Quadcopter

[Crispin]

Due to boredom and the lost of gadgets and things that fly, I decided to try my hands at building a quadcopter and roped Tony in.
It's basically a helicopter with 4 props and a computer to help stabilise it.

Here is the first decent video from a camera I attached to it. A bit windy up high but a ton of fun.
[youtube:32ftiq5n]55eZMU1CxtU[/youtube:32ftiq5n]

Now for some more crashes.

 

[Rob]

Nice. Did you do all the PID yourself?

 

[Gav Peter]

Awesome Cris Make sure you bring it to Lincomb next!!!

Is it a kit you assembled or what??

 

[Gary Stockton]

You did that to check out that Doris sunbathing next door, didn't you? I've heard about people like you!!

Just kidding - looks like a pile of fun. Coincidentally I was checking one out in the hobby shop on Thursday and thought it looked a jol!

 

[wobbly]

Is that an old train carriage in your garden....

Pete

 

[BobMurphy]

Interesting; that looks a lot of fun.

I have a Syma S006G 3.5 channel helicopter. Its a bit small for outdoor flying unless there is no wind at all.

So how does the 'Quad' steer ?? Is there a front and back ??

On the chopper you vary the power to the contra-rotating blades to vary the height, vary the power to one or other of the main rotors to give left/right and use a tail rotor to tilt the tail up (forwards) or down (backwards). I guess the Quad's on-board computer does something similar with multiple motors. However, without a central drive shaft around which to pivot, how does it do turns . . do two of the motors turn in the opposite direction to the others ?? .

(Sorry !! I'm one of those guys who always wants to look under the bonnet ).



Bob.

 

[Crispin]

It's a fantastic toy. It has an Arduino based auto pilot on which is actually doing all the hard work of controlling flight as apparently a quad is inherently unstable and would not fly. Even in a hover you can hear the different motors changing pitch to keep things in check.

Rob - I did non of the hard work. All the PID are pretty default except a few which I tweaked which seemed to make it a bit more stable (differences in frames and etc)

More info here: http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/ArduCopter

The whole auto pilot thing allows you to set way points, upload it from the laptop and it'll fly there by itself. All pretty awesome. The idea was originally for Tony and I to be able to exchange a beer. He lives about 600m LoS from me so pretty simple

Here is the auto pilot and telemetry setup (real time updating)

Wobbly - that was supposed to be my MC HQ (Man Cave HQ) but my wife invaded and filled it with stuff from her business. I was kicked out

Bob, there is a front to it normally. It can either fly X mode (as I have it) or + mode. it also has a mode where there is no front and you fly the compass. You push forward and it goes north. Pull back and it goes south. The computer does all the hard work. You can also set it into a spin (like a spinning top) and still fly fowards and backwards. Again, autopilot does all the work.
The props are opposed along an axis so to turn left, it slows one side, speeds up the other side as well as the opposite to maintain lift and the torque difference causes it to yaw.

Here is Tony flying his today:
[youtube:38eo6lgo]Lyq4_fPvZRM[/youtube:38eo6lgo]


Gav - it will be at Lincomb and if the new bits are out, I will have them to. You get to mount a device to something like a car. This then talks back to the quad and quad follows it from a pre-determined distance and hight. I was thinking of the challenges in the field. Clip one onto the truck and the quad follows from above and behind filming it. How very cool Due out in Feb / March.


Tony got some cool footage from today with an onboard camera. Paging Tony.

 

[Ben]

Gav - it will be at Lincomb and if the new bits are out, I will have them to. You get to mount a device to something like a car. This then talks back to the quad and quad follows it from a pre-determined distance and hight. I was thinking of the challenges in the field. Clip one onto the truck and the quad follows from above and behind filming it. How very cool Due out in Feb / March.

Tony got some cool footage from today with an onboard camera. Paging Tony.

that would be VERY cool.

 

[sae70]

Those are bloody awsome

 

[chadr]

Very nifty piece of tech there....

 

[TonyP]

Tony got some cool footage from today with an onboard camera. Paging Tony.

Had to go and get some dinner... burrrp!

Vid from today was a bit of a fail... batteries died after about 10secs

But here is the video I took last week (I really do need to create a youtube account...:

 

[Trevor]

Hey Tony, Great footage, looks like you managed to clear the skatepark of kids! Was that the noise or the flying . That piece of kit looks like a great bit of fun.

 

[lifeguard69uk]

Good start - have a look here - it is a German developed Mikrokopter and is a very stable aircraft in various forms - pricey tho ! Some of the guys using this gear have some very stunning results.

If you are looking for a cool camera - look up " Go-Pro Hero" the BBC use them and they not too pricey

http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/VideoListe

Best Regards

Jack K

 

[Bat21]

Am I right in thinking the propellers are powered by small electric motors rather than model petrol engines?

If so, what is the time/distance between recharges?

 

[Crispin]

yup, it's electric. A petrol would be too slow to respond to changes. When hovering in a breeze, you can hear them constantly twitching in speed trying to keep everything in balance.
As I have them, motors are doing about 10,000RPM and you get options to go to about 15k

Flight time on the batteries (4 of them) I have is around 10/12 minutes depending on how hard you fly. You can double the size of the battery for almost double flight time.
Recharge time is about 20-30 (double for the bigger ones) minutes a battery so it's a loosing battle.

If you are looking for a cool camera - look up " Go-Pro Hero" the BBC use them and they not too pricey

A Go Pro Hero 2 is on my shopping list
Will need it for Lincomb

 

[TonyP]

Couple more vids from today:

[youtube:1mherha1]UnHoIjOTyZM[/youtube:1mherha1]

[youtube:1mherha1]0vZB0piwsV4[/youtube:1mherha1]

Clearly I need more practice, and as you can see from the above vids, I have now moved to a bigger field with less obsticles (human and otherwise)

 

[Gary Stockton]

There was a loud noise outside my bedroom window last evening - wasn't you, was it, Crispin?? Slightly off-course??

Absolutely awesome flying machine, that!

 

[TonyP]

Now that would be cool, although crashing that in to the next door neighbours house might not end as nice..... Crispin, paging Crispin

 

[Crispin]

Now that would be cool, although crashing that in to the next door neighbours house might not end as nice..... Crispin, paging Crispin

I had a bit of a problem last night.

Crashed into the side of a house one road over, about 6 houses away. Motor failure

 

[BobMurphy]

Crashed into the side of a house one road over, about 6 houses away. Motor failure

Comes with the territory I guess . . .

Chinooks had a spate of gearbox failures meaning the rotors tangled and they also fell out of the sky .

Bob.