Thinking @ Speed of Light

It is possible i might be overdoing it with the Star Wars references. If you find a better name for the next post (which will probably be the first flight) let me know. I worked the whole of last Sunday and finally got the model now ready. So here it is. This time the whole model weighs only 1396 grams. A 19% improvement on the old model.  The motor (EMAX CF2822) along with the propeller (8"x4")  and the bullet connectors (3.5 mm)  The Quad Control Board -  http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=19534  Luke !!! Battery - Tied down with Velcro.  Pictures by Rahul Krishna Upadhayaya. Link to more posts on the  Quadrocopter.

There have not been any updates from my side on the quadrocopter for the past 6 months. This is partly because i was working on other stuff but mainly because i got lazy (really really lazy). So one fine day about 2 weeks ago i decided that i have to finish this project. I ordered a quadrocopter control board as i was getting one at a very reasonable price (details later) and i did not have the time to build one for myself (as earlier planned - i might do this sometime later). I did make some changes to the design changes.  Firstly this time i went for an entirely wood construction instead of the aluminium and acrylic combination(what the hell was i thinking??). There are a few reasons for this. It is easier to work with than aluminium. Wood reduces the vibrations of the motors. Wood is cheaper (was able to get material for building 4 quadrocopter for 280 bucks !!!!) and most importantly it available near my house unlike aluminum rods (laziness FTW)....

The quadrocopter project was going fine till i decided to start soldering the circuit for the flight controller. I've burnt my hand countless times while soldering - frankly speaking im lousy at it - but this was worse. I was powering the circuit from the BEC (Battery Elimination Circuit) on one of my ESCs. As it happens due to the genius of my soldering technique i accidentally shorted the GND and the VCC of the BEC together and as soon as i connected the battery there was a crack sound and the inevitable distruction of the ESC. Thankfully we did have a spare ESC at home that was being used in a hovercraft project that my flatmate was working on so that got sorted. The Burnt-Up ESC. After that things got worse. The maiden test flight - not conducted by me - of the quadrocopter (done just by connecting the ESC's to the RF receiver with no gyros and no control circuitry) did not go well ...

Its been about 2 months since I've written about anything on the blog. This was mainly because i got lazy and partly because i had nothing new to report. So now for the updates on the quadrocopter project. Firstly i got the pyramid ready and fixed on top of the  quadrocopter .This is how it looks: Note:The RF Remote in the pic is not the one im using now. This was just a temporary 9ch radio that the people at RCHobbyAddict.com sent me until the ones i ordered arrived. It was freaking awesome though. I also added some acrylic sheet pieces to be used as landing gear which was not a very good idea so i replaced them with some foam pieces - they work extremely well. I also measured the weight of the quadrocopter and it was about 1.7Kg (including 2 batteries). I then finally received the the RF transmitter and receiver that i ordered ( Hobby-King   2.4GHz FHSS 6Ch Tx-Rx   - Mode 2 )  from RCHobbyAddict.com at a...

Its been about 2 weeks since i posted anything.So here are a few updates.The quadrocopter design is finally complete(well sort of) and so is the flight computer. The sensors (Wii Motion+  and Nunchuck) are here. They seem to be working. The ATMEGA328 (Arduino based) which is the main component of the flight computer also arrived about a week ago and worked flawlessly. This is all pretty cool but the main news is that I've finally ditched the name CPUV because i realized it sucked and now im going to name (Warning : Star Wars reference coming up) it "The Force". The flight computer is called Luke as it shall bring balance to the Force. Any more Star Wars references are welcome. Ok now that my moment of insanity is over , here are the designs: Right now I'm building the pyramid (reminds me of my very first blog post ) on top of the quadrocopter.I might try to change the ring i used for the base to something smaller when i actually start building the land...

 Here go a few updates on the quadcopter (CPUV) project. As mentioned in my previous post I will be using the Wii Motion Plus and  Wii Nunchuck for the IMU of the quadcopter to keep it stable.I ordered both of them recently from eBay and they just got delivered. Also i needed a micro-controller to manage the quadcopter's movements so i ordered an ATMEGA328 with an Arduino bootloader on it, again from eBay. I also ordered a spare battery , and a Hobby-King 6-Channel 2.4GHz FHSS Transmitter and Receiver from RCHobbyAddict. I shall explain i detail all these component choices in detail once i get the quadcopter to fly and write a complete build log along with the schematics and components. Now that i have purchased almost all the major components required for the quadcopter i just wanted to give the estimated cost of the entire project for someone looking to build one: It...

Here is the design of the automatic paintball gun that i'll be putting up on the quadcopter.

In the previous post i mentioned that i needed gyroscopic sensors and accelerometers to stabilize the quadrocopter.For more detail on these sensors visit  Gyroscope  and  Accelerometer . Basically what i'll be doing is using these sensors find out the orientation of the quadrocopter relative to the ground. With this data i can adjust the speed of the various motors (using something called as PID Controller ) to stabilize the quadrocopter in a particular orientation. Now to move the quadrocopter in any direction you adjust the speed of any one (or all) the motors so as to get the proper direction of motion. For more info on how a quadrocopter actually flys go  here. There are two ways (that i have thought of) to obtain these sensors:                1) Buy it off the self                2) Salvage it from any commercially avail...

First of all the name. I've decided to go with CPUV (or Chatur-Pankh-Udaan-Vastu). Thanks Anshuman for suggesting that name. In the last post i mentioned that i was going to do a test flight and put up a video so here they are: For the test we (me and my roommate mudit ) initially decided to use a RF link to control the quadcopter but due to some technical difficulties (i.e laziness, unwillingness to work and a general lack of interest in actually doing so) we could not actually use that so we put a small program on an ATMEGA16 that initializes the motors and then gradually increases the speed of the motors till it reaches a maximum and then to minimum rather quickly and then repeats the process over and over again. Now the quadrocopter does not have any gyros or accelerometers as of now to stabilize it (More in part 4) therefore i had to tie it down to a table or else it would have taken of...

Ok i got a bit further with the qua, drocopter ( link to part 1 ) project. I've finished the wiring for the motors and added a few LED's. I've also mounted the propellers and decided on the the design of the landing gear. As far as the stuff still left to do the list goes as below: Flight Computer Gyros and Accelerometer for stabilization  Radio Control System software for monitoring telemetry I'm hoping ill have everything done by the middle of may. Will upload all schematics and code then. After that i'll try to add some more gadgetry to the quadrocopter such as: GPS Automatic Paintball gun Camera Mount with Pan-Tilt As far as the Accelerometers and Gyros i was thinking of going for the sensors on either the Nintendo Wii Motion Plus or the Sony PS3 Move controllers because they are way cheaper than buying off the shelf parts and will involve some sort of hacking. Now my roommate is  also building a quadrocopter and he decided to use the Ni...

The first time i heard about a quadrocopter was when i saw a video on how the special effects in spiderman 2 were done (the scene  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NLgY6f60CA  at 1:45 was shot using a quadrocopter).I was amazed at the maneuverability of this machine.I wanted one but buying one was out of the question mainly because of the cost of a ready-made product. Also personally i would be happier if i built one instead of buying it. So about about 2 weeks ago i though i would go ahead and build one. I still have no idea what i will do with it when i'm done but who cares. I ordered all the mechanical parts i would need (details later) , bought a drill   and got to work on fabricating the body of the quadrocopter.  The design is fairly simple(as is the case with most quadrocopters). It is basically an X shaped system (built with aluminium rods, acrylic sheets and bolts) with a with a brushless motor connected to a propeller at eac...