Folding quad

[RiverRunner]

My latest project is a folding quad. It will be 500 mm size with 11" or 12" props, The design is very simple and light weight. It will collapse to less than 7" x 14" for easy transport. It will have a front mounted gimbal and GoPro camera.
These first pictures are of the frame made from 3/32" plywood. Once I get the gimbal/camera mounted, I can work out the weight distribution and finalize the design. Then I will have the plates made from carbon fiber. The arms are 15 mm square CF tubes. The ESC's are inside the arms.
If this design works well, I may try to convert my Q500 in a similar way.

 

[CC Rider]

Great job. I look forward to seeing your final product. It is reminiscent of DJI's Mavic Pro drone although with MUCH larger props - and I'm assuming larger rotors, too - than that aircraft's design utilizes.

Looks like a very well executed, precision job you've done. It's guys like you who've tinkered with such machines that enabled the rest of us to be able to simply purchase a consumer drone and take to the skies, too. Keep up the good work!

 

[RiverRunner]

Finally got in the last of the parts. Wiring completed. Planning to do the maiden flight in the morning. First flight will be without camera or gimbal.

 

[RiverRunner]

Video from my folding quad. She is flying well. I still have to design and make a landing gear. I also need to find some quality ND filters for the GoPro Session camera. I may try to mount my CGO3 on this quad. Does anyone have the pinout for the Yuneec connector?

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[RiverRunner]

Mounted the CGO3 camera/gimbal from my Q500 on my folding quad. I was able to control the settings and start and stop video with the CGO phone app. I could see the image on the phone but there was a bit of lag. It seems to work fine except for the tilt. I connected it to the F2 channel on mt NAZA controller which works with my other gimbals but I get no response. Here's a short test video from the quad 1080p 30fps. Would have looked better with an ND filter.

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[RiverRunner]

Finally got the CGO3 tilt function working on my folding quad. Used a servo tester to initialize it. This is a temporary kludge that shows it will work. I will program a chip to do this automatically.

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