A quick video using the new Mobius 1080p Camera

After a long wait the little camera showed up.  For under $100NZ this is a great alternitive to a GoPro at 6x the price.

For a detailed review of the camera go here.

Here is a quick video I did... the raw footage was clearer, but after going through iMovies and then up loading to youtude it lost some clarity. I need to figure out how to get bet upload quality.

HK330 Quadcopter slim down and lights

The little HK 330 running Turnigy SK3 1275kv motors had become my got to fun learn, practice quad. After I added some extra safety for hard landing I have not had another breakage.

But I want to slim it down and see if I could make it littler and lower profile that it currently is.

The first step to that was to try and eliminate the use of the click-clak platic box on top of the frame and relocate the KK2 board. But I still needed protection for the KK2.

After some fiddling around I found that enough room to double-sided and velcro the KK2 to the top of the Q-Brain in the middle of the frame. However I still wanted to be able to programme and change settings if required.

So I cut out the center part of the top plate, I don't think it will impact the strength a great deal, but we will find out in time and usage.

Center plate was cut with a hacksaw blade and the filed smooth.

After the KK2 board was velcroed in and the top plate screwed back on I now have a very slime low profile Quad.

Next up is the lighting, as I have to some flying in the evening clam, ie after kids in bed I got the following addition lights from hobbyking.

The police bar is very cool, you have different modes and you have blue / red on one side and yellow the other. I wired it all up and make a power harness to use one of the receiver channels to power it.

I also made this little harness to power the other additional light I will be adding. Since the receiver is only 6 channel I was running out of channels. So this has signal to got to the KK2 board for channel 5 (Arco / stabilised modes) and the positive / negative go the the 5v LED array. 

Over all the little KH330 Quad in how a much slimmer profile and lighter.




UPDATE : I re-added the heli legs minus the practice golf balls to provide protection to the battery.

BatBone V-tail Build

Well after a long wait I finally got the Batbone frame from Flitetest.com. I have not included a build post here as I posted one over on the Flitetest site.

Please follow this link to the build 

There are a couple of alterations that have been made after the first builds.

I have replaced the rear motors to be the same as the fronts, RcTimer 1000kv. I also increased the splay of the rear arms by changing out the nylon spacers with wooden ones as show below. One of the cool things on how I build the quad is the ability to change all angles easily.

I also decreased the angle of the motors from 40 degrees to 30 degrees. This better suited my flying capability and the yaw speed is more than enough.

Two Quads and a old GoPro

It has been a long while since an update. 

But there has been a lot of flying and updates. The first update is that I have abandoned making my own V-Tail. This is due to the Flitetest crew releasing their BatBone frame (Frame) and David.W making a Vtail. I love the design so will be getting one of those as the main frame for my VTail. I will use alloy tubes and the motor mounts that I have got. So look for a build blog of that once I get all the parts.

The other exciting thing is that the APM 2.5 Flight controller and GPS unit from HobbyKing arrived. Unfortunately this was right before I had to leave for 16 days on a business trip. 

My main goto quad at the moment is the 330 frame with a KK2 board, after my initial crashes and breaks I have not had break since and it flies really well. 

The only upgrade is to have the KK2 and receiver mounted inside a container, to protect from crashes. I also added some extra crash absorbers on the frame corners (Foam balls) and extra on the landing gear. Since I have done this I have not broken anything while pushing my flying envelope. 

I can fly ok 90 degrees either side of centre but still struggling with nose in. I only fly this in full acro and its great for learning and practicing on. 

I also received from a kind old friend one very old GoPro, I got this the day before I headed away, I quickly zip tied it to the 330 and took it for a flight. Some of the jello filled video is below. 

The other exciting addition is that of the APM 2.5 with GPS, I also got a case for it. I mounted this in the 450 frame for extra stability. After a few hours of getting it setup I was able to get up an flying. Here are the links I found most helpful in getting up and running.

Basic setup : http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/initial-setup/

Auto Tuning : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3OF9ih50PU

Getting 6 Flight modes Turnigy 9x :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHOAMyFRGiM

There is a wealth of information out there, just start searching.

After a couple of test flights I strapped the GoPro to the 450 frame and took it for a flight to capture some video. There is alot of jello, the frame has RCtimer 1000kv motors and 10x4.5 props all of which needed proper balancing. But I was just fun to capture some footage.

It was a cold windy day so the quad was buffered around quite a bit.

Heres a little video i made of the footage