The plan so far.

[Aubie]

Gathering info for first multicopter. Looking to do ap with it so keeping that in mind if any of my choices are in error please let me know, dont want to throw away money on something that wont work. Heres the list so far.

Frame http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...Quadcopter_V2_0_Carbon_Fiber_Frame_550mm.html

Or

Frame http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/..._Hexcopter_V1_0_Carbon_Fiber_Frame_625mm.html

both with extended arms.

For motors http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=26958

Uncertain on esc's at this point.

Batteries will be 6 cell 5000 or 8000 mah

 

[mbsteed]

I would suggest a different approach:

First start out with a cheap quad kit, don't even try putting a camera underneath this - that just adds more complexity. That will give you experience.

Then once you have skills flying and building then move up to something better - if you are thinking professional quality then you will want to lift an expensive camera and you are better off having redundancy with an X8 or flat Octo configuration - that will give you the necessary redundancy in the event something happens to an ESC or motor mid flight.

 

[Aubie]

Thanks for the reply mb. Have been flying helis about 3 years now and the other half got me a small quad for christmas. So the actual flying part is no problem. It'sthe correct multirotor
component purchases for what I am wanting to do that is the mystery lol.

 

[mbsteed]

Ah, so first serious multirotor

The first question or information that you need is what are you going to lift? In other words what is the weight and size of the camera you want to lift? You build your ship around that. Do you want professional/paraprofessional quality or amateur quality? Then everything follows from there.

 

[Aubie]

Camera will be nikon D5000 and 3 axis gimbal of my own design. So camera and gimbal weight roughly 2 lbs. Back to you mb lol.

 

[Aubie]

Upon looking at some of the ready made gimbals availavable lets change it to being able to lift 5 lbs.

 

[mbsteed]

I had just composed a lengthy reply but hit reply rather than Post and lost all the information:

A lot of variables to consider when you go to do this:

Here is the essense of what I wrote:

Your camera weighs about 600g (I wouldn't recommend building your own gimbal at this point):
A gimbal (photohigher AV 130 or one upgraded MKTR) is another 500g (I would go with Photohigher - it is upgradeable to 360 pan) - we use MKTR and it works okay but took some tweaking.

The camera you are trying to lift looks like a quality setup so I would recommend an octo or Hexa configuration. Octo would be my suggestion since it will provide the best redundancy in the case you lose an ESC or motor mid flight.

That margin of safety and redundancy comes at a cost to the wallet as well as to weight.

I can cut to the chase here and make a recommendation on what you will need for motors and props because our current setup lifts a similar sized camera.

The total weight of our octo setup is just over 5Kg (including everything: frame, camera, gimbal, 2 - 4s 6000 mah batteries in parallel, video transmitter, motors, ESCs, etc.)

Our cheap DIY wood frame is 914 mm motor to motor. The frame sizes you suggest are probably too small for your camera (I tried starting out with exactly that 550 frame in an X8 arrangement) and there was just not enough room for electronics and props - no point of reproducing my mistake. 914 mm is a nice size for an octo with 12x3.8 APS props.

We also used Avroto 2814-11 motors (100 g each). Fight times 6-7 minutes (I am conservative with draining batteries).

Start playing with number in eCalc - I don't totally trust it but it will get you into the ball park.

Hope that helps and there are lots of build threads by folks who have done similar builds to what you are attempting, check those out and you will get a sense for ball park specs that you will need to look at.

Oh, you might be able to cut corners by reducing the frame size slightly and going with 11 inch props and further reductions by going with a hexa configuration but I have chosen not to go that route.