UKC

Bought one of these for my son's birthday pressie and wow! what a great bit of kit. Anyone else bowled over by these?

We're a few days away from setting up FPV. He has a DJI Phantom. As a camera platform it has to be one of the best ways to film climbing?

In reply to woolsack: I am thinking of getting one as well. At first it would be good to use it to film climbing but in the future I plan to get into aerial mapping, fitting aerial photographs to DTMs to create 3D topography models and even using it for LIDAR surveys. I think I will get one that would pilot from a laptop and program predetermined flight missions using open source software. I assume the DJI phantom doesn't come set up to do tis as standard?

AUVs are definitely the future for security, data collection and even delivery (e.g. Amazon). It is already heavily regulated in the US and I guess they will bring in stricter regulation here as they become more popular.

In reply to woolsack:

I got a DJI Flamewheel 450.
Do the Phantom come with a GPS?

In reply to woolsack:

I have just had a look at their website, I think this may be me next toy!!

In reply to woolsack:

Recently bought a f450 flamewheel myself, great bit of kit, really needs a gimbal added though for steady camera operations, but it's great for learning to fly.

They aren't cheap though!

In reply to Mikkel:

Not as standard, but higher end models do, and it can be added to the basic models

In reply to Mikkel:

I think his is a Phantom 2, it has some kind of back to base GPS function but we haven't delved too deeply in the instruction manual yet, too keen to just go out and fly it.
Superb for night flying last night, clear skies and no wind. Kids today don't know they are born!

In reply to woolsack:

You're lucky it has an instruction manual, most of the build it yourself ones require significant patience with google and various RC forums!

In reply to woolsack:

Can anyone suggest a cheapish (£150 or so) copter, which you could get and then either upgrade it to be a good camera platform. Or which you could strip some of the parts off and reuse them on a better one.

Basically a cheap one to learn on with a good upgrade path.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Which controller have you got?
My NAZA is being a pain and take forever to arm and often will not arm without conecting it to PC first

Have had great fun using it to film fixed wing RC planes in flight.
Now if only i could afford a FPV setup for it.

In reply to Mikkel:

Im using a naza m v2, and so far its been fault less. Have you tried the gps dance (involves going round in circles holding the quad at certain angles.... seems to help calibration. -have a look on youtube theres a fair number of people demoing it)

Always plug it in outside in a good area for gps (away from tall trees/buildings)

In reply to mattrm:

I would suggest something like this http://www.buzzflyer.co.uk/Walkera/Walkera-Ladybird-6X-Version/p-209-2359/

With one of the higher end transmitters.

The ladybird in itself is capable of doing fpv flight with the right bits added, but as its quite small, its better suited to indoor or very low wind outdoor flights. It is very good for its size, and will serve well as an indoor trainer even when you have upgraded

You wont be able to move the core electronics to a bigger craft, but the transmitter can be used.

The expensive bit of larger craft are the electronics tho, so youd be looking at quite an upgrade cost for proper aerial photography.

In reply to JM:

they are regulated here, it's absolutely illegal to fly them if ANY sort of compensation is promised, or implied. the CAA demands you are licensed and have a permission for aerial work, subject o the air navigation order.

In reply to woolsack:



What a dumbarse! Lost the quad tonight. Put a DVR camera under it and for some unfathomable reason it just carried on going and we'd not bothered to investigate the back to base settings (being so keen to get it out flying). I hadn't planned on a 3 mile cross country run tonight but that was my punishment for not reading the bloody instructions. Hopefully the finder will look on the SD card and realise where it took off from. Maybe? It's a rural area so we're only talking about 5 or 6 possible houses. Looks like I'll have another cross country run tomorrow morning

In reply to woolsack:

Drone Army
vimeo.com/88180189

In reply to woolsack:

Good luck, I once spent best part of a day looking for a white glider in the snow. It had a gopro attached too.

In reply to woolsack:

The dji phantom is renowned for fly aways. I personally know 3 people that lost there phantom when it just headed home to china. The problem with ready to fly quads like these is that people don't fully understand them and how dangerous they can be when they get out of control.

I've been playing with these things for the last few years and have had a couple of near misses. A flying lawnmower is not something you want yo have coming at you at speed!

Great fun though and I can't wait to get flying again when I've finished renovating my house.

In reply to Phil Payne:


Presumably it just heads off on a course until the battery dies? If so, I'll be doing more than three miles tomorrow

In reply to woolsack:

well it will not continue after the battery have died, thats for sure

I had a fixed wing aircraft lying in the woods next to our runway for 6 months (over winter) before i randomly found it.
That flyaway was due to a burned out ESC, i could only watch as it went out of sight tailing smoke.

In reply to Mikkel:

The best way to find it is to go and buy another one!

In reply to woolsack:

I think i did and it did not work.
I do not know anyone who only got 1 RC plane

In reply to woolsack:

Look up the default failsafe for your transmitter. Most have a mode set up as default that means if the rx looses signal, it sill set trim automatically (i.e. half throttle, 5deg forward pitch). This might give you an idea of where it has headed off to.

Were you flying by line of sight?

For future reference you can get mini trackers to help relocate a bit like the trackers they put on animals. (must get myself one)

In reply to woolsack:

They are smart bits of kit and may have potential for climbing (and guidebook!) photography - but is it just me who finds them horribly noisy things, that can really spoil a nice peaceful day on the crag?

Or is that an older/bigger version?


Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Noise depends on the size of prop and how fast the motor spins them.
Small fast spinning prop make a hell of a high pitched noise.
slower spinning bigger props are not so bad.

Mine when hovering is not very noise, but make it fly faste or turning it, the noise level go up massively.

In reply to woolsack:

Quadcopter number two now. Walked another three or four miles today, no sign so back to the shop and replaced with an Phantom FC40 with which we may search for Quad number one at the weekend
Using an Android phone with this for FPV

Happy son at least

In reply to woolsack:

These quadcopters look great, I really like how far they have come since I first saw one years ago.
As one of the things they get used for is filming, how on earth would you know where the camera is pointing?

In reply to mwr72:

You guess or use FPV equipment
I did this with just pointing the quad where i wanted to film

vimeo.com/69768646

In reply to Chris Craggs:



No, it's not just you.