3D Printed Drone Follows The Leader

November 6, 2014 by Adam Fabio 15 Comments

[peabody124, aka James] has been active in the drone world for several years now, first with OpenPilot, then TauLabs, and now with his own Spark and Sparky2 boards. [James]’ latest creation is a 3D printed quadcopter using both his Sparky2 board and his Sparky2BGC Brushless Gimbal Controller.

[James] had always wanted a quad which would follow him and his friends while they were having fun, sort of like his own flying camera platform. His current setup is finally approaching that goal. [James] designed his new quadcopter to use his Sparky2 flight controller and the KISS 18 amp Electronic Speed Controller (ESC). He also incorporated a brushless gimbal to keep his Mobius action cam pointed at a whatever the drone may be tracking.

To keep the internal layout clean, [James] designed a power distribution board which solders right up to the ESCs. The internal layout is seriously clean, with flat panels which keep the electronics safe during crashes.

The crash protection turned out to come in handy, as [James] managed to hit a couple of drone-eating trees during testing. Thankfully, having a 3D printed quad means spare parts are just a few hours of printing away. Check out the video below for footage of [James]’ test flights, and of the quad tracking his cell phone via an RF link.

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Redesigned Bike Light Controller

November 6, 2014 by Bryan Cockfield 17 Comments

[JP] was looking for a bicycle light to do some night biking around his home. He found a reasonably priced light that suited his needs, but when he started using it he found that the controller was a little lackluster. To solve some of its problems, he ended up building his own lighting controller from scratch.

The original controller’s main problem was that the it didn’t debounce the input from the single pushbutton. This meant that a single press of the button might cause it to cycle through two or three different modes, which was inconvenient and annoying. The new controller took care of this along with implementing several new brightness modes and a “strobe” mode for commuting to work to help alert other drivers of [JP]’s presence on his bicycle.

While [JP] notes that an Arduino would have been very easy to use in this situation, it wouldn’t have fit in the original enclosure. He went with an 8-pin ATtiny45, which was perfectly sized for what he needed. Everything fit together perfectly and is much more useful than the original. Maybe next he could pair it with a light that is even brighter than the one he’s currently using.