days of the drones

[nechaus]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to start this thread, Want to find out who here has a drone, or a small rc vehicle that will eventually be turned into a fully functional drone...


atm mine is basic, has not even taken off or been powered up, been printing most of the parts. just a standard quad copter, slightly over beefed motors


iv been looking at this kit from hk, its frocking expensive, what do you guys think? it looks like it has great features,
Ideally id program it to follow me and video me on some rides in large areas... Id like to have it so it will keep a 5 - 10 meter distance.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__25925__ZeroUAV_YS_X6_Autopilot_GPS_Flight_Control_System.html


The ZeroUAV YS-X6 autopilot is a tremendous flight controller system for multi-rotor aircraft supporting Android/IOS and PC systems, providing excellent auto-navigation,
target lock, self-leveling and position/altitude holding. It is designed for both
professional and hobby applications in commercial and industrial platforms. YS-X6 adopts ARM+FPGA classic structure, integrates high-precision sensor elements, applies advanced temperature compensation & industrial attitude arithmetic and features an ultra-fast 400MHz refresh rate to make the system more stable, efficient and reliable.

Featuring a robust design with military rank hardware and a rich expansion interface to offer future upgrades, the YS-X6 means business! ZeroUAV has been deeply involved in UAV for more than 7 years and their UAV controller is the standard device for the China National Mapping Bureau. This system is the real deal!

Unlike the competition, the YS-X6 offers 4 way points as standard, 8 channels for ESCs, 3 channels for pan-tilt, 8 channels for radio RX, supports S.BUS, and provides 3 communication ports. It's a totally versatile flight controller and autopilot device that can't be beat!
Features:
Ultra precise altitude and GPS position hold
The YS-X6M offers unbeatable, high precision altitude and GPS position holding making your multi-rotor flight safe and worry free. Now, you can forget about flying and focus solely on getting the best aerial shots using your onboard camera.

Ground station based on IOS and Android
YS-X6 is equipped with a WIFI module to connect to your ground station. You can use any Android or IOS based smartphone or tablet to control all the features of your multi-rotor's autonomous flight. You can get live telemetry for all of the significant flight statistics. You no longer need to carry a heavy notebook computer with you to fly your multi-rotor camera rig. Save money by using your existing iphone or andriod based smartphone to operate the feature packed, easy to use ground station software and all of its functions.

The average range for the standard WiFi link is 300-500m, which is enough for most applications, but if you need a longer range, simply add a pair of data radios (sold separately) and get 5km range instantly. *Optional data radios coming soon.

Auto take-off and landing
Anyone can fly multi-rotors safely now using the supplied, easy to use touch, click, drag and go Flight Controls in the supplied GCS software that runs on your smartphone. With this feature, your phone is all you need to fly your multirotor with strong Altitude Hold, GPS Position hold, Return to Home and Auto-Landing features.

Click and go
Click any point on the Google Earth map on your ground station based smartphone or tablet and the YS-X6 will get your multi-rotor there.

Auto Tracking
With a GPS enabled mobile phone or any other IOS or Android GPS enabled device, YS-X6 can track the device and allow your multi-rotor follow it. Now if the device is in your pocket, you can keep your multi-rotor following you in the air like a faithful puppy.

Specs:
Operating voltage: 3.7~22.2V (no UBEC is required)
Dimensions;
MC: 92x61x18mm
MU: 48.5x40.5x22mm
GPS/Compass:55x11mm
2.4ghz WiFi unit: 65x40x14.5mm
Weight (w/all components): Aprox. 212grams
Way points: 4 Programmable as standard (Upgradeable)
Hover precision (Hover Automatically under GPS mode):
Vertical Direction: 0.5m
Horizontal direction: 2m
Wind resistance: - 8m/s(17.9mph/28.2km/h)
Maximum Tail Rudder angular velocity: 180degree/Sec
Maximum Tilt Angle: 25
Maximum Climb Rate: 4M/S
Maximum Descent Speed: 4M/S
Inlcuded in box:
1x Main Controller
1x IMU
1x GPS/Compass
1x 2.4ghz WiFi
1x Damper Pad
Wires/Cable
Serial 9 cable

*Note: For more detailed information about upgrade paths and specifications download the user manual located under the "Files" tab below. Or visit the manufacturer's website:


"
"


been looking for the same features just trying to spend half the money

 

[Philistine]

Wasn't Hyena building a drone with video support in one of his threads (might have been his main thread)?

I was just discussing this with a mate of mine. My son has gotten into planes lately, so I have taken advantage of HKs crazy cheap RC prices (comparatively to other RC stores I mean) and bought a few RC planes, and me and a mate and my son have been having so much fun with them (well my son has loved it, but he largely has to put up with me and my mate screaming ironically "get away from the controls, this thing is not a toy!").

It is amazing how many times we can crash them spectacularly and then hot glue them back together and they still fly. I saw on a few RC forums what guys were doing with the drones and cameras, and of course all I could think of is wait until the paparazi have the penny drop. Those guys got half a million pounds for the shots of Princess Kate sunbathing topless using a massive scope lens from the ground, imagine what you could shoot with a drone with HD camera attached?.... I could be drinking beer and fishing off the coast of Richard Branson's private Whitsunday's island, whilst my drone shoots enough shots of a topless Katy Perry sunbathing on his private island grounds to keep me from having to work all year, all without me having to lift a finger.... mmmmmmm Katy Perry......

I must say though, I will be amazed to see these things in action (I mean in terms of auto piloting etc..), because my limited experience with RC flight has been that unless the wind is dead still, you get some pretty major movements in your aircraft from even medium winds (although we are crap pilots and are often not ripped enough to overcome our lack of flying experience), I am sure the military have this stuff down, but I would love to see one of these at this level of build do autopiloting.

Unless you have been into RC stuff before your current unflown quadcopter, be aware that RC stuff is an even bigger money pit than ebikes. Although the initial planes were very cheap, my wife would die if she knew how many spare parts and upgrades I have 'invested' into the plane shaped blobs of hot glue in my garage (and I have only flown the things a few different days). Although with your 3D printer you will be able to save a lot of time and money by custom making a lot parts as you say. I will be interested to see how it develops, best of luck.

 

[t3sla]

https://ebgames.com.au/tablets-157431-Parrot-ARDrone-20-Quadricopter---Blue-Tablets


if u get lazy

 

[Philistine]

https://ebgames.com.au/tablets-157431-Parrot-ARDrone-20-Quadricopter---Blue-Tablets


if u get lazy

Damn that is crazy cheap for what it says it does. So is it being controlled by the Wifi in your phone/tablet? If so, what kind of range does the wifi in your phone or tablet have? I have a top of the line brand new router, but I can't go that far out of my house without losing wifi on my phone or tablets, I wouldn't want that as the limits of my radio control, and there is so much patchy interference with wifi where I live if that is how it is controlled it would be spending large amounts of time diving into the ground or just flying away (as opposed to the Chuck Yeager type flights that my planes enjoy)....

Still, this shit just blows me away. Whereas in my twenties I was always frustrated by how slow technology was developing and how much it cost, now I am constantly speechless at how fast things are developing and how cheap things are becoming. I always get frustrated by people who say that educational standards are dropping and the world is going to shit. All I know is that all the young people I have trained and mentored are far smarter than I ever was or am now, guess I am just officially old....

 

[Jeremy Harris]

I saw on a few RC forums what guys were doing with the drones and cameras, and of course all I could think of is wait until the paparazi have the penny drop. Those guys got half a million pounds for the shots of Princess Kate sunbathing topless using a massive scope lens from the ground, imagine what you could shoot with a drone with HD camera attached?.... I could be drinking beer and fishing off the coast of Richard Branson's private Whitsunday's island, whilst my drone shoots enough shots of a topless Katy Perry sunbathing on his private island grounds to keep me from having to work all year, all without me having to lift a finger.... mmmmmmm Katy Perry......

I don't think it's complete coincidence that probably the best known UAV DIY autopilot happens to be called paparazzi (http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/Main_Page)

 

[Philistine]

Philistine wrote:
I saw on a few RC forums what guys were doing with the drones and cameras, and of course all I could think of is wait until the paparazi have the penny drop. Those guys got half a million pounds for the shots of Princess Kate sunbathing topless using a massive scope lens from the ground, imagine what you could shoot with a drone with HD camera attached?.... I could be drinking beer and fishing off the coast of Richard Branson's private Whitsunday's island, whilst my drone shoots enough shots of a topless Katy Perry sunbathing on his private island grounds to keep me from having to work all year, all without me having to lift a finger.... mmmmmmm Katy Perry......


I don't think it's complete coincidence that probably the best known UAV DIY autopilot happens to be called paparazzi (http://paparazzi.enac.fr/wiki/Main_Page)

Fair point Jeremy.

Reminds me of when I first read about the synthetic JWH-018, and I said to some guys who I was discussing the chemical with "You know what someone should do! They should spray that shit on some vegetable matter, and then sell it, but claim it is something innocuous like incense!" and they just blinked at me and then looked at each other rolling their eyes....

 

[dnmun]

maybe the private security guys will develop guided missiles to take down the drones. or use their own drones to go up and hang them on a net and bring them back in.

 

[Philistine]

maybe the private security guys will develop guided missiles to take down the drones. or use their own drones to go up and hang them on a net and bring them back in.

Now you are talking. Damien Lyons might have beaten me with a fleet of UAVs with high def, but I will make my money selling star wars type products to the rich and famous to take out the UAVs...

Sorry Nechaus, I will get off your thread, you were wanting to film meaningful things with a UAV like bike riding, and I was indulging in stupid follies like Katy Perry's tatas....

 

[nechaus]

haha,

these things have so many possible uses...

for mine tho, just want a flying camera man, With my calculations, i should have 8-10 mins of flight time... I hope to get the flight time to 20-30 mins!!!!
iv got nano techs, 4s 3 ah and 6 ah, plus a standard zippy 4s 8ah pack...



Do you think they will start to police drone use if it becomes popular with the consumer market?
like mine has cost so far $200 , $150 for the flight parts, and $50 for the wireless video sender and receiver for my gopro

 

[etard]

This is exactly what I was thinking as a good use for drones Necheus! If you watch alot of mt bike videos, you will soon notice all the zip line footage they use these days. But what you don't see is the days spent setting these contraptions up, and then you have to shoot the same scene over and over again just to get a good shot/ timing correct/ lighting good etc... With a drone that follows you like a puppy, you could just ride the trail and shoot almost the same footage on one run! Now, I realize that the cool zip line style is not soon to be replaced by a drone, but to have a camera following you from above would be spectacular for these guys!

There is also this Kyosho Flying Space Ball:

http://www.gizmag.com/kyosho-space-ball/24711/

 

[t3sla]

Drone free zone signs in the future, tis a possibility.
Also you control fly it in no fly zones same as rc planes and if you think it's bullshit I have had air controllers tell me they can see the rc planes on radar, my mate even saw a chopper come from the airport with a megaphone telling some idiot to stop flying his glider in the no go zone

 

[nechaus]

haha, damm hey!

I seen on 60 min last night, Ex Aussie soldier went to africa, his trying to combat poachers and is getting small rc drones to scout the areas using thermal imaging as they go hunting at night.
I say good on him!!!


I can imagine highly restricted areas would be great to have a few hundred drones so they can shoot down as many as they can but there are still gonna be others taking pictures..

 

[Hillhater]

maybe the private security guys will develop guided missiles to take down the drones. or use their own drones to go up and hang them on a net and bring them back in.

Rather than crude missiles or physical interception, would"nt some form of electronic "jammer" or RF interference "beam" device, be realistic for these fully electronic drones ??
I even imagine a form of fully automated "dog fighting" between "Spy" and "Defence" drones !

 

[nechaus]

Im sure they could, but it would prob mess with the bigger planes, something they might not want to risk...

 

[John in CR]

I just want a simple one. When I park my bike and press the button, the drone pops out of its small hanger mounted on the handlebars and flies around my bike with video and notifies my phone with video of someone getting too close.

 

[nechaus]

that would be so damm cool haha!


it would make a good youtube video of a ebike drone defense system haha!

 

[Hyena]

Wasn't Hyena building a drone with video support in one of his threads (might have been his main thread)?

I came here to talk about drones but stayed for Katy Perry's tatas :lol:

Indeed I did build one and Nechaus and I have discussed them alot since.
Mine is pretty much finished but only had one flight before the flight controller shit itself. I finally got a replacement when the came back into stock but it's being a bit of an A-hole and the ESCs aren't calibrating properly. They're not as straight forward to fly as they look in various youtube vids but I'm hoping to get more proficient with time.

My plans were as stated previously, to have an "eye in the sky" at my command for making sweet ebike vids. But the other possiblities are great as well. Drift with wind is an issue but with the GPS module it will compensate for that given it positions itself according to the satellite singals rather than just an X Y Z input from the transmitter. I've seen vids of them in front of huge big fans blasting air at them and them and they angles themselves forwards at 45 degrees blasting force back at the fan to maintain positing. Pretty cool.
The AR drones use the onboard video for maintaining position too apparently. Some sort of image recognition I guess and it autocorrects its location to match what the camera currently sees with what it saw at the time you tell it to stay.

I joked with a mate who lives 2km up the road that when I get the GPS module online I'd fly it to his place and hover outside his window to see what he's doing, or watch his missus hanging out the clothes in the back yard etc. He replied with "and I could throw a rock at it or hose it and promptly knock it out of the sky" haha
True, but with onboard video recognition like described above these things could be amazingly nimble and dodge slow moving large projectiles. They're not going to dodge bullets but could easily flip out of the way of incoming objects with good, fast response video recognition. For more slow response, the new flight controller I've been looking at also has flow and sonar sensors for auto navigating around obstacles such as tree branches or what ever.

But if people don't want them around then they'd be easily jammed by emitting the right signal on their control frequency. Depending on how the drone is set up it'd then either fall out of the sky or go into auto hover mode, in which case the person who doesn't want it around could easily do away with it as a sitting duck. However, you could also auto program it to respond in a certain way when it loses signal. I think most of the current ones go into auto hover or auto land mode but you could program it to return to a GPS coordinate (return to base) in the event of a lost signal. For longer range flying you'd also be wise to have a similar feature for when it approaches the batteries LVC.

I just want a simple one. When I park my bike and press the button, the drone pops out of its small hanger mounted on the handlebars and flies around my bike with video and notifies my phone with video of someone getting too close.

Heh that would be cool, and with one of those tiny little hand held "walkera lady bird" type ones it wouldn't be too far fetched.

I'm actually just in the process of finishing off a new home security system with cameras everywhere that stream over my internet connection back to my phone or tablet or what ever. They can be programmed with movement detection so they automatically call or email you pictures or a video stream or you can just view and control the cameras at any time via the browser interface. This is not exactly the latest tech but I was thinking what WOULD be cool is to have the drone hooked into it so when there's a motion detection event the drone would launch and fly over that area, or begin to patrol the house / yard. Again images could be streamed directly to me or recorded to view later. Battery life would be a consideration but with the above discussed video position ID'ing they could be made to come back and land on a charging platform after each flight 8) Chances are the 10 minute odd flight time would be sufficient anyway. I know if I was a crook trying to break into someones house and I triggered an alarm that prompted the release of a terminator style drone I'd promptly GTFO :lol:
Further, these could EASILY be rigged to fire taser darts with the spare servo channels.

You wanna steal my shit ? Come at me bro
Should keep the JWs and other door knockers on their toes too :lol:

 

[nechaus]

haha yeah man, its quite a steep learning curve
Id like to get myself a scanner to see if anything in the area will disrupt my signal, So many wifi hot spots where i live + massive radio tower out about 150 meters away from my house,



Yeah iv been doing alot of reading on diydrones.com , absorbing as much as i can,
I think im going to just get a AR drone 2.0 its pretty reasonable and i can also attach my gopro onto it if i want better quality video.
upgrade the battery easily, Eventually i want a gps adrucopter with 40 min flight times if i can get that!


This is the calculations of my current quad tho... pretty crappy!

 

[MikeFairbanks]

Ah, the RC rabbit hole. Be careful when you look in, because if you fall it's a painful bounce all the way down. Your wallet will feel the most of it.

I have some links for you guys that might help you in your quest to make a drone (of which I've done....though it was a bad one).

rcgroups.com is good for everything rc, including helicopters and multi-rotor helicopters.

APlanding (aerial photography) is by far the leading group in terms of serious RC aerial photography. If it flies, they'll get a camera on it and get pics. Some of these guys do real estate photography and such. Great folks and friendly.

If you want something turn-key that will get any picture you want and float in place while you run in and grab a beer, this is the one: http://www.draganfly.com/

Southern Balloon Works is another one: http://www.southernballoonworks.com/aerial-photography/aerial-photography-equipment.html

Those guys make RC blimps the size of a piano, the size of a living room, or the size of your house, depending on what you plan to do with it. Indoors, outdoors, shoot t-shirts at a football game, etc.

Finally, there are people who are into what's called FPV, which is first person point of view. Essentially you put a small wireless camera on a remote control airplane. The signal feeds back to a receiver you have in your pocket. From the small receiver you plug in video glasses. You put a hood over your head like a mob victim, and shut out all the light. Now you're "sitting in the plane" as it takes off and flies around. You can even crash violently and enjoy the ride from the comfort of your lawn chair. But the cool thing is that you are virtually hundreds of feet above the ground. Some guys are so into it that they place little gyroscopes on their headsets and when they turn their heads left and right or up and down, the camera on the plane does the same. So they are flying, but looking around at the same time so that they can see what they want. It's wild.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Adb1HMXTM

 

[MikeFairbanks]

I only did this type of stuff for a couple years, and quit several hundred dollars later after tons of mishaps and frustration. I'll probably get back into it if I live on the coast again where the winds are consistent (more on that in a minute).

I started with a Hobbyzone supercub, cut a small hole in the side and put in a thin digital camera Casio exilim S-10. At the time it was the lightest digital camera available at little over four ounces (which made a huge difference, considering the plane weighed less than two pounds).

I had limited success due to the extra weight of the camera, flying on days I probably shouldn't have flown (winds) and pushing the limits of my batteries in the plane. I made seven flights, many crashes, and a lot of EPS glue and tape. The first flight was without a camera. I crashed it in less than a minute and smashed it. I had to glue and tape it back together and get a couple new pieces for it. Eventually I learned that in order to learn you have to do what's counter-intuitive. You need the plane to go very high before you practice turns. Instinct tells you to keep the plane low and close to you while learning, but that gives you no room for error and the ground is much harder than a foam plane.

This was my very first pic (after several test flights without the camera). It was heavily cropped and rotated. Kind of blurry (the camera didn't have shutter priority).

Over the next week or so, I made about five more flights, each with varied amounts of success in taking the pictures of and around my neighborhood.

Note: The curvature of the horizon is not the earth, but barrel distortion from the camera. My max altitude (legally) was 500 feet, and I doubt I ever went much higher than that. Most of the shots were from between 200-400 feet.

One day I left the neighborhood and flew at a local park. My plane went behind the trees and I actually lost sight of it. I knew it would crash (it had to), and I searched the skies for a good ten to twenty seconds (it seemed that long), and then saw it climbing above the trees, so I guided it back to me and landed it. I got a picture (although the quality is poor) of our city hall and library complex. It would turn out to be my last successful flight.

A few days later I was flying my plane, pushed it too long and the battery died. I watched it fly away on the breeze until out of sight. It somehow found the tallest tree in my town. I kid you not....the tallest tree. And it not only got stuck in that tree, but I'm convinced gremlins climbed up to the tallest branches and wedged the plane in as deeply as they could before I arrived. I walked through a neighborhood to where I thought it was and used the remote to make the receiver beep. I saw it in the tree.

Long story short, and much fishing line, a slingshot, lead weights, and rope later, it took three weeks of fighting a tree to get my plane back (the camera had cost me $250).

But the electronics (most of them) were still good, so I gave up RC plane photography and went to something equally frustrating: KAP (Kite Aerial Photography).

I had a lot more success, but like RC planes, it took a lot of learning and a lot of money.

I started with a seven-foot tall kite called a Rokaku. It's Chinese and works great. Huge kite.

This is the one I have (the only one they had in stock). It's ugly, but it works.

I purchased a thousand feet of 250-pound kite string, a pair of gloves, and made a giant wooden spool to hold it. I then designed a homemade aluminum rig to hold my camera and a rig to trip the shutter using my leftover remote control gear.

On the test flight I took it to Tybee Island in Savannah, Georgia and got this shot (it's the only one of a hundred or so that came out).

If you look at the bottom-center of the photo you'll see a white towel. Slightly to the right of that is me holding the line. This shot was from about 400 feet.

Over the rest of the year I had several successful and unsuccessful flights using the kite. Here's how it works:

The kite flies up to about 500 feet. When you launch the kite and get past the "dirty air" and into a consistent flow you'll be up about 100 feet. That's when you tie your rig (essentially a rectangle about a foot square made of lightweight aluminum or whatever with the camera bolted to it) to the line. The kite string will, of course, be oblique and ideally at about a 55 degree angle from the horizon, maybe a little more.

You then release more line and your kite goes up. When you reach the ideal altitude you tie the kite to something that won't fly off and use your transmitter to start snapping pictures. Of course, a lot can go wrong and usually does for me. I forgot to turn on the camera; I forgot to set the shutter speed; I forgot a memory card. Oh, crap, the wind just died and my rig is falling.

I flew about twenty times, got some decent shots, and then lost interest once I purchased a DSLR and began doing regular photography.

I also learned that you can just use a DSLR and hire a plane for a half hour (about 65 bucks where I live) and snap away for half an hour and get much better shots and a far less expensive cost.

Now the kite gathers dust in the garage, and the rig is in pieces. I don't do KAP anymore, but will when I someday live at the coast again and can enjoy a steady, predictable wind again.

Some more shots from non-disaster days:

As mentioned, I grew tired of it (mostly tired of untangling lines and unpredictable wind) and quit.

Here are a couple accidental shots that came out here and there.

This one was too close for comfort during an airshow. I don't know what 250-pound test kite string would do if it were sucked up into one of those, but it wouldn't be good. I believe I was within the legal limit (500 feet) but I wasn't sure.

And finally, me in my neighborhood. If you look very closely at the upper right-hand corner you'll see me in the front yard (house with the cars in the driveway and kids playing with waterbaloons). You can also see (but it's very hard to view) the kite line. It rises up on the left-hand column at my front door.

 

[nechaus]

WOW

THAT'S WHY I WANT IT, LOOK AT THOSE PHOTOS !!!
thats so awesome, Those houses look really nice, I like it alot!


im really liking the dragonfly ones!
im requesting a quote for them now

my fpv will be setup on my mini laptop, I have the wireless connections for the gopro, its 5.8 ghz
I tested it around the house, its really good, sometimes drops single for less than a split second, but most of the time its A+

its like,
Should i spend some big bucks and get a fully sick awesome drone,
or should i spend $350 on an AR drone has what i need for now, basic 720 p camera, crappy flight time which i can fix which a slightly bigger battery
Biggest thing i dislike about this is the camera sensor, and the fact it limited by WiFi 50 meters maybe 100 meters range..
but its a cheap turn key solution

Iv never been into RC stuff ever really in my life, only now I want a quad 100% for video recording, making some sweet ebike videos..
I know i can easily build mine, but i know its going to lack in flight time because its big and heavy, used pretty thick carbon and oversized motors, bigger esc,, 50 amp ones lol


I dont really need a gps function at this stage, the only thing that would be of interest is using my phone as a tracking beacon and the quadcopter would keep at least 5 meters distance of me while recording
I would not need a pilot then if it had autopilot in that sense


But thanks man, iv got plenty of reading, more sites to go to and get some more information before i rip out the wallet

 

[MikeFairbanks]

Be sure to get rc simulation software first to train. You don't want to learn how to fly after buying your drone.

http://www.realflight.com/




Sometimes you can hit the local electronics stores and get a game controller (similar to an Xbox or nintendo controller) that has the ability to plug into the USB port of your computer, but you're better off buying a controller that truly has the same feel as a real rc controller.

RC helicopters are extremely difficult to fly.

The RC simulators let you crash and smash as many planes and helis are you want in order to master it. Just hit the reset button.

This is a great product, and will save you a ton of money. Plus it's fun. http://www.hobby-lobby.com/realflight_rc_simulator_237_ctg.htm

 

[MikeFairbanks]

With this rig you can not only fly using a high-quality video camera, but you can decapitate people at the same time. http://bergenrc.com/Observer.php

These things are nuts.


Oh, hey Brisbane dude: Mick Fanning (two time world surfing champion from the Gold Coast) once was in a promotional video that used some RC helicopter footage. But with a 2-meter rotor span, those things really can cut your throat in half before you even have a chance to say "ouch."

The quadcopters are so safe that you can hold them in your hand. The big ones here are dangerous (but probably a lot of fun).

 

[Hyena]

Cool shots Mike, but sounds like alot of frustration along the way.
I too thought of using kites or some sort of balloon or blimp rig (towed behind the bike :lol: ) but figured it wouldn't be stable enough for video.
I played around with cable cams for action shots but it's a hassle it set up and in a few seconds its over. I think these multirotors are the ticket once perfected. Those draganfly ones look cool. I'm sure they'd be uber expensive though. I've not seen ones before with opposing motors top and bottom on each arm. I wonder what the efficiency of that system is like vs a more conventionally layed out hex or octocopter. I suspect the later would be more stable...

 

[t3sla]

I'm from the school of thought that you get into it as simply and quickly as you can, then spend time enjoying and outgrowing while you research a custom build.

If it ends up doing what you need ur set, if you outgrow you can easily sell.

I have long distance wifi dishes that were de commissioned from point to point hospital setup shhhhh, so maybe biased in a wifi setup that I can easily upgrade.

That been said Wi-Fi boosters and antenna ho cheap on the net so extending range ain't all that hard