Nearly crash proof
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Nearly crash proof
Okay, that didn't work quite the way we planned. The site redesign, which we did with Ning, has got some glitches and fugly stuff. I know. Stay tuned while we sort it out. Sorry. These things happen.
UPDATE: I think we've sorted most of the gremlins out now. I'm still not in love with some of the fonts, but at least it's functional and arguably better than what we had before now.
I have received a few messages asking for a more complete blog post about my drone I've designed and am building for my High School senior project!
It took me 3 months to learn CAD, and finish designing everything about this drone, the only part I left out was the skin.. You have to fit the skin your self. I used 1mm depron foam, and over covered the whole wing, then trimmed off the excesses after pinning it to the wings, ext.
I have covered this whole plane in clear packing tape giving the whole plane a nice gloss, and very strong!! Also the carbon fiber rods for the tail booms, and the wing rods are a peice of art all on their own. I used segments of 5mm carbon fiber tubes, using 2-3mm carbon fiber rods to link the rods together.
The main wing section is permanently attached to the fuselage, how ever the wing tips pull off, allowing it to fit in your car.
In case the video dosnt load here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nulS86MtEIU
Material List for drone as shown:
(2) 9mm depron sheets [wings]
(3) 6mm depron sheets [fuselage, wing ribs, formers]
(6-7) 1mm depron sheets [skin]
(4) 5mm carbon fiber round tubes
(1-2) 2mm or 3mm carbon fiber rods
(1) 6mm balsa wood square stick [engine mount, and frame re-enforcement]
(4) Gorilla Glue [dries white 2x faster, perfect glue!]
(3-4) Clear packing tape [overall re-enforcement, also used to mount skin to wings!]
(1) spray can of tacky glue [glue cad plans to foam for accurate cuts]
Predecessor plans zip 1 Should contain all files, please message me if there are any problems!
"Drones made for U"
Udrones is happy to announce the launch of it’s first products for the amateur UAVs/DIYdrones community.
We specialize in ready to fly/out of the box systems, either assembled and tested Ardupilot systems kits or fully functional drones.
For our opening, we are pleased to offer fully functional Ardupilot-Mega Systems and for this occasion we have seven Arducotpers V1.0, all of them, ready to fly, fully tested, and ready to configure with your radio (minor configuration needed).
We really hope that you will enjoy these great products that the community is developing and supporting, thanks to all of us. Starting this Thursday February 10th. As of mid-March we will begin the constant supply of Arducotpers.
For more information visit and log in to our website www.udrones.com
Udrones is a company based in Tijuana, Mexico and fully supported by DIYdrones Store in San Diego, CA. (ask Jordi). :)
Comments and questions are very welcomed.
Sincerely,
Gigio.
I saw this lnked in a comment and thought it needed to be seen by all.
Second of a two part article.
Hi all,
just in case someone should be interested using a FunCub I posted a couple of videos showing some flight excerpts.
FunCub flight excerpts from Riccardo Kuebler on Vimeo.
Glider towing with a FunCub from Riccardo Kuebler on Vimeo.
In the first I do some aerobatics.
In the second we do an Easyglider tow.
Plane is still not equipped with any autopilot, but this could help if someone is wondering about it. There is plenty of room available for everything.
Motor is Turnigy TR 35-42D 1000kv with APC 12x6
I use a Turnigy 60A ESC. It's quiet exaggerated. I will swap with a 50A that's more than enough.
Servos are for elevator and rudder Hitec HS81, ailerons and flaps MKS DS460, tow a Turnigy DS480 (only because I had it laying around).
Current is 35A with 3300-3s lipo.
Model climbs vertically at half throttle. You can see it in the videos.
I still don't know if I will use it as a drone with autopilot or FPV or both, affaire à suivre ...
Best regards,
Ric
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri53-myR2B4
FPV (first person view) flying from a park in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Aircraft stabilized with ArduPilot (+ thermopiles) with GPS "return to launch" safety switch. Camera has fisheye lens so height appears magnified, max height achieved during flight around 120m.
Video transmitted to ground via BOB Fox 700mW system and viewed/flown with video goggles, camera is Sony 420 line with tilt. Plane is twin boom pusher 148cm span, 1500mAh 3S LiPo, motor: EMax EF2812, 8x6 prop.
Academy Of Model Aeronautics Warns About Heavy Restrictions Coming From Washington
The Academy of Model Aeronautics tells ANN that the FAA is set to place "heavy restrictions" on the hobbyists who fly model aircraft. In a circular sent to ANN over the weekend, the AMA indicates that the agency is poised to impose severe restrictions on the model aviation hobby, sport and industry that will have a potentially devastating impact on a recreational and educational activity pursued by hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts, tens of thousands of employees and an industry that generates more than $1 billion in revenue.
Read much more HERE
Built from strong yet light weight Ply wood and glass fiber materials the HobbyKing Quadcopter frame provides the perfect test bed or starting point for any Quadcopter enthusiast. The HobbyKing Quadcopter frame comes with the main components pre-assembled right out of the box. The interlocking parts make assembling the entire frame easy. Light weight nylon nuts, bolts and spacers have been included to keep the flying weight down. The Camera tilt mechanism also includes a vibration dampening system to combat rolling shutter effects.
Height: 200mm
Witdh: 550mm
Weight: 195gram (No electonics)
Skid width: 256mm
Ply Wood: 3mm
Clearance:
Underside of main frame: 115mm
Underside of Camera support: 35mm
Price: US$ 14.95
The judges have ruled! Here are the winners of T3 Season Two, Round One, the simulation round. Contestants simulated Trappy's controversial flight over NYC, but in a safe way in a flight simulator with their autopilot running a hardware-in-the-loop mission simulation.
Judge: Gary Mortimer.
Place Pilot Autopilot Points
-------------------------------------------------------------
- Marcus UDB3 10 pt
- Michael APM 8 pt
- Sys-Ak Crash4Sure 8pt
- Brian Wolfe PICPilot 5 pt
- Phil Cole APM 5 pt
All five entrants deserve a prize: they can choose a MediaTek GPS module or a DIY Drones magnetometer board, with Marcus, in first place, getting both. Winners: please PM me with your choice and address.
The next round of the T3 contest will be announced at the end of this month.
Screenshot from Sys-Ak's cool run shown below:
If Jason's onboard view of the fly-by-wire mode in the ArduCopterMega alpha code made you dizzy, here's a view from the ground. It's really cool: you fly north-south-east-west, and the code reads the magnetometer to figure out what that means in terms of quad orientation. So you can have the quad spinning and still fly it as if it were stationary--no more worrying about orientation and where the "front" is. You fly the compass, not the quad!
Here is the test rig in Flash:
Just a reminder for those who aren't following ArduCopter development closely: ArduCopterMega (ACM) is the code name of the next version of the ArduCopter code being developed by the original ArduCopter team. ACM is based on the relatively mature ArduPilotMega code on fixed wings, and is designed for full UAV functionality (missions, waypoints, ground stations, etc). There is also great work in ArduCopter development done by the ArduPirates, but that's a different code base. Choice is good!
Right now the ACM code is in private alpha, but it looks like it may be ready for public beta in a couple weeks.
acp quad - night flight from warthox on Vimeo.
Great stuff from Markus with APM electronics, a custom frame and the ArduPirates firmware.
The latest APM planner has full pid/planner/gcs while under hil/real using mavlink. Some new features since the last major release are a
simple GCS
Planning via Xbee
HIL via Xbee if you so wish
And the ability to do all the above all at once.
This latest version can be download from the SVN at http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/source/browse/Tools/trunk/ArdupilotMegaPlanner/bin/Release OR by using the Update feature in the menu.
America’s fleet of 11 big-deck aircraft carriers just got a lot closer to becoming a lot more dangerous.
On Friday afternoon, Northrop Grumman’s X-47B, a prototype for the Navy’s first carrier-capable killer
drone, flew for the first time from Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Gary at sUAS News reports:
"sUAS News recently asked FAA Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety, Peggy Gilligan about the First Person View flight undertaken in New York by Austrian Raphael Pirker.
As Associate Administrator, Ms. Gilligan leads the organization responsible for setting, overseeing, and enforcing safety standards for all parts of the aviation industry – airlines, manufacturers, repair stations, pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers, and any person or product that operates in aviation. These programs have a direct impact on every facet of domestic and international civil aviation safety.
We are very grateful that Ms Gilligan took the time to answer, heres what she said.
“This event remains under investigation by FAA as well as by some law enforcement organizations in the NYC area. We do intend to notify the operator of the investigation — although I understand he is not a US citizen and we believe he is not in the US”
It will be interesting to see which particular rules may or may not have been broken during Trappys flight."
Ok, here is my Tri-Copter frame for ArduCopterMega, thanks to Jason ;)
I did some mixing here :)
Original frame design is from rcexplorer's tri-copter:
Center plate is laser-cut from 3mm plywood, there is 2 bottom side options:
One to attach t-rex 500's landing skids
OR this battery box :)
Top plate is modified too for APM housing or original ArduCopter carrier plate:
For tail i used this servo
here is a long video to waste some time ;)
9X4.7 APC props (all CCW).
15X15mm 1mm thick 50cm long Aluminium arms...
center and servo mount (for 15X15mm arms)
the weather is bad here :(
so no videos for now :(
Good flying to ALL !!!
next will be that:
(Sandro thanks for the motors/props/esc ;) )
Here's some of the flight footage taken during our scrutineering flights at last years (2010) UAV Outback Challenge.
The airstrip is at Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia.
After a rough start last month, my ArduCopter CindiLou showed what she could do today. See the attached video for four flights. In the first three the camera is pointing at the Cindi, and in the fourth I have mounted the camera on the forward landing gear so you get to see a rather dramatic crash from the quadcopter's POV. The wind was blowing quite strongly to the south the whole time.
I re-read the section on GPS / altitude hold and realized that I had misunderstood how altitude hold works; that was probably the cause of the crash. I'm looking forward to being competent enough to this thing reliably and am going to repair the quad and get back to flying it as soon as possible. I'm quite happy with the way I mounted my Countour HD camera on the front the landing gear. There's no stabilization and yet the quad video is steadier than the human-captured video!
It still needs some work, but I thought I'd share this new flight mode. It's intended to simulate position hold using the stick input to generate a GPS offset from home. The really fun side affect is you don't need to be pointing a certain way to fly in that direction. You just point north and it flies north. To demonstrate that here is a video of ACM flying around with full right yaw. I was able to fully control it in a 5-10 mph wind even though it was spinning. The wind got the best of it for a moment there, but it recovered well. Still a little more work to do before alpha.
Jason
