What do you do when you need to cannibalize the gimbal and camera from your backup drone and it's just sitting around collecting dust? You turn it into a UFO of course!
Drone UFO
- Thread starter ianwood
- Start date
dirkclod
Premium Pilot
Interesting how the lights change to the movement. Yes it would be interesting to know details of this build. Very good use of the technology!
The lights are indeed reactive. They have different animation modes which I control from the RC. Stick inputs are shown on the LEDs as well. Flight mode, status warnings are also shown as needed.
A Teensy micro-controller uses a NAZA CAN library to listen to the CAN bus for RC stick positions, flight mode, altitude, battery data, etc. I blacked out the stock LEDs so had to replicate all their status functions e.g. low battery, low satellites, no RC, etc. A direct PWM input from the spare channel on the Futaba RX allows me to control the animation mode. The LEDs are then driven using a library called FastLED.
The bulk of the secret sauce is here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2071772
The LED library is here: http://fastled.io/
There's only two basic animations so far. I'll be adding better ones soon that all react even more to the NAZA data.
A Teensy micro-controller uses a NAZA CAN library to listen to the CAN bus for RC stick positions, flight mode, altitude, battery data, etc. I blacked out the stock LEDs so had to replicate all their status functions e.g. low battery, low satellites, no RC, etc. A direct PWM input from the spare channel on the Futaba RX allows me to control the animation mode. The LEDs are then driven using a library called FastLED.
The bulk of the secret sauce is here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2071772
The LED library is here: http://fastled.io/
There's only two basic animations so far. I'll be adding better ones soon that all react even more to the NAZA data.
That's crazy, fun, cool, ingenious. & I want one... ;-)
Thanks for sharing your build and obvious smarts right there...
This took some serious thinking and great planning. Well done.
RedHotPoker
Thanks for sharing your build and obvious smarts right there...
This took some serious thinking and great planning. Well done.
RedHotPoker
@ianwood, I think there are laws out there about being too smart. 
You're leaps and bounds above my abilities and available time. I envy your curiosity and abilities to tinker and build around this platform. Please tell me you're going to invest in a Solo...if not I may start a fund raiser to see what you could do with that platform.
You're leaps and bounds above my abilities and available time. I envy your curiosity and abilities to tinker and build around this platform. Please tell me you're going to invest in a Solo...if not I may start a fund raiser to see what you could do with that platform.
Very cool!! I would love to add those to my bird. Sure does make it a heck of a lot easier to spot at altitude!
If the SOLO is all it's cracked up to be, I'll be picking one up. I really like the idea of programming a detailed mission to automate getting shots. And it sounds like it will have a healthy amount of developer community support.
Anyway, if you guys are inspired, check out the links I shared. It's a bit of a steep learning curve but if you've done some coding, it's not too hard. It's pretty cool what you can do. The two libraries are essential parts of it. I only implemented what those guys created. They did all the heavy lifting.
The next version of the drone UFO will have better/more animations and will have more feedback to the animations based on speed, altitude, distance, pitch, roll, etc.
I haven't put it to mischievous use yet i.e. terrifying friends and family. Waiting for the right opportunity...
Anyway, if you guys are inspired, check out the links I shared. It's a bit of a steep learning curve but if you've done some coding, it's not too hard. It's pretty cool what you can do. The two libraries are essential parts of it. I only implemented what those guys created. They did all the heavy lifting.
The next version of the drone UFO will have better/more animations and will have more feedback to the animations based on speed, altitude, distance, pitch, roll, etc.
I haven't put it to mischievous use yet i.e. terrifying friends and family. Waiting for the right opportunity...
Yeah, it's been a while. Been working on my Align 690 and G3 Gimbal. I guess it doesn't like my Phantom! It wants all of my time. lol
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