124 replies to this topic

[Mr.RC-Cam]

Fascinating video: http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded

[Terry]

If they could do that outside it would be fantastic.

Terry

[Mr.RC-Cam]

Just thought I would bring this old (circa 2007) topic back into the light of day. Mainly because its now 2012 and all the issues that prevented guys like me from owning a fantastic flying Quadcopter are history. We now have an endless variety of IMU's, frame parts, and useful accessories for these things. And the prices are as cheap as dirt.

It was a long time to get to this point, but man it was worth the wait. Can't wait to see what we are flying in the next 5 years.

[Kilrah]

I've been testing a DJI ARF F550 hexacopter kit with Naza controller last week, with the newly-released GPS/compass add-on.
A total of about $700 and approx 3 hours of building time, and performance is insane even with the relatively low quality sotck motors.
About 1kg of payload, and you can put it in GPS carefree mode, leave the throttle stick in the middle dead zone (= altitude hold), slam the rudder stick on the end point, the thing yaws happily at about one full revolution per second, give full forward pitch... and watch it go away on a perfectly straight line, still yawing simultaneously, and at an altitude that stays within than 50cm. Wow.

Not open source, but darn efficient.

Edited by Kilrah, 23 June 2012 - 12:56 PM.

[Mr.RC-Cam]

Not open source, but darn efficient.

As much as I like open source, it has a dark side. If you are not too careful, it is easy to spend more time tinkering instead of flying. So I'm envious of your DJI ARF and its fancy ready to use features.