The XCopter Quad build - Week three

Maxx's Stuff

Hi and welcome to Maxx's Stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff!

In today's world, I manage to have some time to learn, play, discover and tinker with new things and I get to share all that with you.

XCopter Micro Quad Build - Week three

 

This week is about the HD 720p Hobby King Wing Camera that came in at $42.31 delivered to my door. As you could tell, this has upped the average now to $27.09.
Awesome little camera and the quality is not to bad for a sensor so small. I like that the frontal surface area is pretty small, at about 450 mm² (4.5cm²) where most of the other camera's are about 900mm² with some up to about 1400mm², so it is not going to add to much drag. Weighs in at 32gm (listed at 29.4gm), which is a bit weighty for the Micro Quad, but we will see how we go. Battery is reported to give around 3 hours of recording, which I have to try as yet, but I've gotten in around 30 minutes all up with no problems so far with the battery.

It comes shipped with a USB cable with a mini USB end for data transfer and charging. Also has a AV lead for an external video monitor and audio. I have a small LCD monitor I use with my video camera that can be bought for around $25 on ebay. As I get into FPV I am planning on putting one of these onto my radio (heaps cheaper than goggles). They can run on between 5V to 12V (running on 12V in these pictures). I have had it running on 9V battery for around an hour in the past. I have as yet to run it on 9V until flat, so running on a small 2S LiPo will probably be no issue and time may not be a problem either, and knowing it will run on 9V means I have a very cheap back up if needed.

It has a fairly easy menu to navigate. A manual can be downloaded from the Hobby King product page, just click on files at the bottom of the product page and select the file that says "manual (link)" and follow the link in the file. One thing that is interesting is that the buttons are up, and naturally I want to put the flat surface down. Also, a tip I got from the Hobby King site for this product is how to set this to output video via the AV cable and record at the same time if it is going to be used for FPV. The modes don't have this, it is either in video mode, or picture mode. If you are in video mode and plug in the AV lead, it wants to play any recordings on the card, and in picture mode has some OSD stuff that will get in the way if trying FPV, so below are the steps, and I demonstrate it in the video.

1. Turn the unit on
2. Press the power button until you have a red and yellow light, three presses, this is the take picture with movement detection.
3. Plug in the AV cable.
4. Then as quickly as possible, pull out the cable, press the power button once to return to the Video recording setting (one blue LED), then put the cable back in. Now you can monitor and record at the same time as you can see in the video clip below.
Note, if you are too slow, the unit will just power down in about a second as shown in the video.

As for the white balance, it is good to see it can do it, but the transition is really slow. Not sure if this is the unit, or if the card, I did record this on a class 2 card, which is really slow, but managed o.k. I am planning on getting a couple of class 6's or better as recommended and see how that looks. Bruce of Xjet and RCModelReviews did a comparison between this camera and the 720p key chain, this will show a better idea of what the camera can do with faster cards. As can be seen by the comparison, the white balance does darken the ground when there is a lot of sky in the shot.

Although I am showing you how to set this to record and output for FPV, I will most likely not use this camera for FPV, this will be used as a secondary recording device for larger models providing complimentary shots in flight and be used on wings etc where frontal area will be more important.

Next week I will be showing the USB AVR programming device and showing how to program the controller board on Linux with the latest XCopter program.

More notes on week two and The List

I have been reviewing more on building multi rotor copters and many have been saying that vibrations can cause some issues with the controller, so I have had to add an additional item to the list. It comes under "Other stuff that is needed, but also used for other planes in the fleet". And that is a "Prop Balancer". In a couple of weeks I will be talking about the props and balancing, and I have had a little change in design ... but you will have to wait and see what that is.

Ĝis Revido Amikojn!