There is still a lot of tuning to be done. In the video I fly with propellers that are a little to small (10 inch), this results in sluggish yaw behavior. The 13 inch propellers in the images where to large, they caused the copter to be a little unstable and fly strange due to the low RPM. Currently the camera is hard-mounted, but this copter will carry a gimbal when it is complete. I do have problems with “altitude hold mode” on the APM. Maybe this is because I fly with wrong sized propellers, or there is wind blowing on the sensor.

I am building a new quadcopter frame for my Ardupilot. Hopefully the frame will be lighter and a lot more agile. I went with a more traditional frame-design this time as you can see in the images. This quad will use the same motors and ESCs as my previus APM quad. The GoPro gimbal will be mounted underneath the main plate, and it will be easily detachable if I want to fly without a camera. There will also be possible to attach other things such as a hard-mounted camera or an FPV-module.

This time i try to chase after my new small 260 size quad, and an airplane. Parts of the video is in slow motion.

APM quadcopter page

I built a new small quadcopter. The page: Mini 260 quad

In this video I am testing a new gimbal design again. This time I have mounted the gimbal to the fuselage using silicon hoses to reduce motor vibrations. This did remove almost all vibrations. To the APM quadcopter page: APM quadcopter page

This video shows a full autonomous flight with my APM quadcopter. The flight starts with a takeoff up to 20 meters, then the quadcopter flies through 10 “spline” waypoints before returning to the launch position for an autonomous landing.

A new compilation video shot from my home built APM quadcopter. In this video I am testing a new gimbal design again. It is not perfect, there are still some vibrations. I think I need to mount the gimbal to the fuselage with some sort of rubber dampeners. The silicone hoses between the frame and the fuselage are not enough.

I have always had some problems with vibrations on my APM quadcopter. This is because my homebuilt gimbal was not sturdy enough. This is an attempt to make it better.

My new gimbal that I have built has a ball bearing on the opposite side of the tile motor, making the entire construction more sturdy. I have also built this one out of thicker plywood to prevent the wood from flexing as mush. As can be seen in the video, the results are pretty good, but there are some vibrations when a fly fast forward. Maybe this is because I still have the roll motor mounted the the fuselage using an old 3 mm plywood that can bend slightly. At the end of the video, there is a crash. While I rapier the quad I will try the make the gimbal even better.