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As per the subject..
Anyone play with DIY drones ??

I'm kind of interested.. Looking to get a basic / amateur kit.. Would be cool if it had a GPS module and camera... and would like it to be already built, I just take it out of the box and put it together I guess.
 
I saw a few years back this one kit that had cool software and you could basically tell it where to fly (on the map) and at what altitude and then it would go off and fly that route.

I've had a look on the internet... so many choices... would like to hear if any of you folks are into this and what you have... and any recommendations ??

Thanks =)

Got my eye on this one

http://www.aeroquadstore.com/AeroQuad_Cyclone_ARF_Kit_p/aqarf-001.htm

comes with the software/board you need.. Just need to supply the radio equipment..

Kind of need to read more into it though.. Don't think it comes with the GPS or the camera.. lots of reading to go :(

I should probably just get a $50 kit in case I loose interest in a few weeks :(

 ??? Why are the amp ratings on the speed controllers so high? Idunno what kind of thrust you need to generate for something I'd guess to be pretty darn light, but 20Ax4 seems pretty high unless some people are nutty enough to try running them on LR6 alkaline batteries or something.

No idea...

Hmm trying to find the software a saw a while back.. which let you plot the route... hmmmmmmmmm can't seem to find it.. they probably all do it but I just want something nice and plug and play.. don't wana have to compile crap and what not...

I've got an Ar Drone 2.0 Power edition.

It's quite fun, but it's more of a toy.

Very interesting, but for people located in a city it's a rather dangerous endeavour. I also believe that they're effectively prohibited in many areas due to air traffic regulations or other laws in place. I'd check with the authorities first, to be safe!

I bought myself a Syma X5C. It's a very basic Quadcopter with a 2.0MP "HD" camera. You can get one for around 62$ and flying it is a lot of fun. It flies for about 7 minutes, but it's possible to buy a better battery to extend that to around 15 minutes. If you want to see some footage of the camera, just send me a PM

I also advise against using them in densely populated areas! If those things do go down, they may damage the property of other people and you may be held responsible for that! Which brings me to another question: What if those drones operate on some sort of AI, may that AI be held responsible for damages or the decisions it has made in some point in the future???

A group of my close friends have recently made a flying RC diy plane for their university project,It was able to fly simply with a controller.Drones are coming to takeover the sky very soon I guess

When the battery is about to die the software should tell the machine to go home (the place you set) using its GPS, obvious that place should be very close.

Yeah I have seen alot of more advanced (but still fairly basic) models will do this..

I'm trying to find this software I saw on a presentation some where... It was made by like the editor or owner or something of wired magazine.. He did a presentation... hmm maybe it was defcon or something like that.

But yeah.. looks like there is equipment to suit any budget from $50 upto $10,000's..

Not really 100% sure why I want one... Will probably just get a cheaper one with a camera and see how long it entertains me for.. I suppose I don't need the full autopilot/GPS/air strike capabilities just yet :p

Well, the nice thing about delivering with drones manually is you can nudge the person for a delivery tip and just call it a software glitch if they complain.

Kluge do you mean I fly it into someones head until they pay me a fee to leave them alone :p ?
Sorry I mean the glitch flies it into there head repeatedly..

Oooo found the video finally! The one with the open source software/hardware I have been looking for.
Its worth watching if you are interested in all this stuff.

"Chris anderson drones defcon 20"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysyYKPa9Rcg

If you skip to the 13 minute mark he talks about the flight planner and all the good things with the flight planner :)


*edit* Hmmm for some reason a lot of suppliers don't seem to ship out of the USA, and not to Australia....
I might have to get one of you lovely people to re-ship the items to me for a small fee for you time and effort ;)

It seems people have just used some drones to capture the progress on Apple's new Campus in Cuptertino. You know, the one that's going to look like a giant spaceship! http://www.macrumors.com/2014/08/31/aerial-video-progress-apple-campus-2/ (http://www.macrumors.com/2014/08/31/aerial-video-progress-apple-campus-2/)

Lol so I spent about 8x than I was planning to...

got the DJI Phantom 2 + vision...

It has a movable camera.. GPS, FPV (via android) and also lets you sets waypoints... Only played with it for a hour or two.. can't get the GPS to calibrate properly.. which I am hoping is the reason I can not use the waypoint setting tool properly..

I will take it back to the hobby shop tomorrow to get them to help me calibrate it and ensure the waypoint stuff is setup Ok..

Has all that return to base stuff...

Had a quick flight... its very stable.. until you lose orientaton is which is back and front and then you need to do the reverse controls :P

Should be able to have a lot of fun with it.... but yeah... faaaaaarken expensive

Ah yeah, the DJI Phantom 2! It's a great quadcopter and I wouldn't mind having one. However, it's way too expensive for me. Have fun with it and goodluck with the GPS issue!

I will, when BTC goes 10k  :-[

thanks :)
truth is hopefully i do geet a few hours of enjoyment out of it.. then set it to autopilotmde and have a bit more fun out of it..
im guressin it will be put aeay until we go somewere were it wll be interesre to ttake pics of stuff.. perhaps abovee water and wat not...

eitherwy

should be lots and lots of fun :)

farrrk its good fun :)
set it to fly a course around the local park... plotted my course.. zigzap formation.. 400m high... light up my cigarette then a few minutes it was finished and returned back to my starting point and landed its self... took some amazing footage :)

considering the price I shouldnt be so silly with it... and take it easy.. but eeh.. great fun :)
also prettty sure what I'm doing is highly illegal.. but yeah.. I'll leave that between my wallet and CASA (.AU aviation)

good thing my pilots license (single engine) expired a few years ago or i'd loose it very quickly.

pretty funny actually... I was out just before having a play.. it was dusk.. like 5-6pm.... there was a police helicopter a few km away... shot it up 180metres and got it to hover.. no joke the police helicopter did a you turn and shined the spotlight on it... descended that bastard like no bodies business and did a runner :p

while testing it.. stupidly in the bedroom i accidentally rammed myself... needless to say the props are bloody sharp.


anyways I'm not going to fool around with it anymore or do anything illegal or put anythig in danger.. cause ya its not a toy and has potential to do a shit load of damage / kill someone. definetly going to respect it abit more..

It's dangerous if you don't know what you are doing :)

I'll be getting this one: http://www.smarthome.com/parrot-ar-drone-2-0-elite-edition-quadricopter-with-hd-camera-jungle.html

It seems like it'll be a lot of fun, but right now it's not on my high priorities list, though.

Ah yeah I was going to get one very similar :) That ones looks like it is made nice and sturdy / durable.
Dunno why... but I reallly wanted one with autopilot/gps... In hindsight I should of got a slightly cheaper one just to practice with.

From my 2 hours experience lol I'd say one of the most important features is having some kinda directional guidance.. just so you can actually see which way the bloody thing is pointing. One mine you can see on the phone app which direction shes pointing.

Been bloody windy the last 2 days... annoyed cause I want to play with it and make some videos :(


Hmmm no where is that nude beach... i kid i kid.... :p

And yeah (in .AU) it is prohibited in backyards, built up areas, ovals with people playing in them... basically any where where it is fun to fly.. and with good reason ! Fly her into a car, helicopter, plane engine and gonna be spending 10-15 years thinking about never doing it again (well that and the rapings)

Maybe is because am still new here so i did not know what is called DIY drones can somebody please explain it to me.

lol I dunno why I called it that either...
It is pretty far from DIY.
You basically just unbox it.. and off it goes.....

Originally I was expecting it to  be alot more modular.. yo know.. get the drone part.. then buy the gps then this bit and that... and probably having to wire it up yourself etc etc... You can go down that DIY/modular path but the prices are more inline with if you are needing it for Military use to spy on countries :p

loving the drone
took her upto 400feet!!!

gonna upload some vids soon... Probably shouldn't take it up so high... I know planes can fly at 500 feet lol.. so yeah.. might be umm.. not good!

My only 2 problems are birds chase !! and dogs try to attack it when it comes in to land.

goto say... its a bit of a chick magnet... who would of thought :p
this hottie (real hottie.. not a IT hottie) was like.. oh is this the blah blah blah model I was going to get it.. blah blah... amazing! :]

I have the power edition.

OMG these things are fun.
However I don't get much satisfaction with the batteries I got.
I get 36 minutes with both of them.

Why not buy batteries with a higher mAh rate that match your quadcopter? My quadcopter (a Syma X5C, very small, light and basic) only flies 7 minutes with the ones I got (500 mAh). I just recently bought 600 mAh and 750 mAh batteries and it makes a huge difference. I can now fly around 10 and 13 minutes, which might not sound a lot, but for a quadcopter with almost no space for a bigger battery it's amazing. ;D

I plan to buy one  ;D

I have the official Parrot 1500mAh batteries.  I don't think there's anything else higher.

buy two ..  ;D  ;D  ;D

Always feel leery about buying something from eBay, but there are larger batteries specifically made for Parrot drones, fwiw. http://www.ebay.com/itm/PARROT-AR-DRONE-2-0-UPGRADE-BATTERY-GiFi-Power-Li-Po-/121329881566?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item1c3fd311de (there's probably a non-eBay seller somewhere)

Yeah I've switched to "naza" mode now... never fly it to far away yet.. always make it come back when 2-3 minutes left..
once that runs out you still have a few mins, but ya it might try auto land.



There is a known problem with the GPS on the Phantoms though.. it has problems finding sats and its worse when video is on... sometimes it takes a while to find 6+... it needs 6+ to on GPS mode..
I don't do much auto flying yet, but ya if it needs to come 'home' it will only do it with 6+ GPS...
The video transmitter seems to interfere with the GPS... need to take the lid off which is easy, and shield the GPS with some alum tape..
apparently it shields/fixs it up nicely... going to get some alum tape tomorrow to try it.

My battery also 5200mah (*edit* wrote 1500 orig for some reason).. got 2 of them which is good.. only takes like 20-30 minutes to charge (and runs for 20 minutes).. there expensive tho, like around $180AUD :(

I like how the Phantom people litterally sell all the parts... makes it easy to tinker around.. need to do that anways to make sure all the connections are mice and tight and motors running ok after each few flights.

If anyone is interested in getting one but doesn't want the video get the "non vision" version... heeaaps more fun with FPV. though...good thing is you can get the video latter if you wantor upgrade any part. faster motors etc etc.. found a a new forum to go on.... BTC price dropping anyways  :P

Still loving the drone... I may or may not have have reached 1000ft altitude with a small antenna mod :p
It was in a regional area with no air traffic...

Was flying around at 200ft in a park the other day.. helicopter comes out of no where (private heli, not cops) and the bastard lowers from maybe 800-100ft to 300 and circles around the drone.. the barstard was clearly trying to make it crash... it actually flew from a while away to where I was.... purposefully to take down my drone!! Anyways 400ft is legal limit so I was doing nothing wrong.

Anyways he was breaking the law by flying under 500ft in a built up area... and little did he know I have a camera attached and was filming what he was doing... He was basically flying vertically trying to get his prop wash or whatever  to make air turbulant to crash me...

Sent the video into CASA (Aus aviation gov place) and they are investigating... They are not very pleased at all at what he was doing.... His "attack" angle is incredibly dangerous.

On the one hand I feel bad because he will probably loose his licence or get a huge fine...  but on the other a) he was flying 300ft above a public park b) trying to crash my expensive drone

Anyways... once investigation is over I'll post up the video.. Its quite amazing to see a heli flying vertically in circles.. its hard to explain...
but normally a heli flies horizontally lol... like this        ------    this bastard was flying like this  \

Tall tree's around as well so he's a retarded idiot putting his own life at risk, as well as others in the area.

looking forward to that video, sounds crazy..  >:(

I have wanted to get a drone for almost a year but never really had the money.

Been looking at a drone from http://team-blacksheep.com/ , they also have some fun videos on there.

Wow that's pretty cheap for what I can get the official 1500 batteries for.  Going to get some.

Ive seen one used by a Photography company. Its pretty cool how he used the drone in taking pictures and video.

I really want to see that video

Video is now primary evidence in criminal case.... should be ready to be released..... 2018 :p

I don't have to goto court or anything... but yeah.. have been told if I release video I'll be in a lot of trouble. They did tell me once its all over I can...
Not looking good for the heli pilot... appears as if they are going after more than his license.

I am just glad that they are taking this seriously. I really didn't expect that...

-.- That's not long at all, just a couple of days.

Oh well, if you can upload soon,please be sure to do :)