Learning to crash a new kind of flying machine

I've just joined as I'm currently trying to spec. up my first multi-rotor flyer.

I am a long in the tooth model flyer, most recently of electric gliders, slope soarers and combat wings. I've been building things for decades and can make electronics, program computers and hack models together, they aren't elegant but they fly... at least for a while until I get reckless.

I'm an experienced stills landscape photographer and have done some aerials and my ambition is to use a multi rotor to make aerial landscape photographs.
 

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
Welcome aboard! I think you'll find plenty of folks around here who run the spectrum from DIY hackers to pros filming for the big screen. Always willing to lend a hand.

Have fun and fly safe!
 

An update, and a picture.

My ambition is to get a platform capable of flying a Sony A7RII for stills photography by the end of March 2016.

I do not expect to be a professional quality flyer by then, all I am hoping for is to fly that, take good stills and land it in a place far from any other person so with minimal safety worries for others at that time. The main risk will be to my wallet and pride. I need to get the camera to about 500'

What I've done since I joined in August is

1) Learned manual flying with a little indoor drone, largely manually, its supposed to be stabilised but hey... you have to be on its case continually with both sticks to keep it in the air. I'm still not entirely comfortable with rotating and flying it in every direction, so still learning, but its fun. The only problem is I'm banned from our highly suitable converted barn because it terrifies the cats.

2) Investigated how to remotely control the Olympus Air 01 camera.

This is a 'lens' camera just about identical in capability and quality to the DJI X5 camera but as a stand alone module its inexpensive. I have this controlled via an Android MK808B TV stick that has HDMI out. I have gradually come to the conclusion that the fact that this camera does not have a wired interface via USB, but requires control over either WiFi or Bluetooth rules it out for multi rotor use. This is due to a decision I don't understand by both Sony and Olympus with these camera modules, they have aimed them at mobile phone use and seemingly crippled them for hacking for aerial photography use. The MK808B is an incredible little device, the guts of a quad core android phone but only weighs about 29g with Wifi built in, HDMI out etc etc.

I'm concerned that on the multi rotor I might get interference between a) The main radio b) the video transmission for FPV and c) the small network between the MK808B and the Olympus camera.

I have also investigated a Raspberry Pi for controlling the Oly Air but it has the same wireless limitation but lacks the Android libraries that handle the live view transmission from the camera. On the other hand the Pi has its own low res camera that weighs almost nothing. I am considering using the Pi and its camera as the FPV sight and maybe then firing the high res camera separately. There is actually a physical switch on the Olympus Air, one option might be to rewire that to my own small board and then setting the camera up prior to flight with a predefined mode.

3) Started buying components to play with.

I bought a Tarot 680 pro hex kit and more recently a DYS 3 axis gimbal, both with the Olympus air in mind. I haven't built the Tarot because I've been uncertain whether to put the E600 or E800 DJI tuned motors on it. I was thinking the E800 but now I'm tending to go back to the E600 as I'm considering forgoing the Olympus Air for this machine and just build it to learn more. I have the Raspberry Pi and could use that with its low res camera just for the fun of things. It might be a good starting point. I may just use the gimbal and Oly for remote controlled photography for wildlife if I don't try to fly it.

Today I ordered the FrSky Taranis as it seems to have the capability for hacking control e.g.: up to the MK808B or a Raspberry Pi which ultimately I expect to use a a camera controller.

So while this is all a bit random, I'd be interested in any thoughts people have. Should I be so worried about having either an additional wifi or bluetooth network on the machine in addition to the FPV video? I don't mind if interference meant I lost visual but I'm more concerned about potential interference with the flight controls.

Next steps

Forgive me if I ask questions that are really my own to figure out, some of these are questions I just ask myself, I don't expect others to necessarily know the answers as I haven't provided sufficient information to answer them.

I need to decide on video transmission back to the ground. Is there a good tutorial explaining the various options for FPV? I see DJI has the lighbridge product and claims 1 mile range while some other systems only claim a few hundred meters. But lightbridge seems designed for integration with their own product range, not necessarily with a mix and match approach.

For a camera the size and weight of the A7RII how large a multi rotor would I need? The camera is smaller and lighter than a conventional DSLR but heavier than a 4/3 camera. I would be using lightweight prime lenses of around 20-55 mm focal length. I would want a set up where I can rebalance the camera with the chosen lens, all the lenses are very light.

I would want flight times of around 10 minutes.

I would want FPV range of about 1 mile with line of sight.


Goals

1) End of December 2015 : Build an experimental machine with all my radios, computer etc. on board to learn how to integrate the components.

2) January 2016 : Start build of A7RII capable platform.

3) End March 2016 : Capable of flying A7RII on short missions in remote region with low third party risks.
 

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
Seems like you've set a good and reasonable goal for yourself. Sounds like the 680Pro will be for practice - but perhaps could double as a platform for a smaller camera rig down the line. Seems like keeping it cheaper (E600) would be the way to go if you know you're going to be investing in a more expensive rig later on.

First thing I'd mention is that the 500' altitude that you mention would be 100' above the current operating safety guidelines. Keep that in mind. Safety first.

As far as 3rd party HD Downlink - check out the Connex. @SleepyC did a review here a while back. That way you wouldn't be tied to one manufacturers product if that's something you'd like to avoid.

Typically most would avoid the WiFi/BT options for possible interference - but I have run BT on a Multiwii setup with no issues. Realize that both of those would be quite limited in range.
 

Seems like you've set a good and reasonable goal for yourself. Sounds like the 680Pro will be for practice - but perhaps could double as a platform for a smaller camera rig down the line. Seems like keeping it cheaper (E600) would be the way to go if you know you're going to be investing in a more expensive rig later on.

First thing I'd mention is that the 500' altitude that you mention would be 100' above the current operating safety guidelines. Keep that in mind. Safety first.

As far as 3rd party HD Downlink - check out the Connex. @SleepyC did a review here a while back. That way you wouldn't be tied to one manufacturers product if that's something you'd like to avoid.

Typically most would avoid the WiFi/BT options for possible interference - but I have run BT on a Multiwii setup with no issues. Realize that both of those would be quite limited in range.

Thanks, I picked the height out of the hat, lower would be probably be fine for what I have in mind in any case. I need to review the safety regs. before doing anything more serious.

Maybe the BT connection isn't out of the question as the range I need is only about 1 cm. :) Something I can test to see how it all works as I have the camera and the control computer already.

I'll check out Connex. Thanks.
 

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
If your range is 1cm, then you should be good :). I saw mention of 1 mile for your FPV, which is why I mentioned the range issue. There are infrared controllers that can be hooked to your receiver that can start/stop video and trigger stills. But they will not offer more control (ISO, etc).
 

What I wanted to do was use the wifi network to allow me to control the Olympus camera, so they would be collocated on the flyer. The Olycamera outputs video via wifi to the local computer which has HDMI out. So it looks like this.

FRSky Rx ----<uplink telemetry channel> (to Android)

Camera ---<wifi>---AndroidController -- <hdmi> -- Video Tx

Flight Controller -- < OSD signal > (to Video TX mix OSD port)

So I'd be sending controls to the Android controller over USB which then does all the camera control over the wifi link with the camera allowing full remote photography controls. I might need an arduino interface board between the uplink connection and the Android computer.

Android has an HDMI out so I'd plan to integrate that with any OSD info to the video transmitter

I can output various resolutions to the HDMI channel, it doesn't have to be high res, its from sub VGA to HD switchable.

Sony cameras are theoretically controllable the same way, via an Android app to establish a connection then via a wifi API for reasonably rich (though limited) camera controls.

If the Oly camera works then the controls available are fairly extensive and image quality should equal or exceed the X5 from DJI.
 

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
If I understand correctly, any of the connection/control between your ground station (as simple or as complicated as it may be) and the multirotor is wifi, you are going to have limited range. Perhaps that will be sufficient if you choose to control the camera settings while the ship is close, and then travel further distances using those chosen settings.
 

Sorry to have to correct you. The ground station (Tx) will be a FrSky Taranis and on the flyer the FrSky Tx will talk to the Android stick on the flyer. This is unfortunately required because the camera does not have a wired interface only Wifi or BT, so there will be a short connection hopefully by BT between the camera controller (Android) and the camera on the flyer. Its just a surrogate for the short USB cable I'd prefer!

Thats why I was concerned because there is a local BT network 2.4Ghz on the flier as well as the Tx/Rx between ground station and aircraft as well as some kind of Tx/Rx for the video channel. So I saw potentially 3 2.4Ghz connections and that began to concern me. With Wifi you can choose channel. BT uses spread spectrum like the FrSky so they should negotiate bandwidth. I maybe worrying unnecessarily.
 

Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
Ah. Got it.

So how will the FrSky Rx speak with the "stick" on the multirotor?

You're right to question whether that many signals in the similar band would cause you grief. You may be fine - but obviously ground tests will let you know that before you get in too deep.
 

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Dude! Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!

I'm reading your first post and learning from you like you've been here for years. I never even knew Olympus was making a "lens style" camera body! It makes me wonder if the DJI camera is a repackaged/repurposed Olympus product at heart.

I'm heading out soon so I don't have time to read through your posts line by line but welcome to the site and I'll be looking forward to seeing the details of your project as you go (hint, hint...build thread...).

Bart
 

I'm not sure yet, but probably via an Arduino which reads the outputs from the Rx and then translates that into something I read via USB on the stick. I can use the smallest Arduino board for that they are really tiny.
 


Dude! Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!

I'm reading your first post and learning from you like you've been here for years. I never even knew Olympus was making a "lens style" camera body! It makes me wonder if the DJI camera is a repackaged/repurposed Olympus product at heart.

I'm heading out soon so I don't have time to read through your posts line by line but welcome to the site and I'll be looking forward to seeing the details of your project as you go (hint, hint...build thread...).

Bart

Yes, I will start one. Here's a picture of the lens camera. Not the lens I would fly, or the pilot I'd choose.

IMG_6154.JPG
 

Area21

Area21
As already pointed out your maximum flight height above ground level is 400 feet (121 m) in the Uk. And VLOS only or 500m. Also noted you are from London and that has massive restrictions due to the volume of air traffic so please get some local advice of Safe Flying to prevent any bad press on drone flying. And get insured. Take a look at Sky Demon Light for air traffic and NOTAMS and Google Earth Pro for visuals.
Ho and have fun.
 

As already pointed out your maximum flight height above ground level is 400 feet (121 m) in the Uk. And VLOS only or 500m. Also noted you are from London and that has massive restrictions due to the volume of air traffic so please get some local advice of Safe Flying to prevent any bad press on drone flying. And get insured. Take a look at Sky Demon Light for air traffic and NOTAMS and Google Earth Pro for visuals.
Ho and have fun.
No worries, I've moved from London and am planning to fly somewhere very remote populated mainly by sheep and cattle, but I will follow the rules.
 


I guess I'd have to compensate the 'rancher', but then I get to fill my freezer. I have flown light aircraft out of Denham and Luton over the years so I have a good idea of what is at stake.
 

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