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Unfortunately, this scenario is virtually guaranteed. Actually, you might want to consider the Hobby King F-40A as they are widely considered to be better than the Plush. They have an Atmel chip so you can flash them with SimonK, which is also made easier because they have pads in a row...

Yes, it could have been a bug. But it could have also been a very common problem which is I-term ramp up while sitting on the ground. That is what I was testing in my video. After throttle up, if you sit on the ground for any time, it will wind up an I-term because it is trying to move, and it...

There might not actually be a problem that needs to be fixed. This is simply the trade-off that must be made when deciding on what tuning factors to allow. DJI really dumbs down the tuning factors, so that it is successful for 90% of people without any weird flipping problems. But then that...

If you are good with computers and software, then I think the APM is worth a try. It is harder to use, but offers way more advanced features than... well anything else on the market really. You have to be prepared for a bit of an adventure, but you'll probably learn a lot along the way. As...

Right, duh, can't believe I forgot that when I just finished talking about it. It's just such a small player that I keep overlooking it. It's pretty much an example of what the market is like. DJI dominate, it's what most people think about first. And it's not necessarily because it's the...

The S800 is a Hex, no Octa. I don't imagine you'll see a closed-source system coming out of the USA... well... ever. It's simply too much money, and they could never compete. Arducopter is sort of American, but it's open source. But then MikroKopter is OS as well (well, sort of).... I'm not...

Bart, I don't even think the Hoverfly is that badly priced. I mean, it's a bit highish, but if as you say, they actually have actual support (ie: you can talk to somebody on the phone who will actually help you) then there's a price for that obviously, that is not built into other controllers...

I'm pretty sure that code is working fine, but for whatever reason, it's not a default configuration in APM. You will have to download the source code, put #define FRAME_CONFIG OCTA_QUAD_FRAME in APM_Config.h, compile and upload manually using Arduino IDE.

That flight vid was done manually, 3rd person, from quite a distance away as anybody can see. I don't have any FPV or feedback of any kind other than what I can see from 100+m. All the movements it makes are my stick inputs, and I wasn't going for smoothness, I was just flying around, testing...

Here's a much better example of the "normal" stability of Arducopter.

Wow, that was quick. One comment from a guy who has not even flown it? So what exactly didn't you like about it? Who did the setup? Do you know that it was setup correctly? Which version of the code? I think it's somewhat disingenuous to make a statement like this based on... what exactly...

I find it is pretty accurate for many typical setups. However, it seems to not be able to predict some setups well at all. For example, we've seen people fly for over 1 hour, but I find it is impossible to build a theoretical quad which can fly for more than 30 minutes, even if I make it a...

It really depends on what you want to do. Underpowered copters are typically cheaper, lighter, and more efficient, but they're also far less capable in the wind, and in the case of Octos, if you don't have a margin of reserve power, it will still crash if you lose a motor, just like a quad...

That is a fantastic method of measuring servo performance. But not measuring servo reliability, which is what we're concerned with here.

Case in point: http://www.multirotorforums.com/showthread.php?7020-SkyJib-Octocopter-for-Filmmaking-with-RED-Epic The Octo this guy is describing has no hope in hell of flying if any one of those 8 power units fails. It will probably require 80% throttle to hover. If you lose 12% of your...

On each unit, before putting it into service? Well, one problem is that the props have a finite fatigue life, and you would have just used up a bunch of it. If you are talking about just doing sample and determining statistical reliability... yeah, we should do that. Problem is that there...

I'm not arguing, your points are all very logical. I would like to ask however, how exactly do you "inspect" a servo? A heli has 4 servos, each of which are single points of failure. Inside of each servo, you have many of the same electrical systems that you have in each power unit of a MR...

Quad: absolutely not. Hexa: probably not. Octo: it depends if you've designed it right, and not everybody has. You need a lot of reserve power.

What happens in a MR if a battery fails, but you have two batteries in parallel? Does the first battery take down the second? I'd think the battery that is failing will stop outputting amps as the voltage drops, just basic electrical theory, and you'd be flying on the first battery only. So...

That's hardly a fair comparison. A Cessna 150 costs something like $200,000 new, yet it only has 2 seats, cruises at just 75mph, and it has the interior luxury of a 1960 VW Beetle. Actually that's not true, a Beetle has more elbow room, and better heating. ;) The rest of the price goes into the...