The sleek DH410 foldable quadcopter

The latest iteration my F450, it became the foldable carbon fibre DH410 frame which fits into a normal rucksack. The longish shape makes it easier to navigate around, in comparison with the F450 with its pure X shape, very light too. The general idea is to tremendously increase its portability. Matt is working on it and I cannot wait to test whether with the gimbal, we will get jello free aerial footage or otherwise. And it might be set for the spring break festival trip in a couple of weeks time, who knows.

Previous F450 set-up can be found here.

And we will have the DJI F450 frame to do some experimental work, like paintings etc! Woot woot!

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latest evolution of the F450

The current (almost full) F450 set up, except the FPV camera, after endless of iterations and crashes.

Specifications:

Frame: genuine DJI F450

Flight controller: Pixraptor (upgraded Pixhawk)

Speed controllers: DJI 30amp opto (x4)

Motors: QXmoto 4006 680kv (x4)

Props: locally made carbon fibre 1155 T-motor pattern, Tarot self locking prop adapter

Battery: 5400 25c 3s

LEDs: generic RGB

GPS: Ublox M8N

Power module: Happy Model 3amp 5.37v

Landing gear: generic foam padded

Gimbal: generic 2D with Alexmos controller

Gimbal/transmitter battery: Turnigy 800ma 30c 3s

Camera: GoPro Hero4 Black

FPV transmitter: Skyzone TS 5823 mini 200mw

Antenna: 5.8GHz generic CPL

(pssttt, don’t get too impressed. Matt ran me through the specs! )

 

In the very near future we would like to get a folding carbon fibre frame to take this bad boy to Indonesia in January, main concern is the portability. The F330 Mark I (currently in Nige’s possession in England) used to do the job, but it struggles to take the weight of GoPro and gimbal. The F450 barely fits in the drone backpack, and due to airlines regulations for luggage, we’ll go for a folding frame.

The DJI F450 is our first quadcopter, thank you to our friend Josh. After the F450, Matt (he is the engineer and the brain of all the quads. I am just an aerial photography & videography enthusiast after all) has built a F330 Mark I. Subsequently he built F330 Mark II as the crash quad which I find it more difficult to drive, and now we are waiting for bits of the new racing quad QAV210. Propellers have arrived, they are minuscule!

The F450 is my personal quadcopter and fit my style of flying. It is like a girly quad, easy to control and has lots of fun functions (such as Follow Me, Return to Launch, etc) but also less nimble, less swooshy and less acrobatic. It is the videography quad basically. Matt always pushes me to fly the F330 Mark II (it does not have GPS) from time to time, just to remind me how to fly a “real” quad without an aid from a good flight controller. That’s an update from us. Way to go to be a better pilot, but we’ll keep on trying. Bye for now.

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23-24 May 2015: Cycling and camping trip- aerial footage and pictures

The third cycling and camping trip went really well. Selected pictures of the previous trip is here. On the trip last weekend we took one of our quadcopters, the F330. One of lots of videos is embedded (VPN is needed). Good fun, great time and fab company. Let us know if you are interested on more trips to come. Or contact the captain: simon.dawson@qq.com. Bfn!

 

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Video: Flying the F450 quadcopter

We flew our quadcopter around campus a couple of days ago. The five minutes (sped up to double speed) YouTube video was when I took turn to fly it. Pardon the novice piloting skill, lacking of gimbal and inexperienced cinematography skill. Baby steps ey!

Ever since I graduated from the Syma toy quadcopter, the F450 is just an amazing piece of equipment (thanks to Cinta– Matthew Wallwork, for the incredible problem solving and technical skills). Good news are Cinta will be building another quadcopter, F330, more aerobatic for flips and stuff. And we just placed an order for FPV and the goggles, super excited! Hope to get hold of the gimbal and 4k GoPro soon.

Here is the phenomenal UNNC’s (University of Nottingham–  the China campus) Chinese garden and English garden, hope you enjoy it.

The Nottingham geese were pretty excited when the quadcopter was upside down, they wanted to check it out. I took the picture this afternoon when I was trying to quietly pap them marching on the lawn, suddenly they made this move! Hillarious.

Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

Bye for now!

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The quadcopters

Processed with VSCOcam with f2 presetBoth of our quadcopters are unwell at the moment, we are waiting for the new bits and bobs from Taobao! Thank you CHome Service for the Taobao support.

Update: currently we have the third quadcopter, the F330.

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