A $20 SDR is a nice piece of kit to add to your base station laptop. It’s a receiver and spectrum analyzer. It will allow you to see with your own two eyes on your computer screen what is going on in your radio frequency environment. Use it for finding interference before you fly. You…
Lightness and Efficiency are paramount – These are the keys to high performance in all aspects of aeronautics. All high performance aircraft is dependent on this simple concept and should be the defining principle in your design. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) – Simple engineering is generally better. In the case of aeronautics; simplicity could…
I’ve been working on this for some time now, I present the first schematic in a series that I have. This is Stage 3; a full on “drone” if you will. Using 3DRobotics Ardupilot APM 3.5/3.6 autopilot. This setup is a high end FPV UAV Ritewing Zephyr II airframe, and for just over $1000 total…
This thing combines in a great way; a quadcopter and an airplane. Color me impressed, Great job! Misc thoughts, facts, whatever After watching this I have a need to get my hands on one. The Wingcopter comes from Germany. I’m curious how they implemented Ardupilot. The transition from quad to plane is very cool. source:…
“The new Iris from 3D Robotics is a compact, ready-to-fly, fully autonomous aerial vehicle designed specifically for the consumer market. Iris provides point-and-click mission planning with 127 configurable waypoints that can guide it from take-off to landing, all from your mobile device or computer. Sporting a stylish and sleek body that resists crash damage, Iris…
This plane is a Ritewing Zephyr II which is made of EPO (Expanded polyolefin) foam, which is pretty durable but it didnt survive much after 10 nose dives into rocky ground. So, I cut off the front and replaced it with EPP (Expanded polypropylene) foam. EPP is somewhat hard to find in at the market…
Some MyVu Crystals are experiencing a white haze in video or where the whole screen turns white. Its an error with the LCD matrix’s being over driven, why is it over driven? Bad engineering or bad capacitors could be the culprit, but I don’t know for certain. But I do have a simple fix. Things…
Flight cams are just small CCTV cameras and are usually 12 Volts but some are 5V, so a converter/regulator may be needed. I use the Adjustable step down regulator, or a Step Up converter, or a 12V BEC (note most BEC’s are 5V). You also might need to add a Torroid filter on the cameras…
Video glasses or goggles are a great way to get totally immersed into your flight. With some mods like ski goggles and paint you can block out 100% of all sunlight, but I prefer some dark tinted lenses so that I can still look down to my RC sticks or equipment if needed. Glasses are…
Why foam? Foam is very lightweight and easily repaired. But foam is flexible so wings will require support spars to add rigidity. Spars should be preferably fiberglass or carbon fiber, not metal. Carbon spars might mess with the antennas because it is conductive, they “might” interfere antennas depending on wavelength. Foam is great for planes…