MikroKopter - remote RC helicopter open-source civilian UAV

[Turbinator]

It costs $1500, I have to get one of these, no mater what it takes.
What would I use it for? FPV flight, photography, and videography.

[ame="http://vimeo.com/6194911"]MikroKopter - HexaKopter on Vimeo[/ame]

Since it is open sourced, there are many different designs and modules, for many different purposes, this one is right in the middle sweetspot of cost/benefit.
At $1500 it is still VERY pricey, I don't see how all those components would cost that much.

http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/HexaKopter















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[HarvesteR]

Man, that IS cool!

If you hook up a wi-fi camera to it, and a monitor next to you, you get the best thing short of actually riding it :lol:

Cheers

 

[N_Molson]

This is cool. How much time can it stay in flight ? I guess that the battery mass is the main constraint...

 

[Turbinator]

Ever since the Lithium-ion polymer battery went mainstream, it has always been in RC planes and helicopters. It has the best weight/power ratio, and the best currently available recharge cycle, well in to the thousands. As well, they do not suffer from memory charge, or power drop-off.

Since this particular helicopter... hexacopter, has a huge weight to thrust ratio it can carry a rather large Li-Po on-board, and has a half hour of run time, on average use. If you carried around a 1L bottle of coke, it would run shorter, if you only hovered in one spot, you could stretch it to 45 minutes before bingo fuel. Any additional electronics are going to cut in to that, so it's best to have a separate flight, and electronics battery. Or you could install one huge battery, but then have to cargo capacity.

And then there is a whole other level:

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[Ae7flux]

$1500 seems high then you see what it can do.

I want to fit one of these with blinking LEDs and a speaker that plays theremin music and fly it around my suburb at night.

"Nothing of terrestrial origin can possibly fly like that."

 

[Keatah]

I want to set one of these up to drop throwies. Or perhaps launch tiny model rockets. I have 10 cartons of these incredibly tiny rocket motors, so small you could put 3 of them in a bic pen. One button cell can fire off the igniter. One rocket engine to launch forward. And on contact with the target (another R/C aircraft for example) a front "fuse" shorts out and ignites a forward facing engine to spew flame into the target. hahahha...to fire forward.

 

[Turbinator]

This is insane, RC planes with full HUD and autopilots:

 

[Artlav]

$1500?
Why not just make one?

Attach an $1 camera to it:

And go take pictures:

Variations described here:
http://orbides.1gb.ru/pepela-gal.php?lng=eng
Inspiration from over there:
http://aeroquad.com

 

[jedidia]

Talk about a swarm of angry bees...

I wouldn't feel comfortable snatching that thing right out of the air like the guy in the vid. Those propellers look like they could do severe damage to a hand. Or a nose...

but darn, is that thing fast!

Why not just make one?

not everyone's an electroics wizz, I guess... :lol:

 

[Turbinator]

Main reason is stability, altitude and carry capacity. However I have seen some amazing open-source ones, specifically the KKmulticopter. Very stable, extremely powerfull, lots of active development, and good instructions. The problem here is that I can not find the total cost of going from 0 parts, to holding a complete working unit in your hands. I would have to look at the parts list, and go trough retail websites adding everything together. Plus unexpected costs, plus shipping for every part ordered from a different location, ...

 

[Artlav]

adding everything together. Plus unexpected costs, plus shipping for every part ordered from a different location, ...

Plus quality of assembly. Plus standing costs - all the equipment for RC, charging Lipos, etc.
Might end up more expensive if all you want is to have one.
But much more fun than just buying one.

 

[Rawdater]

Isn't it not like the UCGO-probe?