Drones

Waiting eagerly for my package to arrive from 3D Robotics. I ordered the latest APM 2.6 autopilot. About a year ago I built my first quadcopter (aka. drone) using the APM 2.0, and a collection of parts I bought from Hobby King. More than half the fun was collecting all the parts and building it. I bought a cheap (~$17) frame for the first quad.

It was easy to put together and seemed pretty solid, but didn't survive the first crash, seen here:

I ran my batteries down too far, and ESC's wheren't configured correctly. Problem discussed here on DIYDrones Blog.

I was hooked at this point, and invested. There's plenty of extras that are needed to get you going, Radio's, batteries, chargers, tools, parts, etc.

From this point I decided I needed a better frame, so I bought the Turnigy Talon Quadcopter (V2.0) frame. Carbon Fiber, light strong, perfect for quad. I was able to reuse all of my compoents from orginal quad, so that was good.

I flew this quad for awhile, until the next crash, seen here: (video coming). Power failure this time. The crash broke one of the ESC's, a couple props, and landing gear. Everything else seemed to come through unscathed.

In any case, with all the press about Drones as of late, it's time to fix my quad, but also figured I should upgraded to the latest APM. When fully upgraded I'll take it out for spin and see what else it can do. More to come...