The final episode in Thailand. Before flying back to Europe RiSCyD and Prefect found a nice spot on top of a hotel to do some city flying. The best vertical building proximity flying so far in my opinion ... what do you guys think?
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Hi Guys,
A small project I have been working on. Its a cheap quad-copter frame made out of 6mm plywood and fiberglass. I was thinking of how to make a quad for as cheap as possible, when I thought of wood. I already had a 3mm fiberglass sheet, so I drew out the center plate and sent it to get machined.
Next I drew out some arms on some scrap plywood and sent that to get machined. All in all, machining cost was $0.06. Collected the machined parts the next day and assembled within an hour. Added a landing skid from a helicopter and mounted a Freeduino Mega ADK.
I'll use the Mega as a Flight Controller. A new FreeIMU 0.4.3 board form Fabio should be on its way soon. Planning on running ArduPiratesNG on the Mega - this is gonna be the cheapest platform capable of running Arducopter probably!
If you notice, my Mega is an ADK, which has a USB host capable of communication with Android devices. Thus I have the choice to add looooooots of features later.
Motor/Props/ESCs not thought of as of yet, so need your opinions here. Battery will be a 3S 2200mAh 30C Turnigy battery unless anyone here provides me with other options*hint*
There seems to be minor arm-flex, expected with plywood, but the wood itself is good (no filler material in between sheets). Tell me what you think about this. If you guys like it, I'll do a post on RCGroups as well.
I am a 14 year old 'kid' so any advice is welcome (stuff like "give the kid a prize!" is also welcome!)
Additional Pics:
Kabir
After the early death of my first quadcopter (small, cheap 300mm fibreglass frame), I decided to go for a more durable frame. I decided on the Talon V2 from Hobbyking.
It's fitted with the same Props/Motors/ESC's/APM from the original frame (8x4.5 props, 1380kV motors, 10A ESC's, APM 2.7.3), so I was worried it would be underpowered. In the end this was not a problem. The quadcopter is definitely not a "sporty" model, but it's got enough power for normal flying.
With a 3S 1380 mAh battery it weighs a bit over 800 grams and runs for about 6 to 8 minutes. The default APM parameters work very well for this setup. It is rock stable, even in light winds.
I accidentally bought the wrong sonar (the Maxbotix EZ4 rather than the EZ1), meaning the range and beamwidth were smaller than needed. By keeping the quadcopter's altitude to under 5m, the altitude hold mode still worked quite well though.
Next on the list is to investigate the optical flow sensor (currently sitting on my desk) and check out the performance improvements.
After six months of playing with vertical propellers, I'm finally getting out a bit. This is a small clip of a local little farm in Dewey Arizona, USA.
hey everyone
another update on the techpod flight testing:
2 hour long flight complete!
this flight was done with:
2 x 6000 mah 3s for 12000mah total
weight: 5.8 lbs
APC E11x7
charging the lipos now to get the mah used will post that number in a couple hours.
thanks to all my supporters at the techpod kickstarter project !
Very sophisticated sensors but very difficult to program. Closed source.
From the Lawfare blog:
This excellent picture was forwarded to me by a colleague here at Brookings. It was shot by his friend,Bonnie Shaw, who tells me that she saw the flyer at the corner of 17th and Kalorama Streets, NW in Washington.
The drone turns out to belong to one Adam Eidinger—or at least, it used to. And Eidinger is very disappointed about his loss. Eidinger, who has been tweeting the matter, tells me that he uses his drone to take aerial videos of Washington D.C., most of which you can find on his YouTube channel.
Last Friday, Eidinger informed me that he wanted to take a short video of a festival in Adams Morgan, and was flying his quadcopter from a rooftop on 18th Street NW. A huge gust of wind blew it too far south and Eidinger quickly lost orientation. The copter was almost 5,000 feet away from him, and he couldn’t tell which way was forward and which way was backward. When his remote loses contact with the drone, says Eidinger, the copter is programmed to slowly descend on its own—a “safe landing mode,” which prevents it from simply falling out of the sky and crashing. So it’s possible that the quadcopter is sitting on a rooftop somewhere in the area—maybe even on your rooftop (have you checked?). Eidinger doesn’t think it has fallen in a public place, because he says he canvassed the whole area and had no luck.
The quadcopter is 2 ft x 2 ft and was purchased in China, says Eidinger, because there are virtually no commercially available units like these in America. Eidenger customized it, and the total cost of the contraption was about $700.
It really is kind of amazing how the proliferation of cheap technologies has revolutionized the way we interact with our communities and surroundings.
(Thanks to Christopher Downing for the link)
I wanted to share with you our video on updating the firmware on your 9x radio. This is a follow up to our "9x DIY Upgrade Kit" install video. It covers everything you need to successfully update the firmware on your 9x radio following the hardware install covered in first video. In addition, this video also shows you how to install sample models and calibrate your radio.
**Update- parts for the 9x DIY Upgrade Kits have arrived and we'll begin taking orders Saturday, Sept 15 and first shipments will be on the following Monday.**
The 9x Firmware Update video is divided into sections allowing you to skip to the needed information:
- Download Firmware and Software Tools - 1:02
- Firmware Update Process - 4:28
- Sample Models - 8:00
- Calibration - 9:53
While this video mentions our 9x DIY Upgrade Kit, the information will be helpful to anyone who has a programmer installed on their 9x radio.
Let us know if this video helps and also what else you would like us to cover.
Thanks for watching!
Visit our site for these and other RC products.
http://parkeflyer.com
Intro music by Pong, the greatest rock band you've never heard of. (used with permission)
Not sure how to link to this directly, but it's on their facebook page now:
http://www.facebook.com/flitetest
Let them know what you think!
Lots of people have suggested 3D printing propellers, but Landru is the first I've seen to do it. Looks pretty good! (I'm not sure I'd trust my old Makerbot with this--he's got a better printer.) He writes:
This is a redesign for an 8040 printable propeller with a 5.5mm (13/64") bore.
This prop was designed to keep the minimum cross section above .8mm allowing it to be more easily printed, though at a small efficiency loss.
The propeller will require support on one edge, which makes it very easy to remove.
I can redesign this for some different center hole diameters if requested, just give me some time as I am pretty busy.
Here is a short video with the prop on a motor:youtube.com/watch?v=v6yClT12Ges&feature=plcp
I will also be uploading a 5030 prop once it is flight tested.
I printed mine on a Fablicator using Kisslicer.
I threw together a little video for the manual showing how I calibrate the magnetometer in the ArduCopter setup. And then YouTube user cylllka put it to music. Catchy! If I had known I'd be making a music video, I would have dressed better ;-)
This picture is the last of the backlogged APM 2.5 orders going out from the 3DR shipping department. Orders should be shipped within 1-2 days from now on. Whew!
Demand was overwhelming but the 3DR team brought the second Tijuana pick-and-place line up with some state-of-the-art machines and it's finally running smoothly now. The line can now handle 500 APM 2.5 boards a week (in addition to its share of all the other 3DR products).
We're still listing the assembled APM 2.5 boards as shipping within one week (unassembled is 1-2 days), but that's conservative. Most boards should ship within a few days now.
The enclosures are still a couple weeks away. We decided to modify them slightly with a special foam shield for the baro sensor, to protect it from any wind distortion, so it went back for another design rev/test cycle. It will be worth it--you should see much better alt-hold performance with the enclosure on.
http://www.n3kl.org/sun/index.html
http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/SunStorm
During a solar storm substance of the sun will be thrown explosively into the space.
Even that the sun is about 150 Mio. kilometers far away from us those solar particles hit the earth with a speed of more than 2000 Km/sec. .
The most known effect of the solar storms are the Northern Lights (polar lights).
Normally the Earth's magnetic field protects us against solar storms. With particularly strong solar storms this magnetic field will brake and can lead to disturbances on earth.
And due to those solar storms in February 2011 the radio reception in south China was disrupted or in 1989 the power grid of Quebec City was paralyzed down.
Right now (2012) we have the strongest solar storms since 5 years. The severe phase of solar activitiy is currently still growing.
The peak will be reached approximately in 2013. The effects are not estimated yet.
These solar storms are also the GPS satellites in space exposed. In an interrupted GPS reception the exact location of course also affected. GPS-based systems can not function properly.
The Kopter cannot hold i.e. with the function PositionHold the exact position or fly to a different point with the function ComingHome or execute different other GPS-based function without any error.
To see the GPS behavior during a solar storm the Kopter was placed in an open meadow and been not moved.
The received satellite data showed now no precise position. By the incorrectly transmitted data through the satellite the GPS on the Kopter thought, that the Kopter moves.
And that with ~10m/s in a radius of ~64mtr!
This is a Widget to display the latest 3 Hourly Planetary(estimated Ap) K Indices fromhttp://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/lists/geomag/AK.txt to e.g. help UAS Pilots to be aware of possible GPS-Problems. Read more about that here:http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/SunStorm
The whole APP ist OpenSource and you can find the code on https://github.com/ligi/Solar-Activity-Monitor
Thanks to http://mikrokopter.de for the impulse, http://www.swpc.noaa.gov for the Data and Clemens -Nebukad- Wronski for the Graphics!
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/de/ (Creative Commons / Non Commercial / Share Alike)
Addtitonally to this Licence it is not allowed to use this project in any violent manner! This explicitly includes that lethal Weapon owning "People" and Organisations (e.g. Army & Police) are not allowed to use this Project.
Keywords:
UAS UAV GPS Accuracy Solar Storm MikroKopter MultiRotor MultiKopter Navigation
Please be advised that MAVProxy now has a "homepage" and initial documentation effort.
If you can add to the documentation please do. If you find a mistake, please fix it. If you want to complain about how poor it is to start with, I'll listen to your complaints only after you've edited more on that subject that I have. :-)
I am not an author of mavproxy, but am doing this with the primary author's support, (Tridge)
It is located here: http://qgroundcontrol.org/mavlink/mavproxy_startpage
Another great hack from Hackaday:
This RC truck can be controlled with the tip of your thumb or the tilt of a wrist. That’s thanks to the IOIO which was inserted in place of the toy’s original controller. [Exanko] made the hardware changes in order to use his Android phone as the controller. The white circle is a software joystick that acts as throttle when your thumb moves along the Y axis, and steering when it moves along the X axis. But while he was at it he also included accelerometer input as an alternative control option.
The IOIO board has a Bluetooth dongle connected to its USB port as a means of wireless communication. The dongle was hacked to accept an external antenna, thereby increasing the truck’s range. There is also some on-board flair like LEDs for lights and even a laser diode for… well we’re not sure what that’s for. Get a better look at the hardware internals in the clip after the break
As is customary and traditional, we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 29,000!
There were just under 1.4 million page views this month, tied for our record. It took us 35 days to get this latest 1,000 members--we're averaging about one new member every 48 minutes.
Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially the moderators who approve membership applications and blog posts and otherwise answer questions and keep things ticking here. We've got about 60 moderators now, but if anyone would like to join this group, please PM me. If you've been here for a while and have been participating, you'll fit in great.
This is a couple of flights from my holiday that I made my first quad copter for. My wife and I (and two kids under 2) were planning a 2 week four wheel drive trip across the Simpson Desert in central Australia. For those not familiar with the Simpson Desert it is 550 km of desert, 1100 sand dunes to cross, and 3000 km round trip. The quad seemed like the perfect way to get a different perspective on the landscape.
I didn't have much time before the trip and only had experience with RC gliders before so I purchased a cheap frame from Hobby King. It didn't take long to realise that it wasn't going to but up to the task so I set about designing and building my own using 3mm ply. My first wasn't going to fit in a fully packed 4WD so I had to design and build a folding version.
In the end it took four full days (over 2 months ish) from start to finish before I left on the trip so I had very little time to learn to fly a quad and optimise the tuning.
I didn’t get to develop my flying skills much before I left and I only started to get comfortable flying FPV near my last flight of the trip. Unfortunately I missed one of my ESC connectors worked its way out and I crashed the quad after approximately 10 flights. I some good footage though. The crash is at the end of the video.
I would like to thank the DIY Drones community and everybody who contributed to the ARM 2 board!
Just for kicks I thought I would put a rendering of my SolidWorks design and what it looked like after it was built.
Edit:
Post processing I did on the GoPro footage
As you can see from parts of the footage, my piloting was still pretty poor and I didn't get time to balance my propellers before the trip. I also found that the fish eye on the GoPro was pretty hard to watch when set to 720P (170 degree field of view). Before I went I tried to work out what I should be setting the camera to but people didn't post the settings or post processing details. So here is what I did for this trip:
GoPro settings:
720P (170 degree wide)
50 fps (this minimised the rolling shutter I found)
Post processing using Virtual Dub:
1. Resize 1900x1600
2. Deshaker v3.0
3. Barrel Distortion
4. Resize 1280x720
I did this as a mass batch process using DubMan. Here are my processing settings for Virtual dub. There are two because Deshaker takes two passes.
All this is free but then I added 20% saturation in CyberLink PowerDirector 10 Deluxe when I cut the video together.
Summary: Takeoff from a foam pad on top of dry grass/lumpy lawn alleviated instabilities experienced when taking off from the dry grass/lumpy lawn. No gain changes made to the 3DR ArduCopter code, using the "factory" settings for Stabilizer and Acrobatic modes.
Details
Started basic flight testing of a ready-to-fly 3DR ArduCopter-B with APM 2.0, in cross-configuration, under R/C control at first (and a ground station with XBee or 3DR radio telemetry with an EEE PC laptop as the ground station to follow in the near future.) The drone's designation is PeeDee 2.
(PeeDee 1 is another story, an earlier ready-to-fly arducopter from Udrones that's now sitting in the metaphorical hanger. The APM board does not command all four motors, the multiplexer chip appears to be failed and in need of replacement. PeeDee 1 is scavenged for parts as needed.)
Installed a 7 channel Futuba R617FS receiver. It's hard to secure under the cap of the stack-up plates above the APM 2.0 module because of the connectors to the APM 2.0 inputs connect normal/perpendicular to the receiver. Cramming it all under the topmost stack-up plate bends and stresses the connectors - an invitation to future trouble. The receiver is therefore stuck and held in-place between the topmost stack plates with double-stick tape, and with receiver antennae routed out of the stack ninety degrees to each other to help hold the receiver in place. May move to velcro to hold the receiver to the stack plate in the near future. (The receiver is visible in the photo.)
PeeDee 2 ground testing took a couple of calendar days. Used the Arducopter Wiki as the ground test plan:
1. Calibrated radio channels with LIPO disconnected.
2. Automatic ESC calibration
3. Motor direction and connections check with CLI mode and Motor command. Watched the paper labels on the motors to gauge the direction of motor rotation.
4. Re-leveled sensors and adjusted magnetic declination before Sensor checking. Used the Configuration page in APM Mission Planner 1.2.10 with mavlink 1.0.
5. Sensor checking - used APM Mission Planner 1.2.10 with mavlink 1.0, watched Flight Data page graphics update when PeeDee 2 pitched, rolled and yawed by hand. Also, lateral, vertical and longitudinal displacements, looked at the raw data on the screen. All ok. (did re-level PeeDee 2 using the Configuration page before sensor checking.)
6. Finally, attached the props, careful to check prop type with motor location in the cross configuration.
Initial ground test on dry grass (Seattle area rain free for 40+ days.) After GPS lock indication (blue light on top), ran engines up to point where PeeDee 2 started to lift off, but not lifting off, then throttle back down. Props stayed on. Did this several times to look for any vibrations of unusual activity. Ran engines up, and close to takeoff point, pitched the drone up and down, one pair of legs in contact with ground while other pair lifted (front/back). The rolled the drone left and right, one pair of legs making contact with ground while other pair lifted (left/right). Looked ok to try a takeoff, but winds picked up to 5 mph with gusts up to 8 mph. Waited for gusts to die down before every takeoff attempt.
Takeoffs in stabilizer mode immediately rolled to one or the other side with the drone crashing bottom up. One prop broke. Replaced the broken prop. Again, on the next takeoff, PeeDee 2 immediately rolled over and crashed. A prop popped off, put it back on. Tried one more time to take off. The prop that previously popped off now broke apart into three pieces on engine run-up. Didn't see the crack in it when putting it back on. (Lesson learned - now check all props for cracks, and check props for tightness, after every landing.)
Local hobby store carries 10 by 4.7 props, secured new props and replaced all four. Followed the troubleshooting guidance in the wiki,
"Arducopter tilts/flips over or wobbles crazily when I try to take off."
Discovered a configuration error - had the drone set to plus configuration when it's in the cross-configuration. Fixed the configuration on the Configuration page on Mission Planner with mavlink connection to PeeDee 2.
Repeated the ground test plan - run engines up to liftoff, check pitch, roll, and it all passed. Prepared to take off in acrobatic mode. On every takeoff in acrobatic mode, one or two of the drone's legs appeared to get stuck in the grass and the drone tumbled over. Tried several takeoffs in Stabilizer mode, and again, one or two legs appeared to get stuck in the grass, and the drone would flip or tumble.
Went to a local fabric store and bought a 0.5 meter by 0.5 meter by 2 cm thick piece of foam pad. Put the pad on top of the grass, and Pee Dee 2 on top of the foam pad.
Presto! PeeDee 2 took off reasonably well off the foam pad, every time, in acrobatic or stabilizer mode. When lifting off in acrobatic mode, switched as soon as possible to stabilizer mode. Finally settled on takeoff in stabilizer mode, off the foam launch pad. It's very stable in pitch, roll as it takes off that way.
The throttle response is interesting, though. It takes "extra" throttle to leap up off the foam launch pad, but once above the pad, throttle needs to be reduced in order to keep below two meters above the pad. Otherwise, the throttle required to "break free" from the launch pad is enough to send the drone up a good two meters quickly (a pop up.) This looks like a ground effect interaction with the foam pad.
Takeoff from the foam pad rather than from dry grass on lumpy lawns did alleviate the instabilities at takeoff. No gain changes made, PeeDee 2 is using the "factory" settings for stabilizer and acrobatic modes.
If you're using the Sharp IR sensor as an obstacle detector on your ArduRover, you should know that it doesn't see left and right equally. Here's some good analysis on its real detection pattern. So you might want to tilt the sensor a bit to the right.
I would like to share the latest SmartAP autopilot progress. As well as GPS Position Hold mode (introduced ~1 month ago), now it has Return to Launch flight mode. No matter wherever the copter is, just switch to RTL and it will come back to its home position autonomously. You can watch the video of Return to Launch test flights above. At the moment, waypoint flight mode is being tested.
Kirill
http://sky-drones.com
