Drones.

Loru

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Recently I bought simple drone in order to learn to fly however for some time I've been fascinated with high performance racing / acrobatic drones.

This is my current one:
1ccdc2e4ea1c99da615c0ff041c319a3.jpg


While I'm still learning basics of quadcopter flying, I decided to make my own one with custom frame. Here is my WIP paper build which will be updated as I progress with it.

Plywood Wonder Mk1

Feel free to post your drone related stuff here.
 

Fabri91

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My first excursion with quadcopters is a home-assembled one with 48cm hub-to-hub diameter.

nCSon25.jpg


The idea is to have it become a usable camera platform, with the addition of a gimbal.

Right now, however, the camera is mounted using an advanced velcro system:
Bc3ZWjd.jpg


So far it appears to be working reasonably well, but the addition of a small FPV camera will be done as soon as the parts for it arrive:
 

Artlav

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Hm.
Here is me doing some flips on the crashproof quad i printed.
Not the best as video quality goes.

And here is me crashing the old Flying Guillotine, that was supposed to be a camera carrier a decade ago.
Not the best as flying quality goes.

And here is a little single-piece one i printed to try out various stable mode things:
3xHMEDf.jpg


There is a world of a difference between the rate mode and stable mode, on both the controls and code sides.
It seems that for me the success is inversely proportional to quad size. :)
</brag>
 

Fabri91

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I'd like to try rate mode, but I'll do so only with the FPV system. Too afraid to smash someone's windows otherwise.
 

Urwumpe

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I have one now for a year, never managed to fly it... Had no time going to a place with it where I can legally fly with a FPV. And illegally flying is more fun if you have no neighbours around already attempting to sue somebody for using a non-FPV here....
 

Andy44

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I bought a cheap one a year or so ago. I practiced flying it in my living room, hovering over the coffee table. It has a simple camera on it, not very smooth, but it is fun to zoom around in an empty baseball field, as long as the wind isn't too high.
 

zerofay32

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I do commercial flying for an aerial survey company. We use a DJI S900 currently but are looking to upgrade to something that can fly with a dual sensor setup (Camera and Lidar). I have a DJI Phantom 2 that I fly at home for practice. I'm not super into the UAV thing but I took it as an opportunity to keep my job. :lol:
 

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steph

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I have a cheap one, fpv with a range of a few dozens meters, gotten from a toy store. The video feed gets picked up via smartphone. There's an app which lets you control it from the smartphone, but the signal gets choppy after a few meters,so I wouldn't recommend it.

Last year I bought a low-end hexa ,non-fpv but with an onboard camera. It lasted about five flights., after which its controller failed (it constantly acts as if the drone is tilted 90 degrees. (it occured in-flight, I initially thought an engine failed and kept trying to get it to right itself).

One of the more peculiar problems encountered with drones is wind, as Urwumpe said. Despite seeming maneuvrable at close range, they don't have that much forward speed . I nearly lost the hexa once after it started getting carried away by the wind above a certain height.
 

Andy44

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One of the more peculiar problems encountered with drones is wind, as Urwumpe said. Despite seeming maneuvrable at close range, they don't have that much forward speed . I nearly lost the hexa once after it started getting carried away by the wind above a certain height.

Yeah, one of the first things I did when I took it outside was switch on the camera and take it up vertically, but as soon as it was clear of the treetops the wind speed picked up and I nearly lost it. Had to fight it with full stick deflection until it got down low again.
 

Artlav

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with full stick deflection
Stable mode only, hm?
However, trying to fly it manually without a lot of practice would probably ended up worse.
 

Loru

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I think I have frame design mostly finalized

framedesign_005.png
 

Fabri91

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I see that your engine mounting holes allow for adjustment. Any reason for that? On my (bought) frame the holes are circular.

65575.jpg


The diameters chosen allow for all or almost all engines to be mounted with 4 screws.

The reason I ask is that it would seem unneccessarily difficult to mount the engines exactly in their position.
 
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Loru

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I'll redo them to 16 and 19mm spacing when my parts arrive. Only then I'll proceed with laser cutting. Also I'll have to make proper mounting for cameras but that too will be after I have parts in my hands.
 

Loru

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Taking advantage of lack of wind, I've done some flying today. This Syma quad is vastly underpowered for my liking but that was expected for $40. I need to dissasemble it and put all the plastics (body, legs etc) on the scale. Maybe I can do lighter version.
 
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Artlav

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The model I have is always gyro-stabilized, there is no pure manual mode that I can tell.
Gyro-stabilization is mandatory for it to fly at all.
However, there is another level on top of it - inertial guidance/dead reckoning with accelerometer for keeping the thing upright and be controllable in the offset mode.

The natural way of controlling a quad is stick movement equals rotation rate.
That is, in freefall the drone would have rotated at a fixed speed for every level of stick deflection.

The more advanced way of controlling, normally known as stable mode, is when the drone takes care of it's orientation via dead reckoning and some human-interactive guesswork, and so stick movement equals deflection angle or drift speed.
That is, it would move sideways at speed proportional to the stick deflection.

Piloting vs giving suggestions to autopilot.

In natural mode, you can fight the wind directly, in stable mode you are limited by what software considers safe angles and speeds.

Terminological confusion aside, from what encounters i had with commercial drones they don't seem to offer anything other than stable mode these days, so the point is moot.
 

Loru

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Ready to laser cut the thing:

lasercutting.png


---------- Post added at 07:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:10 PM ----------

So few minutes with laser cutter and I have this baby:

P_20170708_183643.jpg

P_20170708_184500.jpg

P_20170708_192708.jpg

P_20170708_192849.jpg

P_20170708_192857.jpg


Screwed part of camera mount by 3mm but that'll be fixed tomorrow.
 

Artlav

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Sigh. I wish i had a laser cutter...
 

Fabri91

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And now we're all afraid you'll build an orbital laser cannon controlled by old Soviet valve electronics found by the side of the road. :hide:
 
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