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Posts posted by Spitfire76
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hexacopter
in DIY
On 12/30/2020 at 11:26 AM, mystical said:Hello so I am building a Qwinout F550 hex copter and I am at a point where I'm stuck. I had accidentally ordered without the transmitter, receiver and battery. After relizing that i ordered the parts needed and thought i had everything. I put everything together and then was able to bind the reciever to the transmitter and the motors were able to spin the smallest amount. But when i went to lift the throttle the motors wouldnt spin. I wasnt sure whats wrong because binded everything and its obvious the motors do work. And is there a way i could get it up and running without having to use betaflight.
I'm surprised these kits are still being sold as they are realty dated and not good value for money. If you want to build a DIY drone its better to look into these open source projects. There are forums and facebook groups so you get plenty of help if needed.
I had quick look at that kit and it seems to include the frame, motors, ESCs, props and a flight controller that can run some "2012" software. You might be able to use most of the parts but I would get a more up to date flight controller and install Arducopter although I did not see if that kit included a compass/GPS module.
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On 12/29/2020 at 7:21 PM, Grand_Pubah said:
Just a heads up. I hope this helps someone, cause I know it has helped me, I found out how I can legally fly drones in Roseville, CA with causing any grief.
The website; http://roseville.ca.us/news/archive_news/2018_archive_news/before_you_fly_a_drone___.
You can apply for a permit to fly in 3 parks in the city for $5 annually. I know it isn't much, but it's something.
Thank you and stay safe.
Keith
I've purchased that Roseville Parks drone permit a couple of times and have flown in the designated area (soccer field #2) in Maidu Park on several occasions but not recently as the last several months the entire soccer field was fenced off while new turf was laid. My understanding is that the project should be finished sometime in February. I fly more fixed wing models these days and mainly at a this local AMA club field located between Roseville and Lincoln.
To fly here you do need to be a member of both this club and the AMA and although I've seen the occasional FPV drone fly there its mainly fixed wing model planes.
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I have always like The Droner Trainer Podcast as Chris interviews drone pilots from around the world but episode #130 was exceptionaly interesting with his interview with Michael Hill the founder of https://www.cumulusimaging.com.
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@erfan - Not sure if this will help you but ArduCopter has added Lua scripting to develop new features.
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Just started to follow this guy on YT that's flying drones for work and bush planes as a hobby - what a life!
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Interesting to see that Skydio just announced its commercial version of their US Army drone.
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Today Skydio announced its new enterprise drone the Skydio X2
https://www.skydio.com/pages/skydio-x2
To be more precise the X2D is for the US Army and X2E is for enterprise.
Interesting I thought Parot had the Army contract but maybe both companies do. Also I believe Skydio has collaborated with Parot in the past (controller for the Skydio 2).
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Do we know what collision avoidance if any is in the ANAFI USA ?. I don't believe the smaller models had it but maybe this one does.
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17 hours ago, Janis Taranda said:
If you know any other ready-to-go programmable drones that I can buy, let me know.
Well you might simply want to check out the SDKs on some of the ready built drones like DJI and Parrot to see if they fit your needs.
You mentioned in your initial post that your target area for flying is in woods so collision avoidance is important. I know that DJI has collision avoidance on most of their mid to high end drones but not sure about Parrot. There is also Skydio as they have what looks like great collision avoidance technology but not sure if they have an SDK and currently only ship to USA and Canada and since you mentioned you budget in Euros I assume you are not in those countries.
There is also Altel and Yuneec but I haven't been following those companies lately.
https://www.yuneec.com/en_US/home.html
I should point out that I don't own any of the above drones so can't really recommend any particular one.
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58 minutes ago, Janis Taranda said:
How do I figure out all the hardware I need and find the stores? I'm good at programming but total zero about how to build a actual drone from parts. "off the shelf" sounds good, but I found nothing like that in page. Could you elaborate, please?
This is just an example and may or may not be the type of drone that you need but a drone development kit like this would avoid you having to source parts.
https://docs.px4.io/master/en/complete_vehicles/px4_vision_kit.html
Looks like you would need to contact Holybro for pricing and availability but their email is provided in the above link.
Here is another from NXP.
It would help if you could provide some more details on exactly what you want to achieve.
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10 hours ago, Janis Taranda said:
I want to buy a programmable drone (c++, Python preferable). Fly zone is in the woods, so max flight time is important as well sensors for obstacle avoidance. I must be able to code & process the camera input and do pretrained object recognition (like with openCV lib.). Any suggestions? Budget is 500EUR max
There are 2 open source flight stacks that you may want to consider that run on a variety of hardware. Also they have simulation tools so you can get to know them without hardware to start.
I am more familiar with the first one and have built several drones with that stack. The second one though is often used in some "off the shelf" drones so that could be better if you don't want to assemble the hardware. Both provide a SDK for several languages including C++ and Python. The core software mainly handles the flight control functions and typically a companion computer is required for video processing. I often thought about using one of these but have not got around to it.
Hopefully this helps.
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I see that the 2020 Hovergames challenge is open until the end of July. I think that this type of challenges are great especially for educational institutions.
https://www.hackster.io/contests/hovergames2
Also, I really liked NXP's recent collaboration with FliteTest in which they together designed a tail sitter drone. I've built drones using open source software as well as several FliteTest's DIY planes and this looks like a great combination so look forward to the plans being available.
Also I just followed the NXP presentation at this weeks PX4 summit and will post the link to this thread to the YT recording once its a standalone video.
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It starts, today (Monday, July, 6) at 8:00 am PDT and registration is free.
I don't think that you actually need to register and can watch it on youtube live.
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1 hour ago, Zacc Dukowitz said:
Agreed! You actually anticipated a writeup I'm doing next week on the ANAFI USA—working on an in-depth review of it, looks like it it could present some real competition for the Matrice series when it comes to public safety applications.
You may have seen this interview that Gary Mortimer, founder of sUAS News did with Henri Seydoux CEO, Parrot. Henri explains how Parrot got into the business of making drones and more recently how they got involved with making a drone for the US Army which resulted in a commercial version called the ANAFI USA.
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Looks like DJI may have some serious competition in the area of search and rescue with this new drone from Parrot.
It seems to be an ideal drone for first responders as it has 3 built-in cameras that combine provide a 32 times zoom as well as thermal imaging plus its manufactured in the USA.
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19 hours ago, Nightwatch Rick said:
Greetings,
I’m new to the forum.
I’m a Part 107 holder and am interested in starting and operating my own business using my DJI drones.
Welcome @Nightwatch Rick to this forum.
If you not already aware of this podcast you may find it interesting as Chris interviews drone pilots from around the world.
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1 hour ago, Muritadha said:
Okay
I want to learn how to make my own FC with raspberry pi from scratch
Ok, I understand but that's quite a task. For a start you need to add sensors to the Pi. The basic sensors would be a gyro and accelerometer but then you might want to add a barometer or range finder for altitude and compass and GPS for direction and positioning. As I previously posted there is a "HAT" for the PI than makes it easier to add these sensors.
Even though you need to develop the software from scratch you may want to leverage from existing open source software like
The software, which will run on the Navio boards, can also be run without the hardware in a simulation environment which could be a good way to start.
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3 hours ago, Muritadha said:
Spitfire76 want to chat with you privately Facebook; Adedeji Muritadha
Whatsapp; +2348055255170
Thank you.
Hello @Muritadha
I prefer keep any communication to this forum.
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On 5/21/2020 at 6:50 AM, marouane said:
I choosed APM 2.8 as an autopilot
That's too bad. That hardware has been "end of life" for awhile now and the last version of ArduCopter that will run on it is 3.3 and the latest is 4.x. That being send APM and 3.3 should still work.
On 5/21/2020 at 6:50 AM, marouane said:would it be possible to power the APM using the ESCs and use a power module to power the raspberry ?
If you have a 3DR type power module then it will pass battery power to the ESCs and also supply +5v to the APM but you should have a separate BEC for the raspberry pi. Some ESC have a built in BEC but I see that the ones you are using are "opto" and don't have a BEC.
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2 hours ago, Rahul said:
Can someone help??
Have you calibrated the ESCs ?. If not you do this by connecting a ESC directly to the receiver's throttle channel. Do one ESC at a time without the the flight controller involved.
First make sure that the props have been removed.
- Turn on the transmitter and move the throttle to full.
- Connect the battery so the ESC and RX are powered on.
- You should hear some beeps and then move the throttle to minimum. You may hear some more beeps.
- Disconnect the battery.
- Reconnect the battery and check that when you move the throttle up the motor RPMS increase.
The above procedure sets the min and max range for a ESC.
If you already did the above and its still not working then
what happens when you change that motor with one that's working ?. Does the problem move or stay with the ESC ?
what happens when you connect that ESC to another port on the flight controller ?. Again does the issue move or stay with the FC's port ?
If the issue follows the same ESC its possible that the configuration has changed or was not set like the others - what make and model of ESC are you using and what firmware is loaded ?.
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On 5/23/2020 at 2:17 PM, Dela Cruz Emmanuel said:
After 2 years having a drone license can I renew my license or I have to take exam again to get a new one.
If you are referring to the FAA part 107 certificate then you don't have to take the "Initial" test again but the "recurrent" test which is a subset of the initial test (less topics and questions).
https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/become_a_drone_pilot/
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5 hours ago, Sana said:
Hello , I'm an engineering student and I have to design a drone controller using raspberry pi .. so do you have any useful research or links to follow up to built mu controller
Hello @Sana and welcome to the forum.
To use a Pi as a FC you need of course to add sensors (gyro, accelerometer, etc) that are typically built into a FC like the Pixhawk but it looks like there is still a solution from
Like most I personally prefer to use a Pi as a "companion computer" connected to a FC like the Pixhawk.
Maybe you could provide some more details about your project and what you need to demonstrate to your professors.
Part 107 Recurrent Test
in Regulations Discussion
Posted · Edited by Spitfire76
My understanding of Part 107 certification is that it never expires but you do need to take the recurrent test in order to be "operational". In other words if after 24 months of passing the initial test you don't take the recurrent test you can not fly commercially until you pass the recurrent test.
I took my initial test back in September of 2016 and since I did not end up flying commercially I did not bother to take the re-current test in 2018 but would also be interested to know for sure if I can simply take this new free online recurrent test that should be available in March.