Quadrotors and Multirotors

These things are a blast! Got a little Blade MQX and already buying parts to build an H frame quad with full FPV setup!

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Are quads difficult to learn to fly? Want!!
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Hop over to the Shiny Things forum, there are a couple of R/C threads going.

Here are mine, both my own designs and built from scratch. The tricopter:



And the hexcopter:



And you're right, they're a blast!!!

Well done.

Edit: Yours too, Saget!

Very cool...forgot about the shiny...

They won't ever replace my 3D foamies, but for FPV these are the shit!

So what can you do with them other than fly around fast and perv it up with a camera strapped to it?

Since I got out of helis a few years ago these multirotor ships have become all the rage it seems. I never understood them much.

What are the range on these things?

With standard hobby-grade equipment, maybe 3/4 of a mile. But the real limit is your eyes. You have to be able to see it to control it, and see it clearly enough to know its orientation and direction of flight. A little speck moving across the sky isn't good enough.

You'll often hear of people doing "FPV", or first person view. A camera onboard transmits a live video feed back to the ground, giving the pilot a view as if he's in the plane. With some very specialized equipment, it's not uncommon to fly out several miles and return safely.

Thanks for the info. I live on top of a hill and think it would be cool to fly it down to the water with a go pro mounted on the bottom.

How do you land your hexcopter, and where/what is the battery setup?

I have a Mikrokopter hex - they certainly are fun

It has retracts, just for fun. Really long legs on them so it has enough ground clearance for the camera. And the battery I'm using is a 3S 4000mah. You can kinda make it out in that photo just about dead center, dark purple with a white end.

Here's a short video of it flying indoors:

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hexacopter with retracts, indoor funfly.

And here's the view from the camera, chasing shadows across the snow in my back yard:

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I have an mQX, also. I think one of FETs is bad. I hate to buy another board so I may just buy a complete BNF, may be cheaper. Or, one of the Heli Max 1SQs...

Here is my HoverThings FPV quad. It is used but I've only had it for two weeks. Love it so far!

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Currently I am running a KK 2.0 FC, which is basic but very easy to use and program, especially with the built-in LCD and menu.

Here is my next board, a Crius AIO Pro with U-Blox GPS receiver. The Crius is arduino based and runs Multiwii software. Here is a photo of the board and GPS. Motor ESCs plug into the light green ports at top. On the right are the Rx inputs. GPS is plugged into a serial port and also another port for 5V power.



And a photo of the GUI. Grey box is real-time graphing. On its right is what it's graphing: Accelerometer Roll, Pitch, Z Axis, Gyro Roll, Pitch, Yaw, Magnetometer Roll, Pitch, Yaw, and Altitude and Heading.

On the right of that is the motor layout with the grey circles representing motors and grey X representing the arms. It also shows the motor RPM.

On the far right are the channels for RC control: Throttle, Pitch, Roll, Yaw, Aux 1, Aux 2, Aux 3, Aux 4.

On the bottom left is the GPS signal and number of satellites its locked on to. 11 right now. To the right of that is the artificial horizon, and to the right of that the compass. The highlighted green boxes are the parameters I have enabled to be read including Accelerometer, Barometer, Magnetometer, and GPS. I do not have Optics or Sonar (yet )

And last but not least the red boxes with orange letters are what I set the Aux channels to do. The receiver is not hooked up at the moment but you can see what I enabled when it was. Currently it sees the Aux switches switched to Altitude Hold and Heading Hold.

I work for a big mega commercial insurance company and while attending a meeting at HQ today, they demonstrated the new quad rotor "drones" that our claims adjusters are now using to inspect and photograph storm damaged roofs. The drones are controlled by the adjusters iphones, and no more climbing up on steep icy roofs for inspections. They figure the $300 drones will save millions in injuries and contractor bills we pay for others to climb the steep roofs. I guess the FAA regs. now allow this type of commerical use, and it's pretty friggin cool. Between the drones and satellite imagery that can measure a roof very accurately, this will save a bundle....

Very cool to see that our R/C toys have grown to a point where they can provide a real benefit. Unfortunately I'm really starting to hate the word "Drone".

It seems the general public thinks a drone is a mindless, evil machine that roams the sky looking for things to kill. And if they can't find something to kill, they at least take away all our privacy. While I agree that those of us flying cameras around must be very careful where we point them, I think most people are overreacting in a big way.

Just last week in Seattle, the mayor decided to shut down the police department's experimental drone program. They got two small drones to use for things like search & rescue or hostage situations. The public outcry was so harsh and negative that there was really no other choice. Despite numerous public meetings, press releases, and live demonstrations, the people wanted no part of it. Quite disappointing, IMHO.

http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Seattle-police-to-return-drone-aircraft-4261234.php

Lots of other states & cities are heading in the same direction. You can find plenty of discussion going on over at the rcgroups.com site, in the Aerial Photography forum: http://www.rcgroups.com/aerial-photography-128/

Very cool. Does the board have any option to control a camera gimbal?

I'd rather have a Pave Low...

It has camera stabilization and camera trigger. Not sure how camera pan and tilt work into that. I haven't researched that yet.

Well...I ordered all the stuff to build my hexa today including the KK2, but I'm going to order one of those that you used as well as the GPS stuff as I can't resist the tech and the challenge.

Thanks a lot, Nick....

Oh and...Saget will be cursing you as well before long...I just have a feeling....

What makes you think I'm not already???

Gotta keep up with you guys somehow.