All posts by personal drones

Gofor: Drones on demand for a variety of tasks and services

The Gofor company now provides a number of  personal services based on drones, that range from taking selfies to personal security. You can check the nearest Gofor drone on a map on a mobile phone app, get an ETA estimate and “rent” the drone for a particular service.

gofor-drone-app
A screenshot of the Gofor drone calling app

How this service will deal with current regulations in different areas such as flight permission and privacy issues, remains to be seen. All looks very easy in the promotional videos.

Continue reading Gofor: Drones on demand for a variety of tasks and services

Plexiglas Mini FPV quadcopter experimental build based on the EcksFibre design

I’d like to report on my latest build in the quest for the perfect mini personal drone. Like the mini H quad and the mini quad for FPV builds, this is again a small quadcopter, that should be possibly slightly smaller than the last one.

I started from an EcksFibre 230mm frame as a template. The main goal is to modify the design so as to include extension plates for a mobius camera and an immersion RC 600mW video transmitter, for First Person View flight.

The EcksFibre 230mm frame
The EcksFibre 230mm frame
The plan: adding extensions for a Mobius camera and an Immersion video transmitter
The plan: adding extensions for a Mobius camera and an Immersion video transmitter

Continue reading Plexiglas Mini FPV quadcopter experimental build based on the EcksFibre design

Boxcopter: awesome DIY amphibious quadcopter build, waterproof, durable, portable, made out of a plastic box and some wood pieces

Check out this nice post by Jake Wells on DIYDrones. Features a video that summarizes the build of great DIY quad, out of a plastic box and some wood pieces.

Main features of the quadcopter are portability, durability and to be waterproof.

BoxCopter, partly folded inside the body box for portability
BoxCopter, partly folded inside the body box for portability

Continue reading Boxcopter: awesome DIY amphibious quadcopter build, waterproof, durable, portable, made out of a plastic box and some wood pieces

Nice video of Giethoorn, The Netherlands, by Xandro Media

Xandro Media brought to my attention his nice video of the city of Giethoorn, The Netherlands, asking if it was good enough to be published here.

Of course it is and thank you Xandro Media for sharing this with us!

It’s nice to see the stability and quality of video that you can get with a “standard” equipment such a DJI Phantom & Zenmuse H3-2D with GoPro 3+ Black edition. And as you will see, the pilot did a great job, here you go:

Have a nice video to share? Contact us!

QUADLUGS MODULAR MULTIROTOR SYSTEM QUADCOPTER BUILD AND REVIEW – PART 4

If you followed up to here in this multi part article on the Quadlugs multirotor building system, you know that we are now at a stage in which we have a basically fully assembled 480 mm quadcopter, with motors, escs, and FPV equipment in place. In the image below the placement of the electronics on the lower board is shown. We will have to drill the 4 positions marked by red spots in the figure in order to secure the upper deck in place.

Electronics on lower deck. Points to drill to secure the upper deck are marked with red spots
Electronics on lower deck. Points to drill to secure the upper deck are marked with red spots

We now need to finish the build by mounting the upper deck with control board and radio receiver. mounting the upper deck is straightforward.  First, drill the upper plate lugs in the positions marked in the figure above. You should do this with extreme care as the ESC wires, in the suggested configuration, run into the lug hole. You could also remove the wires while you do this, or drill before inserting the wires.  Then with a pencil, carefully mark the position that correspond the the drilled holes to the wood board. Mind that the board, like the lower board, is larger than required. I did cut down mine to 8.5 x 13.5 cm in order to fit this design. Continue reading QUADLUGS MODULAR MULTIROTOR SYSTEM QUADCOPTER BUILD AND REVIEW – PART 4

QUADLUGS MODULAR MULTIROTOR SYSTEM QUADCOPTER BUILD AND REVIEW – PART 3

In part 1 and part 2 of this “build and review” article I made a general overview of the Quadlugs modular system and showed how to fully assemble a 480 mm frame. The whole process takes a few hours, especially the first time, when you have to figure out a number of things. I am sure that on my second build (there will definitely be one) things will go much faster. Also, since the things I had to figure out are all included in this review, if you follow instruction closely, and also check out the Quadlugs build videos, then the build of the frame should be really straightforward. Speed will also depends somehow on your personal DIY skill, although I promise that putting the frame together is something that anyone can do.

The frame is now ready, see part 2. Only the top plate remains to be secured in place, however this will be done after all the electronic equipment is mounted.

Let’s start by fixing the motors to the motor mounts.  In this case, the motors came without the needed 3.5 mm gold connectors (link) pre soldered to the wires, so I had to solder the connectors myself:

Suppo motors 1100 KV, soldering of 3.5 mm gold bullet connectors in progress
Suppo motors 1100 KV, soldering of 3.5 mm gold bullet connectors in progress, 3 out of 4 motors done.

Continue reading QUADLUGS MODULAR MULTIROTOR SYSTEM QUADCOPTER BUILD AND REVIEW – PART 3

QUADLUGS MODULAR MULTIROTOR SYSTEM QUADCOPTER BUILD AND REVIEW – PART 2

In part 1 of this build and review article I have been looking at the general features of the Quadlugs multirotor modular system and some preparation steps required before the actual frame assembly, namely the drilling of holes in some of the lugs.

2. Quadlugs quadcopter frame assembly

Before we actually assemble the frame, we have adapt the bottom plate, which is slightly larger than possibly needed.

The original size of the provided bottom plate is 17,9 x 10,1 cm (and 3 mm thick):

Measuring the bottom plate
Measuring the bottom plate height
Measuring the bottom plate
Measuring the bottom plate width

The plate could actually fit in the frame as it is, so why do we have to trim it down? Continue reading QUADLUGS MODULAR MULTIROTOR SYSTEM QUADCOPTER BUILD AND REVIEW – PART 2

QUADLUGS MODULAR MULTIROTOR SYSTEM QUADCOPTER BUILD AND REVIEW – PART 1

I have received a nice USPS box from Danny, funder of the Quadlugs multirotor modular system and started a build with the main purpose of testing this original piece of technological equipment for strengths and weaknesses, report to our blog readers and providing a build blueprint for others that might want to built their own Quadlugs based multi rotor.

A packet from Quadlugs!
A packet from Quadlugs!
A mounted Quadlugs frame
A mounted Quadlugs frame
480 mm Quadlugs quadcopter for FPV
The result of quite some work on the packet contents: a Quadlugs 480 build for FPV, straight from the Personal Drones Blog! Stay with us and build yours by following our simple instructions

Continue reading QUADLUGS MODULAR MULTIROTOR SYSTEM QUADCOPTER BUILD AND REVIEW – PART 1

Building a mini quadcopter for FPV

I’d like to report here some details of my last personal drone build, a mini quadcopter for First Person View (FPV) flight.

A manually assembled mini quadcopter for FPV
A manually assembled mini quadcopter for FPV

Weight: 360 gr w/o battery. With 2200 mA 2S battery: 487 gr.

Size: The 4 motor centers form a square with a side of 17,5 cm and a diagonal distance from front motor to back motor of 25 cm.  So the quad is in the 250 class. Continue reading Building a mini quadcopter for FPV

The Senate of the State of Hawaii issues a bill that would severely restrict drone photography and videography

The Senate of the state of Hawaii issued a bill for an act that would severely restricts the possibility to use drone for taking aerial pictures or video.

The main concern seems to be related to the protection of Hawaii citizens privacy. The title of the document is “Unmanned Aircrafts; Right to Privacy“. Using drones for video application would be restricted to just a few selected cases.

Use of unmanned aircrafts prohibited.  Except as provided under this part, it shall be unlawful for any law enforcement agency, state or local public agency, person, or entity to use an unmanned aircraft to gather information, including but not limited to images, photographs, or recordings.Continue reading The Senate of the State of Hawaii issues a bill that would severely restrict drone photography and videography