Pity the fool who doesn't have his own drone, page 2

Originally posted by Required01
reply to post by Rocketman7

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Yeah it's a nice drone i saw some germans play with it that thing is amayzing.

One thing tho, just for a laugh I checked you link and saw a picture of what comes with it and one thing made me LOL pretty good




Mmmm.... paying 900,- anno 2011 and you get a VHS instruction TAPE haha that's EPIC!

Yeah really, you would have to go to the Smithsonian and borrow a machine to watch it.

I found a cheaper alternative that requires a person do some of the work themselves.

So one thing you want is a six channel controller and this is a good one FASST for the price. You can spend a fortune there just for the controller.

Then your basic quadcopter and so then with that rig it would lift one Kg.

Thats not a bad payload. But for just a little extra money, if you get more powerful brushless motors and get a 5500 mAh Lithium Polymer rc battery, and then throw in an autopilot gyro, and a plastic robotic grip, you can drop things on the zombies.

It takes 4 channels to fly the thing, that gives you two channels, one for a camera, or two for the camera serveros, or whatever.

Since you have a decent payload, you can get a separate rc controller like a gun grip 4 channel controller, put two receivers on the rig, and then you have a really high tech unit with lots of capabilities.

Launch bottle rockets at the zombies, or whatever, but it will be less likely to crash, with a gyro added even though the controller has some good failsafe mechanisms built in.

So for 7 or 8 hundred you can put together a better rig yourself.

Add some robotics

You could have a great hobby, just building the thing.
I might do that when I am finished playing with the new stuff I ordered. I bought a helicopter and want to start small before I spend real money so I know more about what I want it to do.

if you have lots of cash and are serious about taking over the world, then this is the controller you need. 18 channel. Probablytakes 4 people to operate it.

And as you would expect, any time you have a great idea, there are other people ahead of you.

Like these guys building a whisper quiet hoverbot

Now what I would want it to do is maybe not the same as those guys.

I would want it to enter a building, fly through a broken window(s) allow me to see through its robot eyes using my Glasstrons, if necessary fire a stun grenade of some type or a gas grenade, or smoke grenade or even just go in under cover of darkness and see with infrared.

Basically so that it could not only do aerial recon, but so it could go into a warehouse and look for supplies.

Ideally, it should monitor the air, to see if it is toxic, check radiation levels, and detect movement.

People are developing a method of seeing through concrete walls, but thats a big expensive rig so this one might just be able to detect sound, maybe some heat through walls, to detect movement.

I get a extra paycheck in December and chances are I will spend it on this stuff to have a nice fun project for the winter.

reply to post by Rocketman7

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Really nice setup if you go true with it! You can have a lot of fun with these things thats for sure.

I'm currently building my own RC Chopper from scratch. Making everything myself including programming the mciro controllers. My main goal is to control it by using a pc/laptop. Got the main features on it and working now but the only thing i am in a twist about is the connection type.

Don't know if i want to use regular 2.4Ghz technology (witch has several downsides), bluetooth (range limits) or using a UMTS connection. I prefer the last one but there scratching the limitless data packages here at our providers. So depending on what i will be sending and recieving i might not have enough MB for it.

Everything is basicly run on a main board with extra controllers on it per item. So motors, Gyro, camera, lights are all on separate systems connected to the main board.

It's been a real challenge so far but loads of fun and way more satisfaction because you build it from scratch. Lots of trail and error runs but that makes it more interesting .
Using 2 solar panels now on it to keep up the battery time for as much as possible.

Keep us up to date on your drone

reply to post by Rocketman7

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Well, go deep in your pockets and learn how to program, solder and make cercuits because you're gonna need it . You have a lot of things that are great but very hard to build and implement. Hope you pull it off, keep us posted.

You know if you shop around, you can do this cheaply and well.

Brushless motors for 11 bucks

A basic frame for 25 bucks

4 blades 7 bucks

Now it needs a brain...

First it needs to be able to hover in a stiff breeze by itself. You don't want it to crash, so it needs a basic autopilot.
Since we are being cheap, 124 bucks
you want to talk to it with a controller or lap top or touchpad so you need a receiver
45 bucks

Usually a controller comes with a receiver. But we might want to talk to its computer 'bwain.'

And a battery... in fact we want lots of power and lots of air time, and we want this thing to have other independent robotic systems, so lets get 2 kick ass light weight batteries for 70 bucks.


So just to get the thing to fly off your desk and around the room, so far we have spent
4 motors 48.00
frame 25.00
blades 7.00
flight
controller 125.00
receiver 45.00
batteries 70.00
=====
320.00

But for that we have a darn good start. Throw in a controller, 119 bucks

So now for 440 you have the beginnings of a good system. But you know you really want to consider the motors, to see if those are powerful enough for your needs. Some people struggle to get 1 kg payload lift, like the hoverbot, but others start at 1kg lift with their cheapest solution and weakest motors. Century's rig has a starting lift capacity of 990 grams thats just short of a kilo.

Since we are using the Arduino brain, there are thousands of open source projects that you can add on, so it can detect atmosphere, radiation, sound, anything your little heart desires including infrared camera, motion detection, even distance sensors, so it can navigate slowly through trees everything.

You just buy the sensor and fit it onto the Arduino and get the public open source code.

Object detection, to avoid collision ultrasonic sensors

connect it to an Android

Now it is smarter than us, and it can fly.

And now, it can dance.

So, this is what I am going to be doing when I get MY Christmas money.
Arduino is nice because it is solderless. Software is available for free to run things, and it is a reasonably priced robotic controller system.

reply to post by Rocketman7

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I need other stuff then is out right now, hence i making it myself. i'm a programmer and a electronics fanatic, so i build myself

No 'basic' frames or cheap motors. My chopper will way about 2KG alone so need powerful motor that can get it up without to much hassle.

Building in a 3 axis gyro, height sensor and write the software so it can cope with 'wind bursts' when outside. So it wont blow to the right when it gets hit from the left but automaticly corrects it. Also knowing the height is important so it will know how high it is. Add some envoirement sensors like 'car parking sensors' but a bit more accurate and greater detection distance for any obstical it might encounter.

I just bought a GPS module that is going into it as well so it can follow a flightpath given using GPS coordinates, this will give it range. because eventually it's out of range for my controls, so it can allways come 'home' when i loose connection.

My design will aslo use 4 motor only not in a cross (X) form but parrallel (| |) on each end one motor. It will aslo come equiped with a normal/IR camera and a Mic, the motors i have right now and props make it almost silent when hovering.

The design will further include tilting/rotating wings (of the 2 head motors at the front) so it can go forward easy and fast. Basicly this consect but only rotate to about 15-20 degrees.



The 2 motors in the back will tilt/rotate from left to right about 15-25 degrees so it can turn and manouver with ease as well. The tilting wings/tails will be controlled by either 4 servos' or 4 stepping motors. But with some research it think stepping motors will be more effecient as they do not need constant power to keep that at a 15-20 degree angle. Whereas servo's do need a constant power to keep them in that position.

Originally posted by Required01
reply to post by Rocketman7

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I need other stuff then is out right now, hence i making it myself. i'm a programmer and a electronics fanatic, so i build myself

No 'basic' frames or cheap motors. My chopper will way about 2KG alone so need powerful motor that can get it up without to much hassle.

Building in a 3 axis gyro, height sensor and write the software so it can cope with 'wind bursts' when outside. So it wont blow to the right when it gets hit from the left but automaticly corrects it. Also knowing the height is important so it will know how high it is. Add some envoirement sensors like 'car parking sensors' but a bit more accurate and greater detection distance for any obstical it might encounter.

I just bought a GPS module that is going into it as well so it can follow a flightpath given using GPS coordinates, this will give it range. because eventually it's out of range for my controls, so it can allways come 'home' when i loose connection.

My design will aslo use 4 motor only not in a cross (X) form but parrallel (| |) on each end one motor. It will aslo come equiped with a normal/IR camera and a Mic, the motors i have right now and props make it almost silent when hovering.

The design will further include tilting/rotating wings (of the 2 head motors at the front) so it can go forward easy and fast. Basicly this consect but only rotate to about 15-20 degrees.



The 2 motors in the back will tilt/rotate from left to right about 15-25 degrees so it can turn and manouver with ease as well. The tilting wings/tails will be controlled by either 4 servos' or 4 stepping motors. But with some research it think stepping motors will be more effecient as they do not need constant power to keep that at a 15-20 degree angle. Whereas servo's do need a constant power to keep them in that position.

Excellent.

I can't wait to start building mine.

I want it be whisper quiet so I can use it in the house to test it out.

I am also going for a modular design so that I can add electronics. I suppose if you put your motors in parallel it will go pretty fast.

Originally posted by Required01
reply to post by Rocketman7

---

Well, go deep in your pockets and learn how to program, solder and make cercuits because you're gonna need it . You have a lot of things that are great but very hard to build and implement. Hope you pull it off, keep us posted.

Well I am already a computer programmer, so I have that going for me.

And the Arduino has free source code already made by others, so I will just need to adapt it to my setup.

Also the Arduino does not require soldering, so that makes it even easier. The motors use connectors, and if I do have to solder anything it will be minor but I have an electric soldering iron.

The modular design of the Arduino system makes it easy to do. And as far as costs go, well, I bought a Home Patrol 1 radio frequency Scanner the other day and it works, but all I heard all day was, 2 words. One time someone said 'pardon?' and another time someone said, 'come again?'

So for almost 600 bucks, thats not much entertainment.

I am sure when TSHTF it will be full of people talking but until then, it doesn't do much.

At least with the quadcopter I can have more fun building it and doing things with it and then if TSHTF it will be useful for recon!

The next 600 I spend will be spent on cool quadcopter parts robotic gadgets and stuff.

I think I will use Android 2.2 instead of going to Android 3.x because if you look at the graph of usage in google developer, you will see less than 5 percent of code written so far is for 3 and 60 percent is for 2.2

So for my needs, for 68 bucks I can get a tablet pc with Android 2.2. Are we having fun yet????


I have been shopping for stuff in China because locally, this is what I would have to pay for a cheap Android enabled pc tablet 400 bucks


So then to give the quadcopter a range of 30 km, you need to get a 100 dollar wifi bridge and this .35 kg android tabletcould sit under the quadcopter.
BUT! You could spend a few bucks more on an Android tablet, and have GPS, and a web cam.

So then it could transmit images from the camera and if you lose connection it goes home by itself.

The advantage to this setup, is that you can just plot a course, using google maps and it will fly by itself.

Or you can control it with your home pc or other android tablet.
Really you want a better camera than a web cam though. But you know there are tons of cameras you could get and connect to the android tablet.

Want to know what is going on downtown? Send your quadcopter! How cool is that?

Guess what just came in the mail fellow zombie hunters?

My test helicopter with remote camera. So I paid 89 for the chopper and 40 for the camera.

picture in box

The nice thing about this one is that it comes with a simulator CD so you can learn to use the controller before you crash the copter.

So then when I build my quadcopter, I could use the motor and prop in the center for more lift and have a 5 prop system.

What would be nice is a tiny helium canister, for a failsafe mechanism.

That deploys a helium balloon. Since if you send your quadcopter worth 800 bucks when done containing an android pc and everything on a mission, you want redundant systems and safety systems, since if it hit a person in the head falling from the sky, that could be a problem.

So if you could deploy a parachute at least, then that would make it safer. But limping home lifted by a helium balloon with one redundant prop might work as well.

Originally posted by Rocketman7
Guess what just came in the mail fellow zombie hunters?

My test helicopter with remote camera. So I paid 89 for the chopper and 40 for the camera.

picture in box

The nice thing about this one is that it comes with a simulator CD so you can learn to use the controller before you crash the copter.

So then when I build my quadcopter, I could use the motor and prop in the center for more lift and have a 5 prop system.

What would be nice is a tiny helium canister, for a failsafe mechanism.

That deploys a helium balloon. Since if you send your quadcopter worth 800 bucks when done containing an android pc and everything on a mission, you want redundant systems and safety systems, since if it hit a person in the head falling from the sky, that could be a problem.

So if you could deploy a parachute at least, then that would make it safer. But limping home lifted by a helium balloon with one redundant prop might work as well.

Looks pretty nice Let me know how it works, but i can say right now that those choppers are a pain to fly. I have like 3 of those type of chopper that cost me between 30-60 bucks each. They spin like crazy and the battery drains quicker then your bathtub!

So unstable in mid flight that i gave up on those Last one i bought had the ability to fire rockets (plastic ones that is )

This one to be exact, first wanted to buy a r/c bike with a gyro in it that drove only on 2 wheels (so no side wheels or anything keeping it up). But when i saw this i like it more

Originally posted by Required01

Originally posted by Rocketman7
Guess what just came in the mail fellow zombie hunters?

My test helicopter with remote camera. So I paid 89 for the chopper and 40 for the camera.

picture in box

The nice thing about this one is that it comes with a simulator CD so you can learn to use the controller before you crash the copter.

So then when I build my quadcopter, I could use the motor and prop in the center for more lift and have a 5 prop system.

What would be nice is a tiny helium canister, for a failsafe mechanism.

That deploys a helium balloon. Since if you send your quadcopter worth 800 bucks when done containing an android pc and everything on a mission, you want redundant systems and safety systems, since if it hit a person in the head falling from the sky, that could be a problem.

So if you could deploy a parachute at least, then that would make it safer. But limping home lifted by a helium balloon with one redundant prop might work as well.

Looks pretty nice Let me know how it works, but i can say right now that those choppers are a pain to fly. I have like 3 of those type of chopper that cost me between 30-60 bucks each. They spin like crazy and the battery drains quicker then your bathtub!

So unstable in mid flight that i gave up on those Last one i bought had the ability to fire rockets (plastic ones that is )

This one to be exact, first wanted to buy a r/c bike with a gyro in it that drove only on 2 wheels (so no side wheels or anything keeping it up). But when i saw this i like it more

Well it sure looks good in that image!

Well I am going to build my own quadcopter so I am looking for motors. And I think maybe the scorpion motor in this helicopter might be the one.

5700 revolutions per volt.

People say they would just shoot a helicopter out of the sky. Not this one.

Well I got Douphin helicopter in the air, I won't show you how well I flew it around the room because you will be jealous. (crash, crash, crash, bang boom, parts flying off)

The toughest part was to get it to turn on, since I do not speak or read Chinese.

Trying to figure out the most basic steps with these things is a real challenge.

The simulator software it comes with is not much better. It is plug and play except you have 6 controls, on your controller, and each has a switch to make that control work the opposite. Then in the software, you have 8 controls, so two are idle, and you have to calibrate your controller, so add 8 more switches, and each has 2 check boxes, one for normal and one for reversed.

Now if you think, that all you have to do is set all the switches on the controller to normal, not reversed, you are wrong.

And if you think you have to set all the eight switches in the software to normal and not reversed, you are wrong also.

So now some of those switches need to be reversed and some do not.

Want to know how many combinations you will need to try to figure out which switches need to be reversed and which do not?

6x6x8x8
and after each you will need to do a test flight to see if you have the switches set correctly.
2,304 different combinations in order to properly adjust the controls so that it will take off and fly properly.

Now does the settings in the software mirror the settings when you actually fly it?

No it does not. So once you learn how to fly the helicopter in the simulator, the controls will be different when you try to fly it for real, making the whole thing a total and complete waste of your valuable time.

So then to turn the unit on and power up the helicopter, you must have all your controls at neutral, and the throttle as low as it will go. Power it up, connect the battery to the helicopter and nothing.

Nothing. Is it broken? No it is not broken, you just do not know the secret!

The secret is after you have done all that you must hold down the throttle lever even more,this THEN instructs the helicopter to turn on.

Without that little secret, which is nowhere to be found, not even in youtube, you are shcrewed.

So I managed to get it into the air and back down. And I think thats a win under the circumstances.

Before I add the wi fi camera to work with my video goggles, I think I will invest another hundred bucks in a autopilot system, since everywhere I look and every video I look at these things crash constantly.

So looking out through goggles all you will see is the ground approaching quickly.

Here is someone else flying the same helicopter I have. Oh it can be done, but not for any useful purpose other than just trying to keep it in the air.

reply to post by Rocketman7

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I told you they where a pain to fly . This is the reason i'm making my own. It's cheaper then buying a high-end chopper and much more fun.

Yeah but the reverse functions is for when it flies towards you. It means that left is right and right is left then back is front and front is back. So it's normal to have reversed settings on it for that perpose.

Also use the 'trim' function on it to 'try' and make it stable in mid air. Just hover (it will spin in circles like crazy) and then use the trim buttons to make it stop spinning. when it is rotating left use the right trim button or when it spins right use the left trim button until it stop spinning and simply hovers.

But again this is cheap chinese fun toys so don't expect much of it They are fun to test and play around with but try flying it true a hoop

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