A new Toy to help find rockets

found this and will start building it soon.

A larger Quadcopter.


All carbon fiber and aluminum parts, have that EVIL look about it.

A FPV cam will be installed on a servo controlled sled and FPV glasses to fly it and look for lost ones.

Should be interesting.
Going to try to get a good amount of lift power , to maybe snag that chute in tree tops.

We shall see!

You must keep me posted on this

Awesome crossover use for the RC hover vehicle. keep us informed!

That is quite cool!
What electronics are you planning on putting in it? (I assume this is one of those kits where it is just the frame, and you supply the electronics yourself, correct?) Maybe a build thread over in the support and recovery area is in order... :wink:
Ket us know how it goes!

I am going to bite. What is it? A video helicopter of some sort?

VERY nice! I'm intrigued!

I'm not very experienced with helis, but there's a part of me that wants to learn to fly them, for overhead video at launches.

Where did you get it from? Can I ask what the price tag will be for the fully assembled unit?

-Kevin

I long wanted to try this since my brother flies 3D aerobatic helies. Most of his are very $$$ (several thousand each) and I can't even hover one (Tried a cheaper version in the $300 range). My chances of borrowing one are near zero.

If you get an arduino mega and a 3-axis gyro/accelerometer combo, these things can become completely autonomous, hovering completely motionless in moderate, gusty winds...

Just think of the video footage. Or even a "chase plane" for rockets on chutes.

EDIT: In fact, the libraries are readily available. It shouldn't be that hard, even for someone without programming experience. I'm planning on using similar guidance systems for my active stability controller, and in preliminary tests I'm pulling heavily from these.

dlb said:

found this and will start building it soon.

A larger Quadcopter.
View attachment 92167View attachment 92168

All carbon fiber and aluminum parts, have that EVIL look about it.

A FPV cam will be installed on a servo controlled sled and FPV glasses to fly it and look for lost ones.

Should be interesting.
Going to try to get a good amount of lift power , to maybe snag that chute in tree tops.

We shall see!

Click to expand...

What the heck is that? I don't get what it is.

It's a frame kit for a quadrocopter-- sort of like an RC (or autonomous? Helicopter, but with four rotor blades. They're often used for mounting first-person video cameras, like dlb mentioned.

Btw, Dlb, how big is it?

Ohh, cool!

Hmm, I wonder if you had an APRS compatible altimeter transmitting GPS information, could you mount/interface a receiver so that the quad-rotor would go to, then hover over the location of the rocket autonomously?

I wish you luck and will anxiously follow along with your progress. I've been drooling over these on MakeZine and AeroQuad for a while now.

That is neat. Quad copter.

I once had this crazy idea of making a quadcopter with a little launch rod on it for 13mm A motor rockets...

There quad copters I've seen them on e-bay a lot.One was 25.00 but no transmitter.From what I've seen you need at least a six channel..still pretty cool tho

Can you get them to transmit back video - kind of like a spy copter?

Someone needs to do this with a build thread, tutorial, costs, and were to buy everything!

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...Y4w0zmDcU5z9QEy1w&sig2=aRHE3RYcikidODS3eVP9AA

Parrot AR Drone 1 & 2.

https://www.fpvhobby.com/ Really neat stuff. Drones and Quadrotators. And automatic tracking antennas!

Also https://diydrones.com/

Bob

Bob, Thanks. That is a great xmas present for my kid er me.

cavecentral said:

I long wanted to try this since my brother flies 3D aerobatic helies. Most of his are very $$$ (several thousand each) and I can't even hover one (Tried a cheaper version in the $300 range). My chances of borrowing one are near zero.

Click to expand...

What I've heard from a friend who flies them a bit is you want to first buy the simulator software, and work with that for a while. Crashes there are free.

Once you master that, then move on to the real thing....and accept you're going to crash, until you get some practice.

-Kevin

This is cool. I bought an RC helicopter wanting to mount a camera on it for this very reason. What I learned was I don't have the patience or drive to want to continue to learn to fly it. I now have it traded for an Aerotech 54mm 1706 motor hardware set.

Kudos to those with the patience and drive to fly these as it is quite amazing to watch and I feel it will serve you well for its purpose. If I didn't have so many irons in the fire I would love to continue to pursue this as a hobby.

Quadcopters are much much easier to fly than helicopters. I have seen and tried one that is controlled by an iPad: you have touchscreen controls for throttle and yaw, and you simply tilt the iPad to make it tilt and therefore translate. Meanwhile the quadcopter sends a live video feed to the iPad.

CarVac said:

Quadcopters are much much easier to fly than helicopters. I have seen and tried one that is controlled by an iPad: you have touchscreen controls for throttle and yaw, and you simply tilt the iPad to make it tilt and therefore translate. Meanwhile the quadcopter sends a live video feed to the iPad.

Click to expand...

Now that sounds interesting...

cwbullet said:

Bob, Thanks. That is a great xmas present for my kid er me.

Click to expand...

We make a much better one but it's only avaiable to SOCOM....

Bob

bobkrech said:

We make a much better one but it's only avaiable to SOCOM....

Bob

Click to expand...

Interest is piqued!

I'm so far behind the times, last thing I did involving things like that was crashing a Raven nose first into the desert floor from about four stories up. That was the last time I got to help launch one. I loved having access to them while on the ground though.

bobkrech said:

We make a much better one but it's only avaiable to SOCOM....

Bob

Click to expand...

I bet (and I'm sure comes with the attendant price tag). The Spec Ops boys get the best toys. And if it has a silenced weapon on board, makes a nice little UCAV, just to make the bad guys lose even more sleep.

Greg

PS: Anyone else seen the Ghost Recon Alpha flick on YouTube?

troj said:

What I've heard from a friend who flies them a bit is you want to first buy the simulator software, and work with that for a while. Crashes there are free.

Once you master that, then move on to the real thing....and accept you're going to crash, until you get some practice.

-Kevin

Click to expand...

I did that some. Then tried the Safety X under it. I just didn't put the time into it. Didn't seem likely that I would. Point is, they aren't that simple. I wouldn't run out and buy something as a rocket recon device without knowing what you are getting yourself into. Gliders and airplanes are easy by comparision.

Well I have a smaller one coming for practice , only 50 dollar complete!




then I start building the BIG one, their a lot easier to fly than a standard Helios, most of the work is done by a on board computer.



the FPV will be added at the end and will make it like I on board flying it. this will be a DIY Quadcopter but using off the shelf parts.

Boy, this stirred some interest, I'm just tired of losing things and a view from above was my plan to help. the whole thing should cost under 400.00 ( no Cam or Viewing glasses, with tilt and pan control from head movements )

here's a on board video of one.

https://youtu.be/qze5TUEzvvc

and

https://youtu.be/bsrzBwylodU

Guess I'll have to have a build thread!

Actually, if you put a tracking receiver on the quadcopter, you will get better signal too. For gps, you don't need precise aiming, but an elevation control on a lightweight Yagi would let you benefit when using "dumb" trackers.

To the people who say that something like this is hard to fly: RC helicopters are hard to fly, because they do exactly what you tell them to. If you tell it to roll over and crash, it will. However, most quadcopters are not like that. I'm sure some of them are, but most aren't. You can still run into things with them, but one of the main differences between them and helicopters is that, unlike a helicopter, most quadcopters fly themselves, you are just telling it where to go. Of course with a kit like that where you supply the electronics, you can do it however you want, but the above is true for quadcopters like the Parrot drone, which come complete and ready to fly.