I know Christmas is not done yet! But the deal is on NOW!
Meanwhile let me wish you a fantastic time with family and friends, share the coupon code and the love.
See you again next year (sorry will not monitor this much... vacation time is great, once in a while!)
Dany
$49 without TX/RX modules (available separately). Looks impressive!
From the product listing:
The greatly anticipated Turnigy 9XR has arrived!
The software for the 9XR first began development 6 years ago. Since then it has been tweaked, tuned, changed, updated and revamped by members of the R/C community into a powerful - yet easy to use interface. Our engineers designed the physical product around the R/C communities software changes and input. The culmination of all these is the Turnigy 9XR!
For many users this will be the perfect 9 channel radio straight out of the box, but there are many tinkerers out there who love modifying and pushing the boundaries of what is possible from their radio. We have factory fitted the 9XR with an AVR ISP header to simplify the development of custom software, we have launched turnigy9xr.com as the epicentre for software developers and additional community support for all 9XR users......With the 9XR we encourage it!
The 9XR is supplied preloaded with top quality software which is full of features and yet remains easy to use. Our aim was to develop a radio for you, the hobbyist, with an extensive list of standard features usually expected from a radio system 3 times the price. Our Turnigy 9XR is everything you imagined and more!
9XR Standard Features:
• 8 Channel PPM/9 Channel PCM
• Full Ball Bearing gimbals
• Adjustable Stick Length
• Digital Trims on all Primary Axis
• 16 Model Memory
• Assignable Switches
• Freely Assignable Channel Mixes
• Graphical Dual Rate and Exponential
• Sub Trim and Travel Adjust
• Flaps and Differential
• Throttle Hold
• Supports Heli/ Aero/ Glider Model Types
• Programming Templates Based on Model Type
• Supports M1, M2, M3, M4 stick modes
• 128 x 64 backlit Liquid Crystal Display
• Built in JR & Futaba Trainer Ports
• PPM & PCM Output
• Utilization of JR Form Factor RF Modules
• Programmable Timers
• Low Voltage Warning and Buzzer
• Supports 3s Lipo (Required)
• 9XR Firmware Pre-loaded
• AVR ISP Interface
• Internal 2.4GHz Antenna
Online support and user forums available at: www.turnigy9xr.com
Spec:
Channnel: 8ch ppm/9ch pcm
Display: 128*64LCD (Backlit)
Support Type: Heli/Acro/Glid
Model Memory: 16
Stick modes: 1, 2, 3, 4
Encoder type: ppm/pcm
Module Interface: JR Compatible (See Related Items Below)
Simulator Interface: Yes (JR & Futaba)
Buzzer: Yes
The new Cube 3D printer is a must have for all DIY people.
Yes! I know you can get a makerbot and yes it's maybe more in the spiret of DIY. But I must say the Cube is awsome easy to use. save your drawings in STL file and boom it's printet. No setup! just more or less PnP.
Price 1299 USD.
The print result is quite strong and with tolerance 0.2 - 0.25mm it's ok for homebrew stuff.
Have a nice Xmas and hope DIYdrones have so much more to come for in the year to come.
Hey guys Check out the picture the factory just send me. They are going to send it to me for approval ASAP.
So if all goes well, they will be done manufacturing the batch in about 3-4 weeks.Then they will be shipped to the US for distribution to all my wonderful supporters. I should have them about the second week of February. Go to hobbyuav.com to pre-oreders yours today.
Thanks!
Here is what it looks like put together.
There's now a DIY Drones community on Google +, too. If you're a Google Plus user (I am), this is another way to integrate DIY Drones into your regular streams and share content easily from Google +. It will likely have some cross-posts from here, but mostly be news and comment from others in the Google + community. You can sign up here.
Other UAV-related communities on Google + include Gary Mortimer's Unmanned Aircraft Operators and Open Source Robotics.
Hello,
There has been a lot of support from this community for this project, a lot more than I expected initially. The kickstarter funding periods is set to end in three days. It has been a very interesting ride so far and this is what we already have taken care of:
Importing of Chemicals for PCB fabrication, everything from Iron(|||) chloride to Silkscreen and conformal coding to Electro Nickel Plating stuff has been arrange, and let me tell you it was not easy, you can't just drop of a gallon of Iron(|||) chloride at UPS and ship it to Nicaragua....
The order for the parts that have to be laser cut has been place with a company in China and we expect them to arrive in 20 days
Most equipment has already been ordered and the first batch is due to depart by end of next week.
Mounting brackets for the R10 from UAir will be 3D printed by shapeways and UAir should have samples very soon. UAir is very helpful and flexible on this, check them out at http://uair.co/r10 . We are on track to make it plug and play for the R10 platform.
Brackets for easy mounting on Arducopter and most standard frames are also in the works, and there should be no problem integrating it with the APM.
Thank you for the great support and feedback!
Andreas Jochum
The Picture above is of my FlameWheel 450 with one added propeller motor Unit. It is for testing the feasibility and potential value of providing 4 opposed motor propeller units for providing position control instead of copter pitch and tilt. For testing purposes the horizontal motor / ESC is controlled manually from a separate receiver channel controlled by an analog "dial" on the transmitter.
Oliver Seeler and I are both pursuing the possibility of providing a more stable multicopter platform by separating the stability control of the copter from tilt and pitch based position control. Oliver is using a Hex Flamewheel with a setup very similar to the above at the moment.
This Blog is an outgrowth of a Forum item started by Oliver under "Aircraft platforms" entitled "The Witch Gets a Broom".
First test flights are complete on both of these copters and some significant data has been learned.
On Oliver's Hex considerable thrust was required to move the copter horizontally even at a slow pace. On my copter a very small horizontal thrust (< 1/3 throttle) moved the copter smoothly at a slow walking pace and my Quad's motor thrust is tiny in comparison with Oliver's Hex.
Oliver's Hexacopter's center of gravity is considerably lower than mine due to tall landing gear, a camera mount and GoPro camera but his horizontal motor and prop unit are mounted in the same location as mine. This means that the horizontal props center of thrust is considerably further above Olvier's Hexacopters CG than is true for my Quad.
From this result we have concluded that it is very important to have the horizontal thrust line aligned closely to the copters center of gravity. Failure to do so induces tilt which the stability mode of the APM counters by applying opposing vertical thrust, doing a surprisingly good job of cancelling out the horizontal thrust. My copter as seen above does not have this problem and requires very little power to smoothly produce horizontal flight.
Also, Oliver's Hex has the prop mounted in a pusher mode and on my Quad it is mounted in tractor (puller) mode. It appears either mode can be made to work satisfactorily. I was concerned that mine in tractor mode would have the horizontal prop wash interfering with the copters downward prop wash and might induce instability. At the power levels tried so far, no negative effect is observable and transition to and from horizontal flight is very smooth and without tilt.
My conclusion from the results achieved so far is that using a horizontal propeller for position control actually does make more stable flight possible with little or no pitch or roll of the airframe. I will continue to test in this configuration at higher power settings to insure stability is not significantly degraded.
But I am also beginning work on a setup that will place prop motor units between each of a Quads 4 vertical thrust rotors.
The intention of this configuration 4 x 4 is that the 4 horizontal motors will completely take over horizontal position control.
The existing APM programming and the Vertical thrust motors will be responsible for stabilization, altitude control and the yaw or horizontal orientation of the air frame. This way only balanced symmetrical vertical thrust on the air frame is required to adjust altitude and yaw and the only asymmetrical thrust is in direct response to outside forces trying to pitch or tilt the air frame. Basically it's entire vertical thrust resources are used keeping it level and there is no purposely induced tilt or pitch as is conventionally necessary for position control.
Control for the 4 x 4 unit will necessarily be more involved as it will be desirable at a minimum to produce differential control of all 4 props using a stick. This means that zero thrust of all 4 motors would be at "stick center" position and pushing in any direction would produce differential activation on one or 2 motors in that direction producing a horizontal displacement similar to what is done now with a quad copter using the APM.
This is not achievable from a transmitter directly and requires at least translation of stick center to = zero throttle on all four motors.
My initial solution to this will to be to either use an auxiliary (in addition to the APM) Arduino processor to take normal stick input servo data and translate it to the controls for the 4 motors or I may attempt to simply incorporate the control into the APM if my programming capabilities and available resources prove adequate to the task.
The hardware part is easy, the programming part, less so.
Oliver and I very much welcome and would like to solicit your comments, thoughts and contributions on this project, and if somebody with more APM programming experience than I would like to jump in there, please feel free.
Keep in mind, the silly thing in the picture actually works and there is no perceptible air frame tilt or pitch when you use the horizontal motor to move it.
This is a new kind of aircraft which so far appears to be feasible and also that it might have some really significant advantages and capabilities.
Current Design Above.
Hi all,
Just to let you all know that Curtis Youngblood Ent. (well known in 3D heli world) is going to release on next spring/summer, the world first 3D capable quad !
You should take a look here : http://curtisyoungblood.com/V2/content/3d-quad
Story
About year back, I found OpenLRS. When looked on schematics I discovered it's really simple. I checked local parts supplier and found out 433Mhz and 868Mhz RFM22B modules to be about 9$ Then calculated that price would be half if I do it myself. So I ordered 433Mhz (868 was not in stock) ones and started to copy Flytron's schematic.
In summary there were three reasons for me to do my version
Hardware design
Schematic of receiver is very same as original Flytron's one. I only used bigger 0805 passives, different regulator, added ISP and so. Parts are chosen to be obtainable in local store here in Czech.
Transmitter board was designed for the original FlySky 9x transmitter module case. Just remove original PCB and put this one in case. There is also selectable inverter of input PPM signal to be compatible with JR (was not tested yet). Someone on flytron's forum recommended me to add serial telemetry for 9x as many has done for Frsky modules. So in 1.1 it's there, selectable by solder jumper.
Every component can be bought at TME
Prototype
First batch of one Tx and two RX has been made in end of may 2012. These modules were 433Mhz and there was a bug in Tx module wiring, there were compatible with olrs firmware only after mod. They work well, I flown them for many hours. Never made it public. First version can be seen here https://picasaweb.google.com/m.kolinsky/KolinSRCDev
New revision was finished yesterday. I ordered 868Mhz modules, did simple hack in software and they work!
Software
For the first prototype I used original flytron FW, only changed IO mapping to suit my board.
For second one I started with thUndeadMOD4. Only needed change in software was to load different registry values for base frequency.
Real life tests
With first prototype I was really brave (or stupid) to put this to my greatest, most expensive and most labour intensive plane ever, UltraMaxiSwift (will show it in another blog post) and everything worked well, it has about one hour in the air. Also many hours with Twinstar2 FPV with 2.4GHz/500mW video transmitter.
Second prototype (now 868Mhz) was tested yesterday on RC car. In low power range test mode (1mW output power) range was about 100m before glitches. This was with 1/4 lambda wire antenna. Seems to be OK. Due to weather, real life test to be done.
I checked real output of modules by receiving transmission with popular RTL-SDR. Channels are exactly were they should be. Looks nice
Legality
Here in Czech (and probably rest of EU) authorities allow to transmit 500mW of power with 10% duty cycle in 869.400–869.650 MHz band. Base frequency and hopping channels in my SW are selected to fit in this band. Duty cycle requirement is not fully satisfied, but modules are transmitting only 100mW, so it should be acceptable. Certainly less unlawful than using 433MHz band here.
How to get
If you are interested you can:
Conclusion
I want to thanks Melih from Flytron for great idea of making such simple and effective RC system and for making it opensource.
I probably would not buy new Frsky 2.4Ghz receivers anymore as these are cheap and reliable. With hobbyking's clone of OpenLRS, there will be much more attention for this project.
Download
Here you an download eagle files and modified firmware.kolrs868-fw-hw.zip
P.S. excuse my English ;)
Come join an exciting and fast-growing technical team at the 3DR headquarters in San Diego. It's the opportunity to work on the next generation of products coming from 3DR. 2013 is going to be a huge year for us, and you can be part of it!
From the 3DR blog:
3D Robotics is currently filling two technical position, both with the San Diego R&D team. Please send applications/CVs to jobs@3drobotics.com.
Firmware Engineer
Qualifications:
- BS in Electrical Engineering, Computing Science, or equivalent
- Experience with ARM processors and other embedded (PIC, Atmel) systems
- C, C++, Assembly
- Possess a thorough knowledge of professional software engineering practices & best practices for the full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and test automation.
- Possess a general knowledge of related disciplines.
- Provide technical solutions to a wide range of difficult problems. Solutions are imaginative, thorough, practicable, and consistent with objectives.
- Familiarity with hardware debugging, wireless networking, and some application development experience.
- Experience in building board support packages for embedded real time operating systems, writing bootloaders, and microcontroller application development
- Excellent written and oral communication skills; ability to work positively in a fast-moving team environment.
- Strong project orientation, attention to detail and a commitment to quality are critical.
Electronic EngineerQualifications:
- BS in Electrical Engineering or equivalent
- 5 years of experience designing digital, analog, power supply, RF, and mixed signal circuits
- PCB layout and design of test fixtures.
- Eagle Cad or Altium experience
- Functional working knowledge of IPC standards
- An ability to work closely with PCB vendors/suppliers to reduce cost and maximize PCB yield
- Proven ability to debug and repair complex electronic circuits
- Strong project orientation, attention to detail and a commitment to quality are critical
- Excellent written and oral communication skills; ability to work positively in a fast-moving team environment
This is more adjacent to the drone space than right in it, but it's similar to what we do with our Hardware-in-the-loop simulator.
From the Kickstarter project:
The SIM42911 interface will open up a low-cost avenue for the serious simulator builder to connect the Laminar Research X-Plane or Microsoft FSX simulator directly to real surplus flight hardware that uses the ARINC 429 protocol. Real flight hardware is hardware that was removed from actual aircraft such as a Boeing 737, 747 or Airbus and has recently found its way to e-Bay and other online auction places specializing in surplus analog avionics. Or, perhaps your already own a complete surplus simulator and just want to make it work again!
The SIM42911 interface will provide one high or low speed ARINC 429 compatible transmit channel and one receive channel. SIM42911 simply plugs into the same Ethernet port the flight simulator is connected to, and, if used with a Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch, does not require an additional external power supply.
This real avionics bus provides the capability of tapping into real surplus equipment available on eBay and other places to the consumer and pro-sumer sim-pit builder on a reasonable budget. The interface comes with all the necessary software integration pieces to connect directly to the two most popular consumer flight simulator platforms as well as the ability to program the interface directly in C/C++ via a SDK.
With the non-stop rain around here, I haven't been able to do any flying, so I decided to start a new project. Since I want to do FPV eventually, I went with an H frame layout. Not much to show yet, but all the bits are collected, so it should go together fast.
Decided to make the arms a bit longer than needed to act as prop protectors.
Components right now:
3/4" Square aluminum tubing for arms
1/8" G10 Fiberglass body plates
HobbyWing Quattro 4-in-1 20 Amp ESC
4 x Exceed Optima 850KV motors
APM2 with external GPS (the newer version of the Mediatek from 3DR)
3DR Radio telemetry
FrSky RX
I decided that my Drone looked a bit "naked" with all the electronics and flight controller exposed, so decided to have a dome made for it.
Made to measure and a perfect fit having been made from smoked acrylic so you still get to see those all important LEDs underneath.
So far 3dR puts out some cases for the APM2.x. However I haven't seen any cases for the GPS. So far I've ripped the battery backup off the newer GPS and ripped the module apart with the older module. Sadly I don't think this is covered under warranty. As much as I'd like to say I'm 'hard' on equipment, this is just normal flying.. Anyone have any suggestions on a GPS case for these boogers?
The coptercam hovers over the pitch, Melbourne Renegades v Brisbane Heat, Big Bash League, Docklands Stadium, Melbourne, December 22, 2012.
@Hai Tran, would this be used in international matches as well? :-)
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/image/598192.html?page=1
For those who are not familiar with the game Cricket and Cricket pitch, refer the wikipedia page found here and here.
My goal for part 2 of the video is to have the RQ-11 Kit fully assembled and operating as an ROA (Remotely Operated Aircraft). My overall goal though is to buy a autopilot from diydrones and make it into a fully functioning UAV. I want to use it for agricultural and animal tracking purposes. Learning programming through my college classes I want to create a fully functioning UAV that has a flight time of around an hour or more that could be used to track animals and photograph agriculture.
Things to do:
Suggestions Welcome!
Our favorite camera maker is hot stuff. From FastCompany:
Foxconn, or rather Hon Hai Precision as it's officially known, has just forked over $200 million for an 8.88% stake in GoPro, the Californian camera maker that specializes in rugged cameras that can be easily mounted to capture the endeavors of outdoor sports enthusiasts.
That investment values GoPro at $2.25 billion in total. The press release notes Foxconn CEO Terry Gou as seeing a "great opportunity" in investing in GoPro, not only for the products but also for founder Nick Woodman. GoPro sold 800,000 cameras and grew 300% last year, according to recent stats.
The kickstarter project: "IR-Blue" is an affordable thermal imaging accessory for iPhone and Android Devices. See the world in a new way.
I thought to share with you this display mount I designed for Hitec Aurora controller for FPV flying. The part is made from single piece of aluminum and it's very compact and stable.
More pictures and cad files can be found here: http://antibore.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/display-mount-for-hitec-aurora/
