, the UAV industry is set to see a tremendous upswing in the next few years,” says Patrick Egan, American editor of Suasnews.com, and one of the sponsors of the event.

“We are creating the Expo, as a gathering of minds, a place where people can gather, meet, and collaborate in order to further the growth of the industry,” he said.

Speakers will cover the spectrum of the industry, from science and technology to  government regulations and the role of startup.

Tad McGeer, one of the early founders of the industry, will describe his illustrious journey from one of the earliest forays into robotic walking to his latest small vertical –takeoff- and- landing unmanned aircraft.

Chris Norris, CEO of Alta Devices, will talk about his highly efficient (29% ) thin-film, flexible solar cells which can power multiple electronic devices including unmanned vehicles.

Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics and founder of DIYDrones will speak about the manufacturing of current and future uses for small unmanned vehicles.

Dr. John Appleby, currently with the Department of Home Land Security, brings his 35 years of experience at NASA, NOAA, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the stage to provide both background and forecast for the UAV industry.

“This is going to be a very exciting and informative conference,” said startup founder Matt Kirson of AgriFlight.com, “anyone interested in this industry should be there.”

You may register for the Expo here: www.susbexpo.com,  attendance is limited

The Governor of the Great State of Indiana Michael R Pence becomes the first to sign the proclamation declaring August 17, 2013 to be National Model Aviation Day! What about your state? Read the full details here on the AMA blog.