Be Excellent To Each Other

They even have head trackers driving pan/tilt camera mounts so that you can look around as you're flying the thing along.

Awesome.

This will mean you are standing blind in a field though, won't it. Just imagine flying around and pointing back at yourself while you see a ninja/pirate about to make a killing blow right behind you... you never even knew he was there...

But then as they stood over my soon to be corspe I would use my dying breaths to laugh maniacally as I kamikazed them with 1kg of foam, batteries and electronics.

Two things :
a.) That OSD plane cam thing looks awesome.
b.) Can you attach the camera to your head, and then set the OSD to read from your heart rate monitor and various other body sensors so it gives you an OSD of your own status? It would be like being the terminator.

That is quite possibly the most brilliant gadget I've heard of all year.

Want, want, want...but if I got one I fear the last thing I'd ever see would be me knocking myself out from behind.

Like the intro to Father Ted.

Yay! This arrived. I tested it and it works brilliantly, it even worked through a couple of brick walls which I wasn't expecting since it is reputed to more or less need line of sight. So it all bodes pretty well for missions up amongst the clouds.

It's a birthday present, though. So beyond checking that it works I am banned from playing with it properly until my birthday. Which isn't for another two weeks. Which is fucking ages

Ordered an OSD too, with GPS and return to home on failsafe, which is good since I suspect that my video range might exceed that of the radio I'm using for control. This means that if I do exceed the range of the radio then it should just turn around and fly itself back. It also has a stability mode so that you can switch to that and it will just maintain course and altitude until you intervene with the controls.

Going to build a multicopter over winter too, perhaps even something that can carry my SLR on a gimbal setup.

That looks like the mad note!
Can you record what it sends back?

Where can I get one?

2013 The Year of the Aerial Pervert.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... 8G_TX.html

It has video out and includes a cable, so you can record with either a laptop and capture device or a small DVR. Although anyone wanting to shoot aerial video tends to use a GoPro or at least some other separate camera for a better picture, as the downlink video isn't really very high resolution.

*ponders whether to bring his Parrot AR.Drone to the cottage*

Yes, you totally should.

I bought all the things I needed for my Riot and now I don't have time to fix it

Got all this lot fitted and tried it out yesterday. It worked perfectly, apart from the autopilot which I had realised that I'd not quite programmed correctly so when I switched it in it tried to correct a roll with the wrong aileron input so it almost instantly went into a spiral dive. Switched it off and it was fine again. Also realised afterwards that I hadn't focused the camera so next time should be a much better view.

But yeah it takes some getting used to, flying like that, you soon get very far away. Ace fun, and just a really nice little project to mess around with.

Excellent stuff, glad it's all working ok.

Had another go today. Much brighter day and having the camera actually focussed on the ground instead of the plane made a huge difference. I also stuck a little key fob camera on there too, as I still need to sort a way to record the actual downlink footage:



It's very weird flying towards yourself, seeing yourself in the video goggles and then hearing the plane go past you, really hard not to instinctively turn round to face it even though it makes no difference.

Awesome, but I'm deducting points for you not going under the goal posts.

What's the lag like?

Balls, I knew I'd forgotten to bring something to the Cottage.

Not sure there really is any to speak of. I *think* the video is analog (looks that way when it glitches anyway) so there's no encoding and decoding going on.

Had some more flights with this the other day. Really getting used to it now, when I fly above a certain height and I can see the whole town I find myself getting feelings of vertigo, it's excellent fun. Got the autopilot and return to home stuff dialled in now too. So flicking a switch (or losing the signal) triggers it and it just flys itself right back and circles overhead.

All the remaining components to build a quadcopter just turned up. So I'll begin work on that later, should be a nicely portable and stable video/photography platform. God, I'm such a geek.

Some bits:



Just need to add to that a big bundle of wires, some batteries, some radio gear and then faff around for a bit with a soldering iron then program it all and it'll supposedly fly

The actual build of this really isn't going to take long at all, everything just fits together, I've really only needed my electronic/electrical tools so far.

The motors fit neatly onto the arms and screw in from underneath, and their speed controllers sit under there too. The wires will get tidied and secured once I know that the motors are all spinning the right way:



In a neat touch the two boards which form the central hub of the machine are actually PCBs and have tracks built into them for the power going to all four of the speed controllers, so there's much less wiring to do, just trim the wires to length and solder them to the pads:



Repeat three times and I'm ready to start working out where I'm going to place all the gubbins:



So probably an hour or two's actual work all told so far. I suspect the fun part will be in getting the control board all dialled in correctly. I just hope none of the parts are DOA.

Looking good so far.

Get it built ready for the 5th and it can be a launch platform for an inverted fireworks display!

I was actually wondering what it would be like to fly it into one of the big firework displays using the video goggles, it could be quite exciting, like flying through anti aircraft fire or something. Should get some good footage too, if it didn't get hit. Not sure I'll have it all done by then, though.

I can always buy some rockets and fire them at it when it's built if you like.

With friends like Z's

... it's a lonely party.

I only need myself for a party.

It's not going to win any beauty contests but it's finished and it flies. And not too badly I don't think. Stealing and idea I saw on the Internet somewhere I put all the gubbins in a miniature butty box and then stuck that on the top, it's probably a bit heavy but it's substantial for if (when) it crashes.

After a bit of hovering in the garden our kid came round and we lashed the camera gear on there and headed for a field. I flew it around a bit while he looked on through the goggles. He said the picture was ok so I landed and gave it a go. It's not nearly as easy as flying a plane through the video link. I think I hadn't got a proper idea of where the horizon should be and so I kept on drifting away from us and couldn't understand why. In the end I got a bit near some puddles and just set it down before something went wrong.





But yes, a success, just need some weather to get a bit of time in on it and then get some decent camera gear on there.

Disaster. I was hovering it the garden yesterday, just getting some settings sorted out and something went wrong with one of the motors. I might have overtightened the prop because I think it broke in mid air. Unlike planes where quite a lot can go wrong and you can still have a pretty good chance with these there are just as many points of potential failure but all of them are absolutely critical. The thing just instantly flipped over and smashed into the floor. It's definitely made me realise why people use octocopters for carrying really expensive camera equipment, even more points of failure but lose a motor on one of those and you should have a chance.

Luckily it was only about three feet off the ground so damage is just a snapped arm and a knackered motor but it'll take a while for the new bits to get here. All good fun, though.

Aw man

Still, at least you didn't loose a camera in the process. Lessons learned for the rebuild then?

Better props next time.

Taken before the fateful flight:


I love this hobby, though. You spend all that time and money then just hope for the best. It's a like having an Xbox that when you die in a game it just explodes, or occasionally it just explodes anyway.

Dark Souls.

Maybe it left a glowing green orb on the lawn, if you go back out you could recover.

Fuck it, I'm building one of these:



We actually already have one of those exercise balls.

What could possibly go wrong?

Yeah!

I'd do it by using a single massive fan but it'd be a "ring" arrangement rather than a prop; two concentric rings of bearings, 18 inches apart, with a large void in the middle for the human and fuel source (the fan would be driven by multiple small motors attached to the rings).

Each 18 inch blade would have its angle be discretely controllable - hence there would be a large amount of computing between user input and blade output.

It'd be implemented like the Eurofighter and Airbus A380 - everything is going wrong all the time, but the computer arranges all the concurrent catastrophes so they don't quite cancel out, in just the right way.

The one tiny flaw in that guaranteed success is that you have made a helicopter but without a tail rotor, or anything else to counteract the torque.

Spoilsport.

Two superimposed rings.

Scrub that - counter-rotate the ring shell.

Can't you have the two ring-props rotate in opposite directions?

I'm not sure if you said what I said. I'm not even sure I've said what I originally said in a way that makes sense to anyone else.

"Rotate the bearing housings in the opposite direction to the blades"?

So long as the housings weigh twice the blades they can rotate at half the speed, or something.

Ah, I misunderstood your "two concentric rings" bit. Yeah - just have another one on top - it'd help the yaw rotation too, as you'd just slow one ring down.

Presumably the blades could be (~)half the length with superimposed counter-rotators too.

Is this where I do a Kickstarter?

Hmm, all the mechanical complexity of a conventional helicopter and more, the computing requirements of a multicopter, less efficiency and none of the advantages of either.

Where do I sign up?

Just to spite you, I'm going to use a Wankel to generate power.

*sniggers*

Quadcopter is now fixed and with some serious improvements. I have added some LEDs.

Hell yeah.

I'm currently in negotiations with Santa for a Tamiya buggy.

Think ill be buying the radio gear* and just getting the actual car kit for Christmas (if I'm good). Yeah, I know you can get mo fo yo dough with other kits but I always wanted a Tamiya as a kid.

*Accoms stuff ok Mark? Seen bundled controllers battery and quick chargers for £69.