Quadcopter thingy

[Garacesh]

Syma 2.4GHza X5C Quadcopter with HD Camera: Amazon.co.uk: Toys & Games

Ooooh very reasonable price. Please PM me its performance/ease of use once you've given it a shot I'd like to try a drone, but I don't want to drop a tonne of money on one when I haven't really investigated the hobby yet

[Oaktech]

Ooooh very reasonable price. Please PM me its performance/ease of use once you've given it a shot I'd like to try a drone, but I don't want to drop a tonne of money on one when I haven't really investigated the hobby yet

 

If you want a bit of a challenge, you could have a look at this website Build a Hexacopter - Build a Drone - information on building your own UAV

 

You may well end up, as you say, dropping a tonne of cash on it, but it won't be all at once, and by the time you've finished you'll have something way cooler than a £1500 out of the box quad!

[kearton]

I'd like to try a drone, but I don't want to drop a tonne of money on one when I haven't really investigated the hobby yet

If you want something cheap to practice/learn with, I can recommend the Hubsan X4 H107. You can pick up the basic non-camera model (H107L?) on Amazon for about £20 these days.

I've got the model with a camera that transmits back to the controller (H107D?). One of my Technicians has the basic model, and we both love them.

[hallb15]

If you want something cheap to practice/learn with, I can recommend the Hubsan X4 H107. You can pick up the basic non-camera model (H107L?) on Amazon for about £20 these days.

I've got the model with a camera that transmits back to the controller (H107D?). One of my Technicians has the basic model, and we both love them.

+1 for the Hubsan X4. Its cheap, replacement parts are cheap and easy to get, and its loads of fun.

[FragglePete]

Been flying a quad myself for a bit, and generally the rules boil down to this:

 

Must keep an unaided visual view of the quadcopter at all times, if flying FPV must have a spotter.

Can't fly within 50m of people, this is extended to 100m if its a crowd of people (I think it's over 100, can't quite remember)

Not allowed within 50m of a building or structure that you don't have direct control over

Can't fly for commercial gain unless you have the appropriate licenses and insurance - rules state you can fly for someone for a 'pint of beer' but a crate of beer would be considered differently.

 

I enjoy flying mine whenever I can, but to be honest, it scares the willies out of me! The thought of loosing control and it falling on someone just horrifies me. I have unexplained drop outs from the sky on mine for no reason before, quads aren't like planes that can be glided up to a point if you have an engine failure - you loose a prop/engine/brownout/sunspots it turns into a brick. I get more enjoyment flying my Hubsan in the garden these days.

 

However.... did this last year for our new building (

) skip to about 2:47 for the quadcopter fly arounds. The building was handed over to the school, only about six of us on site and did during my lunch time.

 

Pete

[kearton]

What's the frame rate for the time lapse? i.e 1 frame every x seconds or mins etc?

Also, what type of quad/camera did you use for the fly arounds? The quality is really good

[FragglePete]

What's the frame rate for the time lapse? i.e 1 frame every x seconds or mins etc?

Also, what type of quad/camera did you use for the fly arounds? The quality is really good

 

The original time lapse was setup using YAWCAM with a JPG taken every minute during working hours. It produced nearly 13Gb of stills by the end of the project, we had to then just speed it up within Sony Movie Studio to fit the movie being made at the time, so exact frame rates, etc shown in that video I couldn't tell you. Was a fun project to do, as we set it to upload to our website as well and it became interesting viewing during the build process around the site. Even the Educational Funding Agency (EfA) team used it to ensure certain conditions were being met (ie. no deliveries during school opening and closing, etc).

 

The quadcopter is a self built unit, which houses a GoPro3 Black. I shoot flying at 60fps, then you can slow it down in post and it makes it look really smooth. I have recently added a Gimbal unit to it but not done too much flying recently as it's starting to become really heavy - I'm looking to simplify it in the future.

 

Pete

 

 

Pete

[networkmangler]

We have a bebop Parrot drone, it was sports day last week and I managed to get a few decent pictures.

 

I made sure I was well away from anyone and didn't fly it over or near anyone

 

The school is currently having the flat roofs replaced, when that's finished I'm going to try to get a good aerial shot of the whole school

[kearton]

We have a bebop Parrot drone

If you have that specific drone, you might find this interesting...

[kearton]

If you have that specific drone, you might find this interesting...

It starts to get really interesting about 7.5 minutes into it... (IMHO)