GAUI 500X

If you need custom LED stuff I do run a business here that deals with LEDs, I have super bright and cheap tiny little things that have isolated mounting options and I have a custom cheap driver for them. My current limiters are about .40 cents to build, forget and those stupid $20 jobs that you see in the catalogs.......

I can get green and red for scale nav and bright white for orientation. They are about $3.00 each with a high lumen rating. At 12 volts we can run three series connected at under 200 milliamps and be very bright.

@GPBill - I do enjoy building quite a bit.  Especially when I can sit down with all the parts in front of me.  I found this kit a pleasure to build.  As w00d pointed out they even included a screwdriver which I feel is very considerate of GAUI.  With that included tool (1.5mm hex one end, 2mm hex other end) you can build the entire kit.  There are only four small Philips head screws in the entire kit that I needed to provide my own tool for.

@Tiger - I hope so.  This coming weekend looks like I will have time to come out, I'm just not crazy about flying in the cold wet weather we've been having.  I was surprised how much lighter this GAUI 500X feels than I remember your quadcopter felt to me.  I still need to work out a power connection for the battery but I should have something sorted this week.
Do you recall our conversation about the rotors appearing to be tilted/rotated on this GAUI 500X?  They are, and it is intentional.  In the manual they point out that the rotation is about 6 degrees although they do not mention why they have done this.  You cannot adjust it without modification as it is done by key slots in the boom arms than mate with keys in the frame boom mounts and motor pods.

@Pelagic Pilot - Do you provide the assembled wiring or just the LEDs and controller?  Any photos?  I am thinking about having some decent brightness white LEDs in the front two motor pods and two red LEDs in the rear two motor pods.  I'd like all the motor pod LEDs to be on continuously when flying.  I am also interested in some very bright white LED "Headlights" that I can switch on and off from the transmitter.

I'm really impressed with the motor mount pods that GAUI devised for this model.  I've looked them up as potential crash spares and they are only about $10 for a pair.  The fact that GAUI also makes clear bottom plates adds value because the pods provide a terrific place to mount LEDs.

The weekend forecast is looking good GPS, take her out and play.
Maybe get a little video or flying photos too? 

I got some 3.5mm bullet connectors from our local hobby shop, Sleadd's, today and made a battery adapter.  I got a couple hovers in and had the gyro settings way too high which caused the quad to jump the throttle hard when the landing skids touched the ground.  This caught me off guard and I cut the throttle all the way and crashed.
Good thing I got those spare propellers. 

I've dialed in the gyro via the gear end point adjustments on the transmitter and now I can hover pretty well.  I'm at 60% now and I wanted to try 70% but it started raining again so I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

As it is now it hovers pretty decently.  It was pretty windy during my tests so I'd sure like to see how it hovers in less wind.  I would also like to try the difference between the controller's hover and cruise modes.  So far I am still happy with this model.

I just have the LEDs and current limiter chips, but it is super simple to solder and the radiation pattern of the whites would be perfect for headlights. The reds could be made a bit dimmer for tail lights.

I have some white Elara Moons in stock right now, the little circuit board is 1/2" x 1/2" square with mounting holes.

http://www.ledsupply.com/elara.php

Do you have any video of these LEDs illuminated?

I flew three batteries trying to find out how long I can fly on some Thunder Power 3S 2250 mAh packs...I found out it's about ten minutes.  The ESC cutoff kicked in but luckily I was kind of close to the ground.  No broken blades at least this time. 

This quad flies very nicely. and at 60% gain it is very stable.  I tried some punches to see the power of the motors and it is decent, but nothing like my Beam E4's punch.

If the weather holds I will try and get some video later today.

Nice.   
Now you know your limit, get your timer set for something short of it. 
Looking forward to the video.

If you stitch these together, from right to left first photo being the right most, you would have a panorama of our flying location on Spalding.

Using 60% gain in some pretty good wind at Spalding today.

I tried to chase a Team Associated SC10 short course truck today with the GAUI 500X quadcopter. Not as easy as I thought.

Thanks for sharing GPS, the truck chasing video is gone though.

I know, I deleted the first one due to a error with the sound sync.  I replaced it and it works now, check it out.

Good practice trying to keep up. 

I like the sound track you added. What is it?

Thank you Bill.  We had wind at the field too which can be heard on some of the other videos.

The music is from the soundtrack of the movie "Last Man Standing" with Bruce Willis, the music is from Ry Cooder and the title is "Sanctuary".

That was pretty cool.  I can sure see where it would be really difficult to keep the car in sight with no video feedback.  I think you did a pretty good job of tracking it actually.  I liked the music to!

So now that you've got that ironed out, I guess I have someone to fly combat with. 

...Tiger
 

Thanks Tiger.  Pelagic Pilot had asked when I'd be getting some FPV gear and I didn't think I would want to for a while, but maybe I will advance that schedule a little.

I tried to fly to the top of the Mtn you see in the very first photo, as can be seen in my "Forced Auto" video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_zgpbp8Br0

At 1:05 you see video loss and I turned to the left to get it back, I think the power lines underneath me caused multipath, so I chickened out and dove it back in.

The LEDs, no I don't really have any video, guess I could try and make one some night. I also have some Cree XPG's sitting around:

http://www.ledsupply.com/creexpg-w139.php

These are really bright and at 3.0 voltage you could run 4 off a 12v 3s lipo for a long time.

If you are going to run a GoPro on that thing then all you need is a cable and a tx for the quad, for short distance one of those 100 Mw jobs would do just fine.

I watched your video again and didn't realize how high you did get.  That is my favorite flying place.

I think I am going to get the GAUI LED kit at first mainly because they don't seem to sell the clear motor pod covers I need separately.  I intend the boom LEDs to be illuminated always.  I am interested in some 100+ lumen white LEDs for headlights that I want to be able to mount forward facing and turn on and off via the Aux channel.  Maybe your Cree parts can do that?  I know Cree are used in some high-end flashlights.

I've been thinking a lot about onboard video since trying to follow the RC truck yesterday and I would like to start researching FPV gear.  My immediate need is indeed closer range like you pointed out, but my long term goal is to go long distance.  I don't think I want to make the investment twice so if you guys can point me toward good FPV gear I will begin investigating.  My transmitter is a Spektrum DX7se but I am planning to upgrade it to one with more channels, I will stay with Spektrum so it's 2.4 Ghz and my FPV gear will need to work with that and not interfere.

A little while ago I saw some 1.2 Ghz FPV stuff, maybe it was a website one of you posted a link to, I don't remember.  I understand that the lower the frequency the longer the range and better quality signal.  Is this true?