For sale, RTF, XY8-EOSc professional grade heli w/ camera mount

[Bartman]

Hi everyone,

After much effort and many late nights I'd like to introduce you to the XY8-EOSc coaxial quad multi-rotor and camera mount. The XY8 frame is a design I've been working on since last October that combines the front (and rear) boom spacing of a Y6 tri-copter with the motor count of an X8 co-axial quad-copter thus giving a clear field of view for a wide angle camera lens and excellent motor-out capabilities (as was proven inadvertently in a recent flight). The EOSc (EOS compatible) camera mount has been in development since August, 2011 and the mount shown in the pictures is the sixth version to be built/flown/tested.

I'm offering the complete package for sale as a Ready-to-Fly unit complete with Mikrokopter flight control and GPS electronics, an Iftron wireless video system and a JR 9503 radio system. All of the details are listed below. One has been built for a customer in Texas (my good friend Emowillcox) and will ship this Monday.

My plan is to offer four units for sale at an introductory price of $9450.00 USD (shipped in the continental USA). If the four sell in a reasonable amount of time then I'll plan a production run of ten complete units and establish the business structure and insurance coverage before proceeding. The production rate will be limited in order to preserve my ability to provide excellent customer support.

Potential buyers should have some RC helicopter flight experience before ordering. Please use this thread to ask any questions.

I also have an NEXc camera mount (Sony NEX to Panasonic GH2 range of cameras) planned that will be quite unique in a couple of ways plus it will be smaller/lighter and suitable for either an XY4 or XY8 helicopter.


Youtube channel with sample videos....more will be added in the coming days/weeks.....

http://www.youtube.com/user/barchiola?feature=guide


Original XY8 build thread showing early development process.....

http://www.multirotorforums.com/show...132-XY-8-Build


XY8-EOSc[SUP]*[/SUP]

XY8 CO-AXIAL QUAD-COPTER
Ultra-stable platform for Professional Aerial Media applications
Carbon fiber frame plates and booms
Dual, independent battery connections provide power supply redundancy
Dual, independent satellite receivers (with diversity board) provide control link redundancy
Compact size allows for transportation in most smaller cars (It easily fit on the back seat of a four-door Honda Civic)
Easily accessed battery mounts and connections for quick battery changes between flights
Easy to carry
Droidworx HLE carbon fiber landing gear
Room on frame plates for all major flight control systems (Mikrokopter included in RTF)
Room for up to four batteries (attachments for two provided)
LED strips to mark the front arms and coordinated with kopter functions
Simple construction to make field repairs easier

EOSc[SUP]*[/SUP] CAMERA MOUNT
Clear field of view from approximately 30 degrees nose up to straight down (Canon T2i w/ Sigma 10-20 wide angle lens)
Very strong and durable aircraft-grade aluminum construction
Yellow powder coated finish to aid in recovery if lost (and it looks cool )
Four point mounting system integrated within overall copter design
Independent 7.4 volt, switched electrical system
Wiring harness includes two power taps for HDMI converter, video Tx, etc.
¼” mounting holes for Canon T2i/550D, Panasonic GH2, Sony NEX
GoPro mount, fly your GoPro while also flying your main camera!
External potentiometers on roll and pitch axis
High Performance Savox High Voltage digital servos
Unique vibration dampening system, Patent-pending
Robust mounting and pivot points for stability in advanced flying & wind conditions
2S, 2200 mah Lipo lasts approximately eight, 10 minute flights
Easily change SD cards with camera in position (Canon T2i)
Mounting point for video Tx keeps antenna steady in roll
Easily converts to independent gimbal stabilization for two-man operation (Coming soon, test flights with Hoverfly Gimbal and Picloc 3X)

INCLUDED IN RTF PACKAGE:
Mikrokopter Oktokopter (8 motor) Complete Flight Control System

• Flight Control v2.1, ver .88 firmware
• Navi Control v2.0 (commercial license not included)
• GPS v2.1
• Brushless motor controllers (BL) ver 2.0
• XL Power Distribution Ring
• Camera gimbal stabilization outputs

Flight control system configured for GPS Position Hold and Come Home, remote GPS gain adjustment, altitude hold, camera shutter release, camera tilt control, GentLED photo/video actuation
JR 9503 DSMX remote control system, 9 channels, 2.4 GHz (unused R921x receiver included with package)
Iftron 5.8 GHz wireless video system (Mondo Stinger 500mw transmitter, Yellow Jacket diversity receiver w/ dual video outputs)
IBCrazy’s Blue Beam video Tx/Rx antennae
Tiger Motors
Xoar Props (Custom balanced before mounting)
Video review on DVD including quality control checks, explanation of controls, and first flights


*EOS is a registered trademark of the Canon Corporation

Please note, RTF copters will have a dome installed. I'm in the final stages of preparing a plug for production of the domes and they will be ready before the first units are shipped.

Thanks for reading if you've made it this far!

Please PM me if you'd like my cell phone number to speak with me directly.

 

[Bartman]

Pictures.....

View attachment 3766View attachment 3767View attachment 3765View attachment 3764

 

[DucktileMedia]

Looks pro. Better yet, it IS pro! Nice to see the finished product.

 

[Aerial Media Pros]

Awesome Bart, Very nice Copter and gimbal combination.

 

[Skysurf]

Hi Bart,

machine looks really nice!

The Youtube link (http://www.youtube.com/user/barchiola?feature=guide) links to the build thread. Thought I'd let you know.

Regards,

Jesper

 

[Jake Bullit]

Thought you'd been quiet lately
Looks cool

Sent from my HTC HD2

 

[hjls3]

Wow!!! Someday I hope my building talents are half that. Nicely done!!!! Impressive youtube vid as well. Im sure your heart rate must have briefly accelerated when you had motor failure.

 

[Bartman]

Thanks very much for the nice comments. It's been a ton of work but it's been worth it.

Here's another video.....this was shot late last year as a proof-of-concept package we worked out with a local golf course. It was the first time working with the editor that put it all together and we were short on footage in some spots because of seasonal weather but all in all we were happy with what we got. It was also the project that brought about the need for a helicopter that could be flown both in high winds and at decent forward speeds while still shooting video. The frame and camera mount were an early prototype with direct drive on the roll axis which didn't work well consistently enough so it was switched to gear drive.

 

[Lifter]

Looks great Bart - Top stuff, Luv the yellow!!
Cheers

 

[Emowillcox]

HI Bart I can’ t wait to get mine and I”ll be looking forward to putting it to use this summer for work and fun projects. I have talked to Bart alot over the last few months about his project and know he was keeping it on the down low until he felt comfortable he had a good product. Not sure how he kept it so secret (-; This is gonna be a great machine and only thing that could have been better is if he would have gone with my name “BartOkopter” :nevreness::nevreness::apathy:
Thanks for all the hard work and looking forward to getting mine and sharing the experience on here.

 

[Bartman]

Added another video this morning, footage is all unprocessed.

 

[Mactadpole]

Super sweet machine, Bart! Best of luck on the sales. Whoever picks these up are really going to like them no doubt.

Shawn

 

[Bartman]

Thanks Shawn. I hope that it works for others as well as it's working for me.
I could have put them up for sale at an earlier point but I wanted to avoid the mistakes some other manufacturers have made by selling stuff that wasn't quite ready yet. There's nothing worse than spending a lot of money and having to tinker with it constantly. I also didn't want to create a customer service nightmare for myself by selling a bunch of crap!! How could I sell anything sub-standard when everyone knows they can find me here whenever they need something?

Bart

 

[holco]

I am impressed!!

Best raw video I have seen :tennis:

What mount stabilization do you use, I am still struggling with the picloc

 

[Bartman]

I am impressed!!

Best raw video I have seen :tennis:

What mount stabilization do you use, I am still struggling with the picloc

All mount stabilization is presently being performed by the Mikrokopter camera outputs on the flight control board. I've found the MK camera stabilization to be pretty darn good but I will also be trying the HoverflyGimbal and Picloc 3X in the near future as I'd like to have a second receiver for a camera operator.

Bart

 

[Bartman]

I should have mentioned in the original post that it will be approximately four weeks to get everything up and running for production and for the first unit to ship. I may be able to produce a batch of four in that time if everything falls into place but I'm currently expecting to establish delivery slots and fill them one at a time until I have a handle on what the time commitment will be to get customers settled in and operating on their own.
Thanks,
Bart

 

[DucktileMedia]

Will there be a Google "Bart to English" translation app for when i have problems? Oh wait, you speak perfect English and answer your emails, never mind.

 

[Bartman]

Just found an old pic with the 1st prototype frame that shows the layout compared to a flat Okto.

Made the decision to launch a web shop and will be releasing details soon.


View attachment 3794

 

[hjls3]

Just found an old pic with the 1st prototype frame that shows the layout compared to a flat Okto.

So Bartman what are the advantages to your layout vs a flat 8? I imagine weight is one? What are the others? Are there any drawbacks? Baiscally, why did you choose to go with this configuration? Very nice looking machine. Forgive me for being such a newbie, maybe the advantages are super simple. I am right now looking at AD-6HL and wondering if I should not be thinking about a rig like this instead. Look forward to your website.

 

[Bartman]

So Bartman what are the advantages to your layout vs a flat 8? I imagine weight is one? What are the others? Are there any drawbacks? Baiscally, why did you choose to go with this configuration? Very nice looking machine. Look forward to your website.

Thanks for the questions.

Regarding the shop website, I've been building/designing things for most of my life and I'm having a tremendously good time with what I'm doing with multi-rotors so rather than put off this move, I've decided to just proceed and open a shop. The XY projects will continue and I'll eventually land a few sales but I'm also going to offer RTF builds for other multi's to round things out. Details will be hashed out in the coming weeks as I finalize the relationships I'll need to make it happen.

Regarding the XY8-EOSc, its design came about after I crashed my original MK Okto II last year. I needed a new frame and camera mount to keep my fledgling media business operating so I bought a Droidworx Okto frame and a mount from averticalview.com. To say I was disappointed with the camera mount would be an understatement. In the course of modifying it it became apparent that I would have to start from scratch to derive any real benefit from all of the modifications so I drew up the parts in Autocad and went about making the first mount. Droidworx makes very high quality frames and they are absolutely bullet-proof in giving people the tools to succeed with multi-rotor helicopters but I liked the Y-6 better than my flat Okto but couldn't give up the comfort of having eight motors. I chewed on this in my head for a few weeks and came up with the flattened quad layout that is now my XY8.

It has the redundancy of eight motors but the clear field of view that is possible with 120 degrees of space across the front arms. I believe DennyR has modified his F1 quad to have greater spacing across the front as well and he calls it a "Butterfly" layout (I might be wrong on that but I seem to remember seeing it in one of his posts). With a straight four motor quad, you can't continue to fly if you lose a motor. With a Y-6 if you lose a motor on the rear arm you lose 50% of your lift/control on that side of the Pitch axis and if it's hot or you're heavy it may be difficult to maintain control/altitude. With a coaxial quad (or a flat Okto for that matter) if you lose any one motor you only lose 25% of your lift/control on that side of whichever axis you're referencing so the motor loss has less of an effect. There are multiple cases of eight motor multi-rotor helicopters losing motors in flight and not only landing safely but maintaining excellent flying qualities. I have a video of my own experience with a motor loss and I wish I kept flying instead of landing immediately so the point of controllability could have been more clearly demonstrated.

As for other features of the design, the battery mounts are designed to make battery changes very quick and simple with the battery connections out in the open where you can easily get to them. There are two completely independent battery connections to the power distribution board which isn't a standard Mikrokopter feature. This is a very worthwhile mod that makes the addition of a second battery pack worth more than just the mah's you'll get from it. The XY layout makes the overall size very compact making it easy to carry and small enough to ride on the back seat of a compact car (I use a '95 Honda Civic for my mother ship when going to gigs with my equipment). Even with the funky layout it retains all of the wonderful flying qualities that MK's are known for.

If the XY8-EOSc is too big of a bite for some people to take I am working on the prototype XY4-NEXc which will be a smaller and lighter 4-motor powered XY quad, designed around the size and needs of the Sony NEX cameras, that will have a very unique feature that will make it extremely versatile. An 8-motor version will also be offered for people that want the security of having eight motors should they be flying over water, rough terrain, or very valuable items on the ground!

Thanks!
Bart