Search the Community

According to an article on Forbes the information loaded into the FAA drone registry database will be searchable by the public. Yet another reason to not register your multirotor with the FAA. As many have pointed out, even Darren on Threatwire, if anyone has your registration number they can simply affix it to their multirotor and perform nefarious acts leading the authorities straight to you. It's becoming more obvious by the day just how little thought was put into this program.

You may remember my last project where I upgraded a few components on my DJI FlameWheel F450. I didn't really know a whole lot about multirotors then as I simply bought pieces to a very common build and followed a video to put them together. Now, after much research, I have a little more knowledge about how all of the components work. For my next build I've decided to go with the HK Alien 560 frame as I want something I can fold up and easily place in a bag. The components I will use are: APM 2.6+ Autopilot 3DR uBlox GPS with Compass RX701 7CH Receiver HK Alien 560 Carbon Fiber Folding Afro ESC 30A x4 Turnigy Multistar 2814-700kV motors x4 I still don't know which props I will use. I was hoping to use my extra set of Graupner 10x5 eprops but this frame requires 11"-12" props. So far I have purchased the frame, ESCs, and 7CH receiver. Since I have no use for the receiver yet I figured I would use it in another project. One of my buddies recently bought a small chassis and SainSmart motor shield to build a car that could be controlled through his Arduino Uno. All of my Arduino experience in the past has been on the networking and LED side as you guys may remember this messaging project. So I figured I could learn something about controlling motors with Arduino and helped him build it. After seeing how simple it was I bought my own kit and figured I would try to get it to work with my DEVO7 and the new receiver for my HK Alien 560. This morning I got it to work but it can only use one channel from the transmitter because the motor shield uses digital pin 3 for motor 2. Digital pins 2 and 3 are the only hardware interrupts on the Uno which are used for receiving signals from different channels. I used the following library to receive input from the TX/RX (https://github.com/helscream/RC_Rx_Arduino_Mega/tree/master/RC_Rx_header_example). This library was developed for the Mega which has 6 hardware interrupt pins. I've been thinking about building an incredibly crude quadcopter with an Arduino and now I realize the Mega is the only way to do this properly because you need at least 4 channels for full control (pitch, roll, yaw, throttle). Oh yeah, for power I'm using my Pineapple Juice 6800, lol. The kit came with a 4 AA battery holder but that only provides 6V causing the car to move way too slow. Once I added the 12V Pineapple Juice pack it started running a lot faster. Anyway here is my code using the rc_rx and AFMotor libraries: And here is a video: I'll make sure to keep this thread updated as I move forward with my HK Alien 560 build.