Photobucket sucks. Flew Meteor Crater in Northern Az today and crashed.




ETA current build specs as of 6/6/2013:
The copter is a DJI F550 kit. 318
Radio controller is a Turnigy 9xr. 50ish
Radio control Rx and Tx is a FrSky diversity 50ish
Camera gear is a 600DV from futurehobbies 500ish (camera, transmitter, harness and receiver)
Video antennas Rx and Tx 80ish
Landing gear is universal kit from ebay for 39.
And I use small keychain camers from ebay that cost about 70 each.
Telemetry for APM is 80
APM 2.5 flight controller with power wiring moduled and GPS 239 (3drobotics)
On screen display is 50. MinumOSD
FatShark Attitude flight goggles 270
Carbon Fill props 2.50 each (get a lot of these)
Batteries 3S 5000mah 40 each, 3s 2200mah (video rx/ground station 20)


A while back (two or three months ago) someone posted a thread about the cheap little mini quadcopters you can get off Amazon. Well, I fell victim to the sell and bought one. Flew it around the office during breaks n stuff and started mounting cheapo camera, crashing a lot and getting fairly good at chasing cats with it.



Then, I took it outside and went high. Too high. Gravity took over...





Not one to give up easily I fixed it and flew it again, but became bored with the fairly tame capability of the small craft. So I bought a bigger one. Somewhere in here I taught myself how to solder, and bought a bunch of soldering shit. (63/37 solder is best, right?)


This thing had to be pieced together and sourced from many sources. (Helper cat helped).









This new one has all kinds of complicated electronics and I got into wiring diagrams, PWM's, PIDs and all kinds of shit I don't really understand enough. I shouldnt even mention it. GPS chip is there too.

And a companion, open source software package.


I can program to the new hexacopter to fly autonomous flights I designate via waypoints. I can upload these while it's in the air.



I even put some LED lights on it because I knew daytime would get boring.



Learning to fly this beast has been a tough go, I've broken several propellers, found out carbon fill ones work best until I'm comfortable with solid carbon fiber blades (expensive!). Expecting hard landing I repurposed some pool noodles to help mitigate gravity.





Night flying is indeed a blast, waiting for UFO reports to start coming in.


I fly in winds I shouldnt be flying in.

Started looking at getting farther range with my controller....and learned a lot about antenna design and circular polarization vs linear polarization, frequencies, multipathing, etc.








And now I've resorted to doing stupid shit like cutting throttle midair to induce flips on expensive stuff.



I now have about $700 in camera and transmitter gear enroute so that I may fly in what they call "first person view". And now I'm looking at other aircraft like planes where I can get a 30 minute flight time. With any luck there may be a FLIR camera purchased.

So, whoever suggested the mini quadcopter, bill is being sent your way. The rest of you are cautioned to limit yourself to just the toy copter, anything bigger gets addictive FAST.

tl;dr
Saw post on ARFCOM about mini quadcopter. Got one, played with it.

Decided to try a bigger craft, got addicted. Bank account suffered.

ETA: Crashed and rebuilt.Flew US/MEXICO border.





I've been able to get all of my ground station control gear fit into a backpack, so it's a 1 man/1 trip from the car deployable.





Crashed again last night and my landing gear collapsed, broke some carbon fiber plate. So much for those.

Kinda went like this....but more violent....didnt film it.
http://youtu.be/s4kg5fJSegcLight crash





Went to the graveyard the other day and flew around a little






And after a lot of tinkering it's beginning to work right.....

















As far as my own updates, I've figured out how to do 90% autonomous flights with the hex and have run three successful "drone" flights. My only input is loading the waypoints and elevation data, liftoff and switch to auto mode. Upon the crafts return I retake control and land it.

Heart sinking feeling the first time I sent it away out of view.





Due to losing my landing gear and my lack of an appropriate mount for the video link, my FPV view video sucks. Have a new landing gear setup on the way that's more appropriate I hope. Once I get my transmitter under the craft instead of on top and in line with the motors I should have a decent video link again.

5.8 is terrible at penetrating virtually anything, trees, hexacopters, motors etc. Next video system might be a more appropriate frequency.

I also have found a thermal camera that I am going to play with. I suspect it's going to suck based upon the model and vibrations from craft I have, but we will see. It seems light enough to lift and has a video out port I've hacked into.







Boring flight over a cattle farm this morning. One cool feature of my flight controller is flight logging.



















Current configuration:

What are those balls in that bowl?

Damn...you have it bad now

Ben-Wah's. Variety pack.

Videos are teh suck cuz I can't embed or hotlink but worth watching if you fly these.

I think you might have a future with DHS.

That's really cool, I want to see some first person vids

Who the fuck is Ben Wah?

This!

But that is pretty badass. Programming in flight waypoints sounds impressive.


Here you go:





Now go chase ducks and geese.

Holy crap, haha.  Great thread.

Wow. Really impressive.  Good shit, OP.

Fuck me impressed. That looks like more fun than bangin broads in the bathroom at the bar. I'm off to find one in the sub anatomical parts section.

It's not black rifle disease, which is confusing given that it's arfcom, it's something else, it's....it's black helicopter disease!

Damn.

I would crap myself if that thing buzzed me.

I want to get addicted! Where's the link to the cheap Amazon toy?

Meh, I see black helecopters all the time.

That's some cool shit dude.



 

Looks like a lot of fun there OP.

A post about RC helicopters here got me interested in them.


Now I own a Blade MCPX, MSR, and an Align Trex 500.  The Trex 500 sounds like a jet-powered lawnmower when it spools up.

I want to do this so bad.  No time until next year!

http://www.amazon.com/Syma-Channel-2-4G-Quad-Copter/dp/B00906PKQ4



Make sure to order a couple extra batteries. Nothing worse than wanting to fly and having to wait on your battery to charge.



 

You sound a lot like me.

Are you dating the girl from the lotion shop?

Cool, I wish I could find the time to pursue your new hobby.

Keep fucking around and you will end up with a job doing that.  One of the main guys for the K-Max program r&d group was just some dude that played with RC helicopters on the weekends for 15 years and happened to work at Lockheed in another capacity.  

Very cool. Now arm it.

Cool pics; I've been teetering on the edge of getting in to this; but I keep pulling myself back from the brink of the addiction.

now if you can just make so it has rotating saw blades that can slice open another drone in seconds sending it plummeting to the grown you would really have something we could use

How much do u currently have in your UFO and what are your flight times like?  Post some links to your part sources so u can spread the disease.

Nick

Man purse in 9th pic with mirror reflection!?!?!?!?!?!
Indiana Jones has discovered the secret of the quad rotors and expanded.
Cool stuff your Copter is.

lol

all of that, but all you see is the bad decor. lol.

Great thread, OP.



You got mad skills, boy.

Its a poster of Zack Galifianakis from Hangover

Yes, it needs armament so it can take care of those PETA copters that are messing with hunters.

You could contract your services out, Youtube the results.

exactly what I was thinking

I had this vision of having one of those flying a patrol route around my house.  That would scare the crap out just about anybody.

IT'S A SATCHEL!!!



Indiana Jones carried one


(the hangover movie reference)

Looks like a movie poster

THIS is the problem.

Looks cool.

Checks Amazon for DJI f550



I'll stick watching your videos, thanks.

I'm checking amazon myself!

I wanna see Op's fly with the LIGHTS on!

Does "buy once cry once" apply here?

That's impressive.  

Imagine the capabilities of the ones the .gov owns.

Awesome. I think I will stick with my $100 version. Thanks for the PSA.

Would that be a Sexcopter?

Wow OP that's damn impressive.

Tag  ........ I hate you some days ARFCOM

pg. 2 this thread is easy to masterbate to. sorry op
 

Ya.........we're going to need a list of parts and suppliers.

Read first post, immediatley forget everything I read in the OP, scroll up to see what the balls in the bowl are, re-read OP.