Sunday, September 11, 2011

The sad ending and the new beginning

Some of you might wonder why I bought so much new stuff.
Well this is why:

Last week disaster striked.
I went to the beach to fly my copter an do some nice FPV while filming the giant unifeeder ships, I forgot a screwdriver to mount the FPV equipment.
So I was left with some flights around the picknick blanket.
An hoer later we packed and I wanted to turn one more round, seconds before landing I noticed that the copter went a little bit to far, I was over an open air restaurant so I throttled up, (I did not want to hurt someone).
This was the moment I realized that I had lost orientation. I could not see where the front of the copter was.
I tried some Pitch and roll amneuvers to get it back but it was hopeless.

Then I did some a very stupid thing, I went into dive and ran towards the copter. It crashed somewhere in the woods in an old castle ruin at the shore - we searched for hours but it was hopeless - old ruins, woods, thorns, high grass and old industrial buildings and not a single clue where in this area it could be.

The most stupid thing I did was to mute the buzzer seconds before tekeoff because I reprogrammed the voltage code and made a mistake  so it buzzed all the time during flight.

I wanted to cry because I put so much money and work in it - I just added the baro and the mag.

I thought about giving up this hobby but then I enterd eBay/Flyduino.com/and Hobbyking and about 6 Days later this is the result:


proudly present NTMC05 "nDROiiD 2"
Since the first copter was so good I did only minor modifications:
- Flydusense V2
- mounting hole for buzzer
- wiring for LEDs now more clean
- lots of improvements regarding wiring and drilling
- HK SS18A ESC
- coloured 8"/10" props from Flyduino
- no more QuaroPPM because the HK TR6A delivers a Summ PPM signal
The copter is built more accurate because I got more skilled by building the first one I included all the learned lessons from the old nDROiiD.


The most important lessons I learned from the crash:
- always put your Phone number on the copter
- NEVER mute the buzzer
- include a lost model buzzer routine that can be switched on and off
- include GPS tracking
- never fly over terrain that you do not know well
- always keep your eyes on the copter while it crashes
- NEVER GIVE UP (thanks to the guys in the RCGROUPS thread for the support)

The first stunt and FPV flights are already done and I am quite happy with the results. The new coloured props are a great help and the copter feels a little bit better in the air. Still some PID tuning to do but there is hope...


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