Wow, readers, please do yourselves a favor and watch the linked video in that article! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8t41avFuCc] though it's slightly WTf-y, it's definitely cool. I'm just wondering - Are heli's better at carrying my Canon DSLR or would the triquad work better for this?? Anyone with experience, please suggest, as I am SO gonna build this tri quad (and integrate it with my Raspberry Pi) :D
A heli carrying a DSLR is big, expensive, hard to fly, dangerous and maintenance intensive. It's good for lifting a DSLR but I would go with a multicopter, the more blades the better. A hexacopter or even an octocopter are very stable, easier to fly, possibly cheaper to build and have a fail-safe, if a motor fails you can land it safely because the other motors take over. You can find a nice video about the subject here:
It demo's a Heli carying a DSLR and afterwards (after the first 7 minutes of video) they talk about this compared to multi-rotors. For the best video results you should probably pick the stable octocopter, you can fly FPV as well with a multicopter, great for live previewing your video.
Though quads are much more trendy in the tech world today, as you can see from that video, plain-old RC helicopters are pretty amazing today. The biggest advance in the hobby IMHO has been the development of very small (~1oz) RC helicopters (e.g. [http://www.bladehelis.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=BLH33...) that include the same fundamental control system (called collective-pitch) that enables these large (~10 lbs) helicopters to be so acrobatic. The size shrink brings huge benefits: Small helis basically don't get damaged in most crashes, they mostly can't hurt you, and they are cheap.
Today's super-stabilized and gps-locked quads are like a modern AAA game: you press "A" over and over and watch them go, and say "Wow!". A micro collective-pitch heli is like an old-school game--you're going to need a lot of restarts, but is great fun and will provide many hours/months of challenge.
Comments
Wow, readers, please do yourselves a favor and watch the linked video in that article! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8t41avFuCc] though it's slightly WTf-y, it's definitely cool. I'm just wondering - Are heli's better at carrying my Canon DSLR or would the triquad work better for this?? Anyone with experience, please suggest, as I am SO gonna build this tri quad (and integrate it with my Raspberry Pi) :D
A heli carrying a DSLR is big, expensive, hard to fly, dangerous and maintenance intensive. It's good for lifting a DSLR but I would go with a multicopter, the more blades the better. A hexacopter or even an octocopter are very stable, easier to fly, possibly cheaper to build and have a fail-safe, if a motor fails you can land it safely because the other motors take over. You can find a nice video about the subject here:
http://flitetest.com/articles/T_Rex_800E_DSLR_Camera_Gimbal
It demo's a Heli carying a DSLR and afterwards (after the first 7 minutes of video) they talk about this compared to multi-rotors. For the best video results you should probably pick the stable octocopter, you can fly FPV as well with a multicopter, great for live previewing your video.
Thanks! That's pretty informative! :)
For any interested HN'ers:
Though quads are much more trendy in the tech world today, as you can see from that video, plain-old RC helicopters are pretty amazing today. The biggest advance in the hobby IMHO has been the development of very small (~1oz) RC helicopters (e.g. [http://www.bladehelis.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=BLH33...) that include the same fundamental control system (called collective-pitch) that enables these large (~10 lbs) helicopters to be so acrobatic. The size shrink brings huge benefits: Small helis basically don't get damaged in most crashes, they mostly can't hurt you, and they are cheap.
Today's super-stabilized and gps-locked quads are like a modern AAA game: you press "A" over and over and watch them go, and say "Wow!". A micro collective-pitch heli is like an old-school game--you're going to need a lot of restarts, but is great fun and will provide many hours/months of challenge.