You always have that ONE flight where nothing goes right. 7-27-12

The balloon slipped off the filling neck and got away. We had a backup balloon ! The second helium tank was EMPTY.

Dang..what luck.

Soooo... I will show pictures of the X8 wing we will try to launch Friday 8-3-12.

The Big Wheel antenna on the front is for the 5 WATT ATV TX on 434 mhz. (Yes I am a ham N8TV)

Antenna on wing is the 10 watt APRS antenna on 144 mhz.

Notice the annoyance deterrent ?

5 watt ATV Tx, APRS (under card) and battery.

Nichrome cut down system activated by time or a command from the Mission Planner and APM 2.5

It is released by a command from the Mission Planner at a LOW altitude. (joke)

I hope the Friday 8-3-12 launch goes well.

Earl

I built my first quad from scratch.  It's based on the ArduCopter.  I used aluminium towel rods for the arms and some sixteenth inch aluminium plate for the support and sixteenth by half inch strips for landing gear.  The motors are A2217-9 950Kv, APC 10 x 4.7 props, Hobby Wing 18A ESCs, Hyperion 4000mAh 3s lipo,  and an APM 2.0. The total weight is at 1449 grams.

Above is a picture of the quad before I hooked everything up.  The ESCs are wire-tied to each arm and the battery is strapped to the bottom of the platform.  I also have a plastic food storage tub that I strap over the APM for protection when I fly.

I've flown fixed wing and mini helicopters but I've never flown a quad before so I was a little nervous.  My flying location is 7200 feet above sea level so I wasn't sure what to expect with respect to power and response but there were no problems at all.  I followed the "first flights" documentation and flew many short, low altitude flights to get a feel for flying.  I had to pitch backwards a little to hold in place so I need to do some tuning.  The pitch wasn't so bad I wanted to stop flying to tune so I kept going.  I hit the throttle a little to much and the quad zoomed skyward to 80 or 90 feet.  It then drifted between the sun and my eyes.  The next thing I did was panic and cut the throttle.  That resulted in the quad dropping out of the sun and sky at an alarming rate.  About 20 feet from the ground I added throttle.  I was successful in slowing the decent to the point where I thought I could land successfully.  I was still a little nervous from the prior happenings and when I landed, the quad was moving sideways faster than I thought and the left two landing gear touched the ground and the quad flipped over and one of the props busted.  I didn't follow all of the advice in the documentation and did not purchase extra props so I'm grounded for a few days.  Even with the bad landing and busted prop, it was a very good experience for my first flights.  The APM 2.0 performed flawlessly.  The hardware and software are amazing.

Here a video of a test flight of the ArduCopterNG v2.7 with the All In One Pro IMU board (AIOP). The official release of the ArduCopter v2.7 firmware for APM has been ported and tested successfully in flight on a quadcopter with an All In One Pro (AIOP) v1.0 full IMU on board by Jean-Louis Naudin on July 29, 2012.

Avionics:

- Full IMU: All In One Pro v1.0 (AIOP) from CRIUS

- GPS: Mediatek MT3329 (10hz)

Firmware: ArduCopterNG v2.7
- Receiver: Turnigy 9X8C v2

- Transmitter: Turnigy 9X with Er9X firmware update

Lipo: Turnigy NanoTech 2650 mAh 3S

Frame:

- DJI F450 FlameWheel (set to Quadcopter X mode)

- 4 brushless motors RC Timers BC-2836/11

- 2 propellers 10x6 CW

- 2 propellers 10x6 CCW

During the test flight, the wind was 17 km/h gusting 20 km/h

More infos at: http://diydrones.com/profile/JeanLouisNaudin

It may be that the blog reaches more people on RCGroups than DIY Drones.  The audience of both tends to be the same RC pilots, not electronics designers, but RC Groups tends to be frequented by more electronics designers while DIY Drones is frequented by more absolute beginners. 

Because of the lack of jobs, the Marcy class aircraft have tended to shift more towards a product than an open source hobby.  Had a rare opportunity to fly her in a large room, because someone paid to have a pretty difficult autonomous feature put in Marcy 1.  For a few days, only 2 people in the world saw a vehicle do what she did, for the cost.

Also got to fly her manually, in a large room.  The 1st manual indoor flight in her 3 year history showed exactly how stable she is. 

So that difficult autonomous feature is top secret & the brains of Marcy aircraft are becoming more secret, over time.  15 years of doing 1 open source project or another have never yielded any career benefits from the open source aspect of it.  They might care about the final product or the experience from developing it, but no-one ever offered a job because the source code was free & no-one who copied my source code to advance their job ever offered a pat on the back.

Part of the problem is it takes a lot more support than development for the open source aspect to gain enough popularity that it enhances your career.  You have to be more of an organizer & the development has to be more in line with what the masses look for in other products right now, not a science project.  Compromises like a 4Hz update when you'd like 30Hz or a clunky touch screen interface when you'd like a bulletproof tactile interface have to be accepted, because the platform has to be what the masses want right now.

In open source RC projects more than web servers, the developers tend to have jobs other than programming.  They're competent enough at programming to make a career out of it, yet they're not offered jobs & they don't seem to seek any. 

What seems to be happening is people who work on web servers are interested in software for its own sake.  People who work on RC projects are using software as a tool to solve another problem that they're more interested in.  The economy is based on very specialized roles, performing exactly 1 task for their entire life.  Programmers are supposed to write software for their entire life, without regard to the application.

If technology is allowing 1 person to do the work that required 3, years ago, shouldn't jobs become less specialized?  Business leaders are all saying no & continuing to just hire specialists.  Programmers are just supposed to program, because the amount of skill required to be competitive requires committing your full attention to just 1 thing. 

The maker revolution seems to depend on the opposite, because you don't have the budget to hire a full time, lifetime specialist in Ruby on Rails.  Money is made by generalists who fabricate, program, & solder, while the specialized work of perfecting the tools is unpaid.

Exactly which model will be required to survive is unknown.  A modern government can impose any model it wants, through flexible currency & credit.  We only know that business leaders using the traditional model continue to dominate the economy & the economy hasn't produced more than it has consumed in many years. 

Who knew there were once people who spent their entire lives lighting gas street lights. 

Kiwipedia

There were once people who spent their entire lives manually adding transaction amounts in books, before computer spreadsheets.

19th century ledger

Hard to believe the reason today's jobs seem ridiculously specialized isn't because the same type of evolution has continued.

Looks cool and costs just $72. From the Hobby King product listing:

The Target Drone is a great little FPV platform that has been specifically designed for the job and not only is the kit cheap to buy, this great little model is also cheap to get in the air.

The Target Drone features an FG fuselage that is open at the front for camera mounting, there is also a built in anti-glare cover. The model is designed for a pusher motor as you would expect and it also features a mid mounted, large hatch for battery and equipment access, the large and open fuselage area not only has plenty of room for your FPV equipment and lipoly, it also provides plenty of battery and ESC cooling from the open front fuselage. The under carriage is robust, featuring screw in alloy leg's at the rear and a steerable nose wheel up front.

The Target Drone is a pretty quick build, servo extension leads are pre-installed into the balsa wing, which is mounted on a CF rod and epoxied into place. The supplied hardware is comprensive and the overall parts count low, meaning you will be experiencing FPV in double quick time. The Target Drone, with it's tailess, swept wing is one of the most unusual and interesting EP FPV models in it's class yet and is sure to get people's attention wherever it flies!

Features:
Robust FG Fuselage
Open Front Camera Mount with Anti-Glare Cover
Large Mid-Mounted Access Hatch
Balsa Constructed Wing & Winglets
Sturdy Under Carriage
Steerable Nose-Wheel
Low Parts Count
All Hardware Included
Pusher Configuration

I thought some of you might be interested in this:

Control of Mobile Robots
https://www.coursera.org/course/conrob

Magnus Egerstedt (Georgia Tech)

About the Course
This course investigates how to make mobile robots move in effective, safe, and predictable ways. The basic tool for achieving this is "control theory", which deals with the question of how dynamical systems, i.e., systems whose behaviors change over time, can be effectively influenced. In the course, these two domains - controls and robotics - will be interleaved and we will go from the basics of control theory, via robotic examples of increasing complexity - all the way to the research frontier. The course will focus on mobile robots as the target application and problems that will be covered include (1) how to make (teams of) wheeled ground robots avoid collisions while reaching target locations, (2) how to make aerial, quadrotor robots follow paths in the presence of severe disturbances, and (3) how to locomotive bipedal, humanoid robots.

Unfortunately, it looks like we'll have to wait until next year for the course to start.

- Roy

Chris speaks DEFCON...

"The do-it-yourself (DIY), open-source drone movement is turning into a real business that could disrupt the commercial and military drone industry. It’s another case of how exploiting the curiosity of hackers can turn into a commercial opportunity.

"That’s the view of Chris Anderson (pictured), editor of Wired magazine and a drone hobbyist and businessman on the side. He spoke about this DIY trend and his own efforts to lead it in a talk at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas today."

[...]

Venture Beat

via sUAS News

Last week we implemented a fancy ticketing system that will enable us to properly track issues among customers and be able to supervise the time response of our representatives but at the same time give them access to a set of tools that will help them be a lot more efficient.

Unfortunately the systems blow up last Friday (the 20^th) so we were receiving emails from customers but any of our responses made it out, they were probably sent to the limbo.net.

The system has been shut down today, so we can catch up as quickly as possible. We are deeply sorry about this incident.

We are aiming to answer everybody between today and tomorrow (Yes Saturday).

Just got some recording software for FPV figured out and I figured I'd post a video of me and some friends flying the Bixler in a park. The conditions were pretty windy so there wasn't any fancy flying, but still some nice views :). The battery dies so the motor cuts off at the end of the flight. The sound was coming from my laptop's mic not the mic on the plane so sorry for the talking!

Nate C

I've spent last couple of days preparing my Bixler. I did some mods listed here like reinforcing wing spar and fuselage with additional carbon fiber rods and changing prop to 6x4. Even my tail was detachable using similar trick.

Today was a nice weather to go and check what have I've learned in the simulator...It didn't go well (see video).

Stock servos were cheapo. One of them were buzzing from start with no stick movement. After first crash one of them worked only in one direction. Probably one tooth of the gear broke.

Servo rod's endings that hold horns were one-time. After opening (for changing the rods for better) both broke a bit leaving horizontal bolt going through the horn too short.

I'll have to find a way to fix that wing. Maybe a few small carbon fiber rods going through the wing? Also, polymer glue that was suggested on many Polish forums doesn't look for me good - it's very flexible and does not create a strong bond.

If you have any suggestion on how to fix that wing (and fuselage) to be strong and survive my future landing let me know.

This week I tested my quadcopter. Some while ago I replyed to a blog and showed my homemade super cheap motor vibration dampers. Some poeple where sceptic. But totday I can show you that my multicopter can fly

Its's build from scratch. Wifi controlled and has aruidno compatible control board. It has a 9DOF imu, but I currently use it as a 6DOF.

Features
- Seeeduino Mega v1.1 board (arduino compatible)
- Razor 9DOF IMU from sparkfun
- LantroniX Matchport wifi module

hardware
- 4 x Motors AX-2210N 1000kv from hobbyking
- 4 x EPP 1045 props from lipoly (2xcw &  2xccw)
- 4 x Blueseries ECS 12 amp from hobbyking
- 4 x homemade vibration reduction motor mount (see previous blog)
- Turnigy 3000mAh 3S 20C Lipo Pack from hobbyking

Checkout my blog for all details and movie.
http://wipo-quadrocopter.blogspot.be/

Good news: Invensense has finally released a licence that allows open source projects such as ArduCopter/Plane to use the built-in sensor fusion processor in the MPU-6000 gyro/accel chip used in APM 2.x!

This processor, called the Digital Motion Processor (DMP), has been in the APM 2.x sensors from the beginning, but we weren't using it because Invensense had not specifically allowed their driver to be distributed with open source software. However, after much discussion, they have now written a licence that allows this. 

You can get it on the Invensense Developers Corner here. (You'll have to register first). I'm not a lawyer, so I won't attempt to analyze the language to see if there are any holes in it, but the Invensense developer relations managers and their legal team wrote it with projects like ArduPlane/Copter in mind, and they've assured me that we now have the green light to use the DMP code. (The agreement specifies the MPU-6050, which is the I2C version of the chip, but that includes the MPU-6000, which is the SPI version that we use). 

The Ardu* dev team is hard at work at implementing the DMP code in the ArduCopter/Plane code and we hope to have that ready for the next release. It will probably give you a choice of using the current DCM, running on the main processor, or the DMP running on the MPU-6000, freeing up a good bit of processing power for other functions. 

We have not done a rigorous test of the DMP vs the DCM, so we can't yet say that one is better than the other. But this licence now allows us give people the option of trying it, and if it perorms better than the DCM, or just as well but freeing up computational power, we can switch to it going forward. 

I’m pleased to announce the new APM 2.0 revision, better known as APM2.5!

But before you start screaming that you just got an APM 2.0, let me explain that there’s NO difference in performance at all between the two, the board is still the same in terms of functionally and it runs exactly the same code as APM 2.0. We just took the liberty of throwing in a few new universal connectors in there (so accessories can be cross compatible with the new PX4 and protect the user from connecting the cable in the wrong direction), some production improvements that will allows to manufacture it faster and finally we added some protection features to protect it from those reverse polarity/short circuit lovers.

Here goes the full list of changes (you already know all its features):

• No more shield/daughterboard: magnetometer and dataflash were moved to the main board, making it easier to assemble, repair and hack. 
• No more on-board GPS, but we added a new 6-pins DF13 connector for our new GPS cable standard (PX4) and kept the old but reliable Molex (EM-406) connector for old GPS compatibility. 
• The old radio-modem connector is gone and now is being replaced by our new 6-pins DF13 connector (like the GPS, because both are UART’s. Got it?), this will make it compatible with PX4 and prevents users from blowing up the UART mux. 
• We added a second protection fuse and diode (you are no longer required to solder it yourself) for extra reverse polarity and short circuit protection. 
• The old I2C connector is gone and has been replaced by our new 4-pins DF13 connector (yeah PX4 compatible. Oh wait correction… None of both (PX4 & APM2.5) are compatible with each other, we created this standard together as a team, but I have to give the average of the credits to PX4). 
• Added a “mystery” 6-pin DF13 Connector that will be used later. I know you like surprises so please stay tuned. No big deal but is really cool and will save you some soldering here and there. 
• Added “Magnetometer Jumper” that allows you to disable the on-board magnetometer, so you can attach an external one. 
• Added extra LED attached to the PPM encoder (Atmega32-U2) on pin PC7. This will allows us later to use it as PPM status indication and leave those poor TX/RX LED’s do their intended job.

Those who ordered the APM2.0 and are still waiting for it (only if is not shipped yet) will have the option to upgrade to the new APM2.5, but you will be required to wait an extra couple of weeks for production to begin. For upgrades please send us an email to sales@3drobotics.com. 

If you want to order one now you can get the assembled version here and the unassembled version here (for those who want their choice of RC connector: straight or right-angled). They will begin shipping in a week or so, but if there is a huge flood of orders, the backlog for any individual order may grow to 2-4 weeks. We're making them at the new Tijuana facility, so we hope that we'll be able to keep up with demand much better than we have in the past. We're committed to shrinking all delays, and our investment in the Tijuana facility is just one sign of this.

The APM 2.0 enclosures will not fit this new board, so new enclosures are on their way. If you buy an APM 2.5 now, you will get a $4.99 credit for a free enclosure with your next order (the enclosures should be in in about a month).  Also, APM 2.5 will ship with an adapter cable for the 3DR/Xbee radios, converting from the APM 2.5 DF13 connector to the radios' conventional 6-pin connectors.  Eagle files for the boards will be posted in the next few days.

I've given a quick tour of the big 3D Robotics factory and R&D center in San Diego before (here), but as some of you may know, we've recently opened a second manufacturing facility 30 minutes across the border, in Tijuana, Mexico. The management team and I were down there this week reviewing operations, so here are some quickie photos so you can see what it looks like.

uDrones is now a subsidiary of 3D Robotics, so one thing the new facility does is the original uDrones function: assemble, test and ship complete UAVs (quads, hexas and planes). Above is the copter assembly line. At left is Lorenzo Lopez, Operations Manager of 3D Robotics, and Jordi Munoz, CEO.

Above: The administration area. Behind it is the PCB assembly line, with the pick-and-place machine and reflow oven at left, and the QA and hand-finishing line at right. This is the new function of the factory, and most of the APM boards are now made there. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it's identical to the pick-and-place line in San Diego, which looks like this:

 The CNC room. This is where the 3DR ArduCopter frames are made. 

We'll probably keep the uDrones name, but the website is being revamped, as are all the products. All the pre-made drones will now come with APM 2.x, with the copters defaulting to the uBlox GPS and the planes having a choice between uBlox and MTK. We might have some cool exclusive color schemes, too. Better instructions and support is coming too, as part of the ramping up of the facility. 

The good news for everyone is that now that this facility is up and running, backlogs on boards should be much reduced if not eliminated. We have two full-time pick-and-place lines and we can add shifts in Tijuana as demand requires. 

Dear Friends,

after 2 month of test I'm happy to inform you that the VBrain is ready to fly.

The platform is a result of 4 years of work on ARM autopilot platform. It's last evolution of Multipilot32 platform. I'm very happy that this is the year of ARM and we are here to present our last creation : Simple , Smaller and Ready to Use.

VBrain is a good choose for OEM ready to use hardware platform.

The VBrainautopilot features include:

• 168Mhz ARM CortexM4F microcontroller with DSP and floating-point hardware acceleration.
• 1024KiB of flash memory, 192KiB of RAM.
• MEMS accelerometer and gyro, magnetometer and barometric pressure sensor.
• 8 RC Input standard PPM , PPMSUM , SBUS
• 8 RC Output at 490 hz
• 1 integrated high speed data flash for logging data
• 1 Can bus 2 i2c Bus
• 3 Serial port available one for GPS 1 for serial option 1 for serial telemetry.
• 3 digital switch (ULN2003).
• Jtag support for onboard realtime debugger.
• 1 Buzzer output.
• 1 Input for control lipo voltage
• Include in the standard Vbrain Package there is VBrain GPS module , the module support MTEK 3329 gps , Ublox module , Fastrak IT600. On the module is available optional magnetometer. You can disconnect the board and put it far from brushless motoros to solve the problem of noise on mag signal.
• Physical Dimension 6x4 cm
• Will be available a case

It's first Universal Arm hardware platform . On it is available different kind of firmware : Open or Closed source . The main firmware available is Arducopter32 , last revision is 2.7 In the next day will be available a full fly test.
This platform is fully compatible with different kind of RTOS : FreeRtos , ChibiOS , Nuttx , CooxOS .

Our first target when start to develop our hardware platform 2 years ago was to develop a simple and powerfull ide.

We develop VRIDE PRO that is a special distribution customize by FoxTeam and LaserLab guys. The Ide use Eclipse as Editor, GCC as compiler , GDB and OpenOcd as Debugger.

This is the link of ready to use Ide:

http://code.google.com/p/multipilot32/downloads/detail?name=vrobotix-ide-pro-0.0.5.7.0-WIP-Angerl%20Loiter-F1-F4.part1.rar&can=2&q=#makechanges

The ide support different kind of workspace and library. Our first target was porting all arduino and APM api to ARM platform.

The supported firmware are Arducopter32the last revision available is 2.7 the status of firmware is ready to fly .

The Workspace with last revision of code is available here :

http://code.google.com/p/multipilot32/downloads/detail?name=ACopter32_2.7_Beta1_VRBRAIN.rar&can=2&q=#makechanges

Our Team are working also on PX4 enviroment , first target was to port Arducopter32 on PX4 and PX4 enviroment to Vbrain and MP32Fx platform.

The hardware is compatible also with other opensource firmware as AutoQuad AeroQuad and OpenPilot. A lot of work are doing on IDE and firmware to share it on our platform.
We try to work to a new Opensource Standard based on high performances STM32F4 micro controller.

The price for VBRAIN with GPS Board (MTEK 3329 rev) developer revision is 199 euro.

It's also available a ready to use board with 3 days of support by team viewer at 270 euro.

There is also available a oem version of product.

We are Ready for pre order the first batch of production will be available in 3 weeks some sample is yet available.

For more info about VBrain : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/profiles/blogs/vbrain-coming

or contact virtualrobotix@gmail.com

Best

Roberto

This platform overview video shows quadrotors in flight, fixed wing hardware in the loop simulation and a novel experimental aircraft. It also introduces all PX4 hardware modules (available from 3D Robotics).

This is the second of a series of PX4 introduction posts. The first is here. We will continue our coverage in the next days with an introduction to first-time setup and calibration and installation of the programming environment (Eclipse or plain shell, arm compiler, USB flashing and/or JTAG debugging).

Interesting development. The company behind the Parrot AR drone is investing in Sensefly and Pix4D. What can we expect? When will our kids be making ortho's with their smartphones?

From Engadget:

Switzerland's EPFL has managed to catch our attention with its various UAV-related activities, and it looks like it's also been the radar of Parrot, maker of the AR.Drones. EPFL announced today that the French company is investing 7.4 million Swiss Francs (or about $7.5 million) in two companies that have been spun out of the institution: senseFly and Pix4D. As you may recall, those two have collaborated in the past, with senseFly providing the camera-equipped UAVs necessary for Pix4D's 3D mapping software. Broken down, the investment works out to 2.4 million Francs put into Pix4D and five million invested in senseFly, the latter of which is enough for Parrot to claim a majority stake company. As for the future, senseFly's CEO says that the deal will give Parrot "access to the expertise and the technology for specialized drones," while Pix4D's CEO says that the investment "reinforces our position as a leader in software for professional drones" and opens up new business opportunities. It also makes it clear, if it wasn't already, that Parrot is getting pretty serious about drones. You can find the official announcement after the break, along with a video from EPFL explaining the deal.

Introducing the USAV.

(Disclaimer - I'm not an english speaking person from birth, but thru endless re-runs of predator, Total Recall and Terminator - I have perfected my english skills.... not)

On the outer skin it's a standard 450 Quadcopter - but the brains is a new approach to the standard UAV.

Most amateur-UAV today either use a remote controlling system, an ardu-pilot or a combination of the two.

While the ardurino platform is very well made and has the most impressive features, I wanted to create a different approach. 

Being a software designer I decided to let the brains of my UAV to be based on the well known Android platform - in other words program a smartphone to fly the UAV and utilize all the nifty features and gadgetry these phones are born with (GPS, accelerometers, compass, camera, gprs radio etc..).

You may argue that it's an expensive solution, but obtaining an old Sony Ericsson X10 mini was easy and very affordable (around 25$).

So having turned my back to the wonderful world of Ardurino, I instead turned to Sparkfun's IOIO Board. 

The particular upsides of this board are amongst others;

* Works with android 1.5 and up

* Has adjustable charging for the phone

* Does not require any USB shield, can talk directly to a connected phone

* Phone connects through standard USB or bluetooth

* A very simple to use API makes it easy for a JAVA guy (like me) to talk to the IOIO board

The IOIO board can talk and recieve digital/analog/pwm etc., thus making it relatively easy to "fake" an RC receiver.

I've installed my homebrew app/autopilot on the android phone, just like a regular android app.

Granted - this is my very first QUAD, UAV and even hobby vehicle - although I make it sound easy, I actually had to go through all the tragedies, let downs and broken props as everyone else in here. Also, this particular craft is not built for beauty, and I've probably made a lot of rookie mistakes when using heavy plexi glass plates, 4 mm nuts etc..

So the navigation system of my UAV consists of an Android phone, the IOIO board and a KK controlboard.

As of now, the android utilizes the GPS for location, compass for heading and GPRS for communication and accelerometers for figuring out if a catastrophe is near (ie. if the phone is flipped, then we are likely to crash and the engines are cut off). All data is logged to the sdcard in the phone. The balancing of the quad is handled by the HK KK board.

SO! What makes the S of the USAV I hear you ask - well - my approach to flying might be somewhat different than other people flying UAV's - My vision goes toward the extreme of autonomous. I like systems that are able to make their own choises and who interact with the outside world through "normal" channels like everyone else. 

Enter the S for social - this quad can fly to various predefined waypoints just like the ardupilot, but it is also more autonomous in that you are able to give it a task, and the Quad will find a way to solve it by itself (do the dishes is NOT an option - I tried it and the wife haven't forgiven me for breaking the 14 century Ming Vases we dine and drink from). More on this subject will come....

Moreover - instead of fiddling with code and editors to tell the quad what you want - you simply use a chat client (GTalk) when you want something done or you need a status - in other words, the quad is my new best chat buddy! I will uncover more of this in an upcoming post.

The merits of the Quad is twitted by the Quad instantaneously during flight, so every masochist can follow the Quad's doings in realtime.

I believe this is the very first UAV with social skills!

So where are we currently at? (we being me and my new best flying friend). Well, we are still learning basic maneuvers - lift off, landing, turning etc.. Last flight really revealed that I have to look into adjusting the pots on the KK board to decrease a heavy oscillation that in the end rattled the KK board off it's platform resulting in a nasty crash and broken props - last chat message from the QUAD was a simple "ouch!" 

There's also problems with the compass being disturbed by the engines and finally a downward pointing sonar would be nice to make the landings more smooth.

Following the nature of blogs I will post updates and comments are very welcome :-)

Thank you for tuning in on this very first post, from a new user of this awsome site.

Fly with whatever force you believe in

-jesper

instantaneously

This might not be news to some, but for those that it is...  Amazing.  Imagine a super light material that could be both frame AND battery.  Imagine hours of electric flight time with a quad.  Or even one hour.  

New lighter-than-air material may be Holy Grail for batteries

Hi,

I was able to obtain certain number of XBEE PRO modules at 50mW with wire antenna, no chance to get them with SMA antenna. However I would like to solder a specific connector. Unfortunately, the PCB layout is different:

Type A is for SMA, uFL and WIRE     

Type B is for Small PCB patch antenna, uFL and WIRE

the second one is more popular. I was trying to figure out what is connected to what when trying to mount SMA connector, but given the fact that the SMA in xbee is sometimes mentioned to be 'Reverse Polarised SMA' I am lost about which part of the connector should be soldered to what. ohmmeter of course reveals nothing, all appears to be connected together on type B board. What the...?