Bartman
Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Not too long ago, I built a quad-copter using DJI's NAZA V2 and an H3-2D GoPro gimbal for an XY4 quadcopter build. It used 4S battery packs for power and worked really well. The little quad saw some use in the Spring and then sat for the most of the summer before moving on to a new owner in NYC.
When DJI's Inspire 1 recently came out there was a lot of discussion about it's capabilities compared to other products by DJI (which is natural) but it got me thinking about what a similar homebrew quad might look like if trying to get similar performance and capabilities to the Inspire. So I got to thinking about what I've got in the shop and what I could do to make a similar quadcopter.
In the video below (the horribly produced and bad excuse for a video) we first look at the overall plan and try to get an estimate of the performance and duration we might expect. The rough parameter set that I was shooting for was to have hover power around the 65% throttle position with 30 minutes of flying time while using two Turnigy Nano-Tech 6000mah packs.
Have a look at the video;
Datasheet from the rctigermotor.com website
View attachment 22053
The H3-3D gimbal for this review was supplied by GotHeliRC.com and we'll do a review of the gimbal while we're also building the heli that will fly it.
Regarding the Inspire 1 reference in the thread title, you might be saying, "Bartman, I don't see any retractable gear/arms or sassy white body shell".
Well, we're not using retracts because we're going to get full 360 degree panning capabilities using something called (say it slowly with a lot of dramatic emphasis) t..e..c..h..n..o..l..o..g..y. We're going to fly it like a standard one-man heli rig and then use a switching module from Pololu.com to convert it over to a two-man rig by simply flipping a switch. No retracts necessary, the heli's standard fixed landing gear with be panning with the camera and thus remaining out of the shot.
The module is called the Pololu 4 Channel RC Servo Multiplexer....
http://www.pololu.com/product/2806
....and it allows you to input two sets of receiver signals and it will output one rx's signals or the other's based on the position of a switching channel. Two sets of heli Yaw and camera Tilt go in, one set comes out and goes to the flight and gimbal controllers depending on the position of the Carefree mode selector switch.
So, what does this mean for you as a builder/flyer? It means you can take just about any basic quadcopter with a two-axis camera mount, and provided the flight control system has Carefree Mode (also known as Intelligent Orientation Control), you can fly it just as anyone would fly a much more complicated helicopter with one person flying and the other person panning and tilting the camera via a second remote control system.
The system activates when the pilot selects Carefree Mode. When the switch is flipped it activates the module and causes it to send Yaw and Tilt inputs to the flight controller and gimbal from the second receiver. The pilot is flying in Carefree mode so he/she doesn't need Yaw anyway so why not let the second operator use it to Pan the camera, right? Carefree mode is easy to get used to and the pilot can switch it off whenever necessary to get full control of the helicopter back.
Using this system your heli will be very capable yet will be simpler, lighter, and less expensive to build. After all, why have a Pan motor/axis at all and why have retracts (big $$$) or landing gear that leaves all of the loads of landing on the camera mount's Pan motor shaft. This might be especially useful for people trying to stay below a certain weight limit for certification purposes.
Is it perfect? It might not be as good as a dedicated brushless pan axis on a really good camera mount. If your heli is well built though and if your calibrations are really good giving you a heli that is steady in Yaw then you may be on your way to a great option in a new build. We flew this setup on two different helicopters (a NAZA V2 XY4 and a Hoverfly XY8) and both worked really well, you wouldn't know the footage we shot didn't come from a dedicated three axis, 2 person rig.
I was pursuing the idea of this kind of system a couple of years ago and, in collaboration with an electronics engineer, we designed a module to do exactly what the Pololu product will do. It was prototyped but (thankfully) before we could order a first run of the product we discovered Pololu's component and that they sell it for TEN FREAKIN' DOLLARS! We were looking at a sale price of about $60 so thank you God that we never invested the money to run that first batch!!
Hope you like the build, feel free to discuss anything and everything about it in the thread below and thank you again to site sponsor GotHeliRC.com for providing the DJI H3-3D camera gimbal for this build.
Bart
When DJI's Inspire 1 recently came out there was a lot of discussion about it's capabilities compared to other products by DJI (which is natural) but it got me thinking about what a similar homebrew quad might look like if trying to get similar performance and capabilities to the Inspire. So I got to thinking about what I've got in the shop and what I could do to make a similar quadcopter.
In the video below (the horribly produced and bad excuse for a video) we first look at the overall plan and try to get an estimate of the performance and duration we might expect. The rough parameter set that I was shooting for was to have hover power around the 65% throttle position with 30 minutes of flying time while using two Turnigy Nano-Tech 6000mah packs.
Have a look at the video;
Datasheet from the rctigermotor.com website
View attachment 22053
The H3-3D gimbal for this review was supplied by GotHeliRC.com and we'll do a review of the gimbal while we're also building the heli that will fly it.
Regarding the Inspire 1 reference in the thread title, you might be saying, "Bartman, I don't see any retractable gear/arms or sassy white body shell".
Well, we're not using retracts because we're going to get full 360 degree panning capabilities using something called (say it slowly with a lot of dramatic emphasis) t..e..c..h..n..o..l..o..g..y. We're going to fly it like a standard one-man heli rig and then use a switching module from Pololu.com to convert it over to a two-man rig by simply flipping a switch. No retracts necessary, the heli's standard fixed landing gear with be panning with the camera and thus remaining out of the shot.
The module is called the Pololu 4 Channel RC Servo Multiplexer....
http://www.pololu.com/product/2806
....and it allows you to input two sets of receiver signals and it will output one rx's signals or the other's based on the position of a switching channel. Two sets of heli Yaw and camera Tilt go in, one set comes out and goes to the flight and gimbal controllers depending on the position of the Carefree mode selector switch.
So, what does this mean for you as a builder/flyer? It means you can take just about any basic quadcopter with a two-axis camera mount, and provided the flight control system has Carefree Mode (also known as Intelligent Orientation Control), you can fly it just as anyone would fly a much more complicated helicopter with one person flying and the other person panning and tilting the camera via a second remote control system.
The system activates when the pilot selects Carefree Mode. When the switch is flipped it activates the module and causes it to send Yaw and Tilt inputs to the flight controller and gimbal from the second receiver. The pilot is flying in Carefree mode so he/she doesn't need Yaw anyway so why not let the second operator use it to Pan the camera, right? Carefree mode is easy to get used to and the pilot can switch it off whenever necessary to get full control of the helicopter back.
Using this system your heli will be very capable yet will be simpler, lighter, and less expensive to build. After all, why have a Pan motor/axis at all and why have retracts (big $$$) or landing gear that leaves all of the loads of landing on the camera mount's Pan motor shaft. This might be especially useful for people trying to stay below a certain weight limit for certification purposes.
Is it perfect? It might not be as good as a dedicated brushless pan axis on a really good camera mount. If your heli is well built though and if your calibrations are really good giving you a heli that is steady in Yaw then you may be on your way to a great option in a new build. We flew this setup on two different helicopters (a NAZA V2 XY4 and a Hoverfly XY8) and both worked really well, you wouldn't know the footage we shot didn't come from a dedicated three axis, 2 person rig.
I was pursuing the idea of this kind of system a couple of years ago and, in collaboration with an electronics engineer, we designed a module to do exactly what the Pololu product will do. It was prototyped but (thankfully) before we could order a first run of the product we discovered Pololu's component and that they sell it for TEN FREAKIN' DOLLARS! We were looking at a sale price of about $60 so thank you God that we never invested the money to run that first batch!!
Hope you like the build, feel free to discuss anything and everything about it in the thread below and thank you again to site sponsor GotHeliRC.com for providing the DJI H3-3D camera gimbal for this build.
Bart
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