The first multicopter that I got to work properly was the QAV500 from GetFPV.com back when they were still FPVManuals.com. I did my first aerial photography shoot with it by hacking a canon point and shoot camera to take a picture every 3 seconds because the old GoPro camera was not good enough. I really loved this copter and it looked so cool and was fun to fly. It developed a mystery issue and I had a few minor crashes and never got it diagnosed. Finally, it had the same issue and "landed" on concrete and just exploded into a bunch of pieces (not fire, just broken everywhere). Then I realized it was an issue with the way the prop attached to the motor shaft and determined it was a faulty motor. Lesson learned! After the QAV500 was destroyed, I built out a QAV400 which is a smaller version and it performed pretty well. I bought this to specifically shoot photos because it did not have a gimbal. This is my favorite picture I shot - it was a still pic I shot out at the big wave spot Jaws on Maui. Fast forward to today and my friend Ethan has built a MXP230 fromxHover.com and has tricked it out and tuned it up to make this awesome park flying FPV video. This quad is even smaller than the QAV400 and it uses a small HD camera called the mobius HD Cam. If you are looking for a rocket to zip around with to have fun and practice your FPV skills, you might consider this little copter! Keep in mind that Ethan is a pro and it takes practice to be this good.
Comments
I have always wanted a dirt bike if I had a place to safely ride it, and I finally acquired one here in Maui. It is way more bike than I actually need and it is a somewhat scary learning curve, but I think I can grow into this bike. It is much different from the Honda CT70 you might have seen around the blog that I had in Austin before I moved to Maui. This is a 2005 Honda CFR250R - the R is for "Race" and it is not ideal, but it sure is fun to ride around! I call it the Drone Transporter. I haven't ridden the dirt road to Jaws yet, but I did take it out to Opana Point to fly yesterday and you can see the unedited (except for the cheesy YouTube music I stuck on there) video below. It was a really fun flight and having awesome Maui Scenery to fly around makes it that much more fun. The justification for this one is "I need something to get to Jaws with" because you always have to justify the purchase of things you actually do not need..! I parked the CFR on a fence post near the public access to the cliff and started walking. This cliff side was amazing and hard to capture with just an iphone camera - hopefully the camera on the drone will show the incredible beauty of this place much better! Maui has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth and I can't wait to keep exploring it from the air. Today I decided to see how the video would turn out even though I didn't have a gimbal. Here you can see my QAV400 at the takeoff spot I had picked out. This is a great FPV quadcopter because it can easily support a standalone FPV camera in addition to the GoPro. I like this setup for shooting stills on a timer and the smaller cameras usually do a little better in certain types of light so you can still tell what is going on. I would not recommend the QAV400 unless you like to tinker and build or specifically need the ability to fly FPV while using a different camera. This would be a good rig to put a Canon camera with the CHDK hacked firmware if you wanted to avoid the fisheye effect from the GoPro. The only editing I did on the video below was to take away the sound of the motors and cover it up with some cheesy youtube music. I think I had a tip over when I was messing around with the Openpilot revolution and two of the motor shafts seem to be a bit bent and cause a small amount of vibration. Good thing the QAV400 has excellent vibration damping! Time to order some replacement motors or shafts.. As usual, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to comment below or contact me. I was all excited about the CC3d board and QAV500.. until this morning and the glitch I thought was caused by flying too aggressively with the naza showed up with the CC3D, meaning the naza was not the issue. The QAV500 pitches left and forward, so i am pretty sure I have isolated the issue to the front left ESC. However, this picture shows that this drone might need to be put down. I have crashed this 3 different times, and it has always seemed to be the same random pitch left, like it loses power in the front left motor. Wish I was smarter and identified this before a total loss crash! I am so lucky it did not get stuck high in the trees.. or across the highway! Of course it did land on concrete to insure a high degree of damage! Drone crashes are exciting stuff on Sunday morning. Get your boots and pants on and lets go adventuring. Mommy was the one that found it first. Dont crash if you cant climb.. Hows dad going to get back up? I don't think he can.. Spider dad. |
Archives
June 2017
|