Building my first MultiRotor

[Joao Torres]

I'm willing to assemble a drone with 4 props, for a payload of 800g.
The requirements that I have from my boss is to assemble this drone
using APM (mulitiplatform autopilot) from 3DR
Objective is taking images and movie, for inspections on briges and other anaccessible areas
I'll be needing a gimble for a light compact camera of 2 axis.
I'm quite new on this field, and I'll need the help form someone who is willing to give me is knowledge.
Thank you

 

[eskil23]

I think 800g payload is on the heavy side for a quad. Why not try a hexa?

 

[Joao Torres]

I've been thinking on that to, do you have some recomendations that you could help?
Like configurations made. Motores; frames to use.
My big issue is power of motores to lift the copter and an extra of arrond 800g (that is the wheight fo the camera and gimble)

 

[eskil23]

I think the weight of my camera+gimbal will land on something similar. I figured I'll try if a standard F550 can lift that. If not, I'll have to go for the heavy-lift modification with longer arms, larger motors and larger props.

 

[dazzab]

If your boss wants to use the 3DR flight controller then maybe a 3DR copter would be worth looking at as well? The are a bit on the light side for industrial type use IMHO but the X8 might be useful to you. It has the advantage of having redundancy if a motor goes out as well. BTW, you'll want to use the Pixhawk rather than the APM as it has more memory and a faster CPU. Some of the newer features of Arducopter won't run on an APM anymore.

 

[dazzab]

Having posted the previous suggestions, you might want to start out with something more plug and play. You can't go past a DJI Phantom or an Iris+ from 3DR for getting experience quickly with minimum fuss.

 

[eskil23]

I think the weight of my camera+gimbal will land on something similar. I figured I'll try if a standard F550 can lift that. If not, I'll have to go for the heavy-lift modification with longer arms, larger motors and larger props.

After the advice in another thread to list all components in a spreadsheet and sum up the total weight, I found that my F550 will have a AUW of a little less than 2800 gram (gimbal and retracts was heavier than I thought). That is 400 gram overweight. eCalc give me about 5-6 minutes flight time with this configuration. Not much, but probably enough for most photo jobs.

In the future though, I'll have to concider the heavy-lift upgrade (30 A ESCs, X55 extended arms, 11" props, motors to match and a bigger battery).