"By crossing airships with airplanes, Solar Ship is planning to build a craft that can carry heavy loads long distances with a tiny carbon footprint. Filled with helium, they soak up rays from the sun to provide the energy for forward motion and fulfill its original design challenge – carry 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lbs) of payload 1,000 kilometers (621.4 miles). The craft is heavier than air, and uses a combination of helium filling its interior and its lifting body delta wing shape to stay airborne. Solar Ship shows plans for a range of different size craft for different duties."

Source:http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/22/solar-ship-sails-the-skies-schlepps-supplies/

Hello everyone, this is my 2nd quad.  I decided to go heavy duty for aerial photography and FPV in the future, starting out lighter weight with a goPro HD for now.

Hardware:

• Rusty's BQ frame.  Extremely sturdy frame.
• I added the CM-1 landing gear and floating camera mount.  I had Trex 450 skids laying around, but i need something bigger.
• Arms are 1/2 square alu tubing from metalsdepot.com
• AVroto 2814 short shaft from montorc.com.
• APC 11*4.7 props
• Turnigy 30a Plush ESCs
• Custom power distribution harness
• Turnigy LED strips, white for front, red/green for rear.  Currently controlled with the JST plug you see hanging off the starboard side in the bottom picture.
• APM 2560 / IMU-Oilpan Rev H, mediatek GPS, magnetometer
• Weight is 1.8 kg without batts (counting the goPro) and flying weight is about 2.3 kg with the 4s4000.

In order to reduce vibration I mounted half-round balsa strips under the prop wash area on top of the arms, attached the LED strips, then covered the entire arm length with 1.1/2 inch clear heat shrink tubing.  This holds the balsa and LEDs in place, and (hopefully) softens the prop wash.

For now the GPS is mounted on the top plate under a very attractive recycled baby food container.  Still trying to decide the best way to protect the GPS module.  The red thing on the top plate is a 2 axis bubble level and doesn't fly with the quad, just there to get a good COG before takeoff.  The black loop (barely visible) coming out of the top center is zip ties allowing me to hang is from a hook to get a COG reading.

Currently running APM 2.0.42, TX is a Hitec Aurora 9 and Optima7 RX.

I purchased enough kit to add XBEE 900 telemetry, but I'm having trouble with the setup, so that will follow soon.  Also have a 1.3 GHz video kit and camera, but the TX is DOA, so that's even further out.

Flying on Turnigy 4S 4000 LiPo, I get 8~10 minutes with the goPro and some aggressive flying.

I was originally planning to build this as a hex, so at some point I'll consider ripping it apart to add more arms. 

I'm going to tweak the battery area vertical mounts to allow more room to tie down the battery on the floating plate.  Hopefully I can come up with some kind of sturdy (and somewhat quick release) allowing me to remove the bottom half of the quad during transport.

Flies great (all three times), vibration seems sufficiently dampened for the goPro.  Video coming soon.  Boss and kids effectively dampening flight operations.

Photo Credit:  Mats Gunnarsson

RQ-84Z AreoHawk is now is service in NZ after a months trial in Canada and NZ.  We are acquiring 8 Sq/km in 36 min from 400-600 AGL and endurance 90 min+ -in 25 km 'hr winds.

Sensor is Sony Nex-5, Migrating to Sony Nex-7 in one week (when they arrive).  Our Terrain Aware IP allows for dynamic operations factoring in wind direction, DEM, overlap requirements and acquisiton rate depending on ground speed.

No need for catapult.  Parachute recovery (automated) and unique Pitot tube that doesnt get blocked in rain.

Hand launch is very solid - 70 km/hr in 1 sec and high angle climb to loiter altitude.

Our photogrammetry software AREOGRAPH hi density DSM including ground control and tone, colour matched ortho mosaics delivered in 1 Sq/km tiles pixel alignment and most nadir images promyted removing parallax error.

www.hawkeyeuav.com

I finished my version of the EasyStar, which I have dubbed the "GeekStar" in honor of the show's name "MyGeekShow".

I've got it as close as possible to the EasyStar; CG, Weight, Strength, Angle of Incidence on the Wing and Motor, Throws, etc. Everything I could think of.

Why re-build an Easy Star you might ask? Well, first of they cost $80 for the basic kit, and secondly, I want to be able to modify the design at some future point as I add weight, cameras, drone gear, etc. And the sooner I learn the skills the better. Why not star with the best airplane as your example?

After my first custom quad wich took a lot of rough landings and finally crashed from about 40 meters due to disconnected battery Ive kinda overbuild this one.

Arms are 15x15x1mm aluminium profiles, centerplates are 2mm laser cut aluminium. Im using 3S batteries (5000 or 2200 mAh), ESCs are 18A Turnigy Plush and motors 900kV Turnigy from HK, driving APC SF10x4.7. M2M is 40cm (so i dont have to make extensions for ESC-motor wires. it weights about 900g with the smaller battery, flight time is about 12min (or 20min with the larger battery). 

Electronics (APM, IMU, Xbee, GPS, MAG and receiver are mounted with doublesided tape, plastic L profiles inside an CD spindle. ESCs and homemade power distribution (wil post another blog about it) are under the spindle. 

Top cover removed: the props are from the first quad and while i was learning to fly they took a lot of beating.

Inside (detail). All wires are glued to the connectors. The thing in the middle (with red heatshrink) connects all esc wires and leaves power from only one ESC for APM (with possibility to drive other electronics from other ESCs). This wa i dont need to cut 3 ESC power wires. Its made from stacking .1in headers with two 90deg rotated layers of the black plastic parts wich hold the pins.

LED lights inside arms

Side view. There are two power connectors. This quad is really small, its possible to transport it inside a notebook cardboard box with TX, charger, batteries and some spare parts.

Bottom view: centerplates, ESCs, power connectors on both sides and "landing gear" made of 6cm plastic standoffs. My GOPRO fits nicely between front arms (and under the spindle) pointing about 45deg down.

This quad flies nice in windless conditions and some tweaks in default PIDS, I hope to tweak it a bit to better fly in windy conditions. In my next frame "revision" im planning to use 10x10x1mm arms and Mikrokopter centerplates to save about 100g on weight (more than 10%).

Here's a video of my tricopter. First attempt at some editing so it's a bit rough and it's got a bit jumpy in translation.

Specification:

14x4.7" APC props on 750mm centres, AUW 1700grm. Battery 4S 5A. flight time about 20 mins. ACM running 2.0.42.

Camera Canon Ixus 130.

I'm not sure if I've posted on this before, but last September the White House Office of Science and Technology policy commissioned a great report on DIY Drones and the rest of the amateur/civilian UAV movement. It's full of terrific ideas for non-military uses for UAVs, and is complementary about this community and its potential to revolutionize the future of aerospace.

It makes several recommendations, including that DARPA use this model for its own UAVs (which it has done with UAVForge)

It rightly sees the educational potential of DIY Drones, too:

The full report is here. 

Hello,

Some time ago I fell on this :

http://www.diydrones.com/forum/topics/printed-wing-concept

that was the spark that ignite everything in my head.

I'm doing kitesurf and kitefoil and we can't reach excessive speed (over 24 kots) due to fast stabilisation problem.

In the water the small pressure differential can have enormous effect, which make you fall every time.

So I first started doing a fast IMU for my wing and now I'm trying to print it ;)

we do not have any problem of weight, the wing is lifting lot for a small surface.

Here is the pictures of my firts printing attempts ... on a mendel prusa ;)

will try to talk later on the IMU ;)

SparkFun released a new version of the UAV Dev Board today.  It comes with a new, faster processor with much more program memory and RAM, and loads of extra digital and analog IO.

MatrixPilot 3.2 is already fully compatible with the new board, including support for the expanded set of RC Inputs, Servo Outputs, analog inputs, PPM Input, and even the native OSD.

The gyros have even less drift than on the UDB3, and thanks to Bill's continued research and development, the dead reckoning IMU is rock-solid.

Another nice feature is that SparkFun dropped the price down to $100!

This is a great talk showing off the technology around Google's self driving car. Heavy use of Slam and the fusion multiple databases including Google maps.

Sebastian Thrun is also teaching AI at Stanford online here: https://www.ai-class.com/

As is customary and traditional, we celebrate every new 1,000 members here and share the traffic stats. We're now at more than 19,000 registered members. We had another month of more than a million page views. It just took us six weeks to get this latest 1,000 members--we're averaging about one new member per hour.

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 40 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.

Next stop: 20,000!

Hello all,

The Bixler Electronics Chassis is being added to the DIY Drones store today. This accessory allows you to mount your APM/Oilpan, GPS Module (Mediatek or uBlox), Differential Pressure Breakout, Receiver, and pan/tilt camera mount on your Bixler. The chassis provides access to the CLI switch, USB connector, and the Reset button as well as providing a clear view of the ‘ABC’ LED’s on the Oilpan at all times. It is also compatible with two GPS modules; the uBlox module can be mounted to the vertical plate near the back and the Mediatek gps module fits perfectly on the shelf above that (or you could use some double sided tape and stick any module anywhere). Most receivers should fit on the top base and can easily route wires to the APM beneath. The APM is mounted on the bottom and once it is mounted there is no reason to take it out as everything is accessible, but if the need arises, the bottom plate is designed to pop out more easily than the rest of the chassis so there is no need to take it all apart.

Sorry for the delay, we have been quite busy. Stay tuned for upcoming products. Happy Flying.

http://store.diydrones.com/Bixler_Electronics_Chassis_No_Pan_Tilt_p/bx-chassis.htm

http://store.diydrones.com/Bixler_Electronics_Chassis_With_Pan_Tilt_p/bx-chassis-cam.htm

skywalker-jim.param

aiplane: skywalker 

TX: futaba 12fg

LRS: 400 mhz

weight: 2250 g

battery: lipo 4 cell 5000mha

autopilot: ArduapilotMega GPS, magnetometer, airspeed indicator

video: Tx Rx 5.8 Ghz

telemetry: xtend 900 mhz , 500 mw power

There have been multiple discussions in the threads of various ArduStation posts in the last few weeks about form, function, capabilities both in conjunction with and without a GCS or planner. I have joined in on some of those discussions and what came out of many of them is that we all have different approaches to what we want out of an ArduStation-like component. Some people want a simple mechanism to just decode the LAT/LON, calculate a direction and point the antenna. Some people want it to point the antenna and pass along the data stream via another communication protocol. Still others like having the screen and buttons to tune PIDs, etc. Some wanted the whole enchilada PLUS a touchscreen to do away with the old text screen and buttons...needless to say there was not a lot of consensus - so that got us talking and a modular format became a part of the discussion.

So what I would like to propose is a new project called the ArduStation HUB. A completely modular unit that will allow people to build upon it and add each component they require. So chime in, tell me what you think. Do we even need anything like this? Is my design brilliant? lunacy? Let's crowdsource the design and I wil get them built - if we come up with something truly awesome, perhaps we can get it added to the store.  I know MANY of you have been working on various versions of hardware / software etc.  Can we come up with the modular software to match?

Parts List:

APM kit

Big Y6 - 50cm (20inch) motor2motor

2836-11 750kv motors

30a ESC

12x4.5 props

carbon fiber diy frame with HobbyKing CF landing gear

LVEZ0 sonar with resistor/cap filter

low voltage piezo on AN6

rgb led strips along the bottom of the arms for showing armed/not armed (bottom off unarmed, bottom on armed), low batt (yellow blink), dancing lights for auto-trim (multi colour blink), and gps fixed/not fixed (blue blink) connected to AN8, AN10, AN12, AN14

superbrite red, green, white, and blue 5mm leds pointing up at the motors to light them up at night so you can see the props

I changed/added a few lines in leds.pde and it works nice on my quads and hexa.

I have an Olympus e420 dslr that I would like to lift.  The camera weighs 660 grams.

I still have to build a camera mount.

Little Y6 - 30cm (12inch) motor2motor

1811-2000kv motors

6a turnigy plush ESC

4x2.5 props

carbon fiber diy frame 54g

I am going too trim the square plate on the little y6 so it doesn't look so boxy.

I will update with more photos soon.

BTW does anybody have any experience with different size props on the top and bottom?

Update:

The frame is done.  It weighs 168 grams with three legs. My gopro in the case weighs 185 grams.

With motors, esc and leds the y6 now weighs in at 810 grams.

I used 3 rgb strips on the bottom of the arms and 3 leds on the top.

I used 4 2n222 transistors from the old radio shack (its The Source in Canada now) to switch the 12v leds using the 4 AN ports designated for motor mount leds from the arducopter wiki.

I have two versions of leds.pde that I am testing out.  The first one produces nice flashes with a quick on/off and the other one shows the status of the copter mentioned above.  They both work nice and I will post a video of them in action.

Here are some more pics.

Update:

I soldered my brand new apm and had countless cold solder joints.  I bought a new soldering iron with heat control and I guess I didn't have it turned up high enough.  I mounted my mag underneath the gyros/accels with foam tape and plugged it in to the i2c port with a gps cable.  That turned out to cause me more days of misery.  The sda wire going to the mag was going open inside the heatshrink.  I could upload code but I could not enter setup cli.  It would hang right at the start.  I ended up soldering right to the pins underneath.  It works well now.  I think better than how I have it mounted on my other apm which is socketed and sits up high.  I notice in mission planner watching the yaw that it jumps around less after I calibrate the mag.  (by arming it and spinning it around like with ardupiratesNG).  I also soldered on 8 wires from a hdd cable to the an8-15 ports for leds.  And two pin headers on an6/an7 underneath the board as well for the piezo buzzer and future use.

After getting the board all touched up and working I put it on my Y6 and blew the mega2560 board!  I mixed up the black and red wires on the battery monitor cable and pop.  Smoke came from the bottom.  I have another apm so I tried the new imu shield on my old apm1280.  It still works!  12 volts thru the ground rails! Yeah!  Now I leave the extension cable attached.  The new apm2560 mux chip is toast for sure. But I was able to connect to the mega and 328p chips with a usbasp on spi ports. I already ordered a new one.  Can the blown board be fixed?

 I use a standard 3s or 4s balance extension cord for the battery monitor.  That works great combined with the piezo code.  The piezo beeps on arm and beeps on disarm.  When the battery gets low it starts to beep a little til its under the low voltage you set.  The default values I find work the best.  At the beginning of flight the battery voltage for a 3s is about 1 volt higher than actual.  But by the time it gets to 11.0 (thats where I currently have mine) it is right on.  All the way down to 10.6 it is accurate.

I upgraded the ppm encoder firmware to the latest to test out the ppm sum but have not had any luck yet.  The receiver is a hk-tr6a-v2 with 6ch ppm sum out the bat port.  It does work with wiicopter and 6ch ppm sum so I just have to play around or if somebody has any suggestions.  The ppm encoder sees the ppm signal I think because the blue ppm led changes states according to the wiki.  I like the new blink patterns of the encoder.  On the desktop you can watch the ppm led blink faster as you give more throttle.

Here it is all done.  I just want to build a pan/tilt camera mount for my Olympus E420 and Canon SD600.  I would like to connect both to the Arducam_OSD project.

Next Up:  My leds.pde

This is my copter not armed and waiting for a gps fix.  The bottom blue of the rgb strips are blinking.  Faster until it locks.

After the gps locks the bottom lights come on.

Once armed the top motor facing leds come on.  They don't look that good in the photo but when the copter is in the air at night you can clearly see the motors and props.  Makes it easy to fly at night.  They don't blink.  I had them blinking but it was annoying at night.  During the day it is better to have them blink though.

This is when the battery alarm is going off.  The front turn yellow and the back is white pink purple.  All the lights are flashing.  And the piezo alarm is going off solid.  I have the yellow b led on the apm turn on as well on low batt.

I am testing out various configurations for lights for arducopter.

I have left the basic leds.pde alone and added some statements for rgb lights.

I also turn on the yellow 'b' led on the apm when in low batt condition. (good for bench testing without lights connected)

I am constantly playing around with different lighting schemes so the leds.pde changes daily.

The current scheme works well for any type of copter.

Here is a link to a boring video showing my 2nd flight with the y6 with lights on.

I am having trouble with my motors/esc starting.  I put them on soft startup and it helps a bit.

Update:  First flight with y6 successful on 2.0.50 git.

Using 12x4.5 epp props on top and bottom.  AUW 1583g with gopro and 2650 lipo I got 6 minutes of flight.

Lipo took 2700mh to charge.

Update:  This flight I am trying out 12x3.8 apc slowfly on top and 12x4.5 epp props on bottom.

I have the ratio set at .90 in config.h but I don't know if its being used.

I got 7 minutes flight from 2650 mh lipo and put back in 2700 mh when charged.

My low batt indication comes on at 11.0v and I was able to fly for another minute or so.

My copter all up weight for that flight is 1414 grams.

I have a LV-EZ0 sonar on my y6 attached to the bottom of the leg.  Alt_hold works perfect with no pulsing up to about 8-9 ft then it starts to pulse hard and climb slowly.  I am using all default pids except for stab P&R is currently 4.4 and stab I at .005

I am going to try various prop sizes and pitches as well as different motor ratios and I will log it here.

I like real world testing!  I am looking for some current sensors so I can monitor the current to all motors individually.

Someone  trying out their 3d camera, this is the first time I have seen 3d option in youtube....