So whats been going on in the world of the drone...!? Another month, another pay cheque, another allocation of pocket money
The drone can fly autonomous missions controlled from a laptop. Replacing the usb cable with a 433mhz radio link.
But a laptop is very bulky and the screen is not portable enough to have in front of you as you fly. The solution is the addition of an android tablet which connects to the usb radio module using an android OTG (on the go) cable. A two inch cable that costs twleve quid from Maplin!
I delved into the drawer of dead phones and came up a winner with Sam's old Galaxy Note 4. Then I ordered a tablet mount for the controller.
Carbon fibre and everything! Well swish!
But it was incredibly fiddly to attach and made the transmitter too bulky to fit back in it's case. It was designated a failure.
The intertubes turned up a solution. A 3d printed mount. Except it wasn't quite right for my application. An hour with the source file and some adjustments were made.
The prototype
Final design tweaks
Final print
Much better
While I had the 3d printer out I could solve another little problem. The flight controller safety switch was now covered by the new "art of the joy of sex, canopy".
Which meant having to muck about arming the vehicle. I didn't like that once you had 'armed' it, theoretically putting it into it's most dangerous state, one then had to fiddle and faff the canopy back on.
So I did some designing.....
You can see the evolution of the part in that pic. First print success this time.
It clips onto the top and bottom plates and then two zip ties hold it in place
Which places it neatly below the canopy on the rear of the vehicle
The other canopy issue was that the GPS mount now needed to be moved. So I got some accessory mounts that are placed on the arms.
Which the folding GPS mount is then attached to
While I was on my spending spree..... I bought a neat little aluminium bracket that locks the battery connector solidly to the lower plate.
Making battery changes much easier.
Speaking of which......
10000mah, 4s, lipo battery
Which weighs the same as the rest of the vehicle without battery!!
Just need to log more flying time now. It's still a very intimidating thing to fly!