TBS Gemini

[Chippercheese]

True, but conventionally we in the UK tend to see the $ symbol changed to a £ for US imports. The blame being attributed to shipping, distribution, duties and taxes. 

Could you make an equivalent? I think so. These mini-H quads are building out around £220 It can';t cost much to add two arms, motors and ESC

You probably could - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:282606

[tupoar]

That';s given me an idea. In fact I was thinking last night if the was a way of creating angled motor mounts for my 250. 4 of those motor mounts could be Interesting....

[teslahed]

If anyone does retrofit a mini quad with angled motor mounts I';ll be very interested to hear what difference they find it makes.

[Marty McFly]

Quite easy to acheive an angle mount,just put a washer or washer';s uder the side you whant to be highest experiment then get mouts printed,just a idea for you tinker';ers,Marty and the borrowed doggie, :scotland:

[Oakie]

Kitchen fitter and the like use, sometimes, little plastic wedges they buy in a tub, an assortment of. they can be usfull for all sorts of angle.

As marty points out once an angle is liked a 3d print can be done.

Paul

[tupoar]

You probably could - http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:282606

In the interest of science, I';m getting a set of the motor mounts printed at my work place as we speak. I';ll try and give them a test at the weekend....

[Chippercheese]

In the interest of science, I';m getting a set of the motor mounts printed at my work place as we speak. I';ll try and give them a test at the weekend....

I too am trying those motor mounts!

[kilby]

ach was just a flying thought anyways, as i was looking at a titled quad a few weeks ago and thinking of building one.

Was that the 450 sized one that was tilted at something like 30 or 40 degrees.

Edit: Found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulO8XGZaC90 though in the process I also found this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulO8XGZaC90 which is even more interesting

I had been thinking of an X quad with the two rear motors having a limited tilt capability to give a more tricopter like yaw.

I didn';t bother as I figured it would confuse the flight controller too much, though I may have over thought things.

[Cloudbuster]

Was that the 450 sized one that was tilted at something like 30 or 40 degrees.

i would suggest no more than 15 degrees of tilt on props !!! this all looks good but will have an adverse effect when hovering !! will work Ok in foreward direction but is likely to cause drift problems in hover !! all modern flight controllers get their 3d orientation reference from level so any tinkering with this will effect flying characteristics !!!

regards rob 

[nub]

yup 30 degrees on the motors and controller.

DJI F450 Angle Quad (FAST FWD FLIGHT!)

i';m not going to be building one though, thought about it hard but i';ve decided not too but if you want to try fly fast with a quad it';s the way to go IMHO.

his latest version can change the angle in flight, different and very cool indeed.

[Chippercheese]

My plan was to angle the motors and FC of my hovership MHQ by 10° - since it';s nice and simple to work with

[kilby]

I have to say my interest in this isn';t sped it';s a small indoor flyer, as I';m already thinking about the winter indoor flying season.

The Blade Nano QX I have is fun to fly but small and dull, and even a 250 H is possibly a little big to do anything too interesting with when flying in a school gym.

So a pretty small machine with a bit of power and weigh (so it can be flown outdoors too) with really good yaw would be really interesting.

The Gemini seems to be in the right size category, but fails on price and probably manoeuvrability.

[nub]

i wonder how well it bounces

My plan was to angle the motors and FC of my hovership MHQ by 10° - since it';s nice and simple to work with

you should give it a try to see what difference it makes.

[kilby]

For those who are interested here';s some further info from the guy who designed it (and an explination as to why http://shrediquette.blogspot.hk/2014/08/tbs-gemini.html

The flight controller http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/quanton-flight-control

Oh the controller is 54 euros, so it';s not to bad a price http://www.quantec-networks.de/shop/en/quanton/1/quanton-flight-control-rev.-1

[nub]

don';t know if you guys have seen this but thought i';d post just you haven';t

http://buildandcrash.blogspot.ch/2014/10/gemini-powered-by-tau-labs-tear-down.html?m=1

only watched the videos of it flying so far but i got to say i aint that impressed

[kilby]

Wondering why they sent it to somebody who can';t fly the bloody thing

[nub]

i know that 1st video is bad.

just thought i should probably add that i don';t mean that in a negative way to towards the flyer but as in promotional sense, the 2nd video shows it flying better but i';m still not that impressed its not that quick or fast and to be honest it looks like he';s fighting with it quite a bit a times, if you get what i mean

[teslahed]

The only interesting bit of the design for me is the way it uses small vibration dampeners under each motor on the motor arms. I haven';t seen many miniquads do that. I am tempted to get some thin silicon vibration dampeners and try putting them under my motors now.

[flybywire]

Reading this thread through (yawn), it';s clear that the great British hobby of knocking success is still rife.  I think a lot of you are clearly clueless about just how much it costs to develop and produce this stuff?  Then, on the same hand, you slag off cheapo Chinese gear when it falls to bits in the air!

Lol!  Have a word with yourselves!!   

[nub]

The only interesting bit of the design for me is the way it uses small vibration dampeners under each motor on the motor arms. I haven';t seen many miniquads do that. I am tempted to get some thin silicon vibration dampeners and try putting them under my motors now.

the way it';s been done on this i think its a little dodgy and it wouldn';t surprise me if the motors were able to wiggle slightly, would have to see it hands on lol

what a bummer if you bend an arm though eh

[teslahed]

The biggest problem for me with the gemini design is that they';ve gone smaller and less powerful than most of the mini H quads most people fly when the current fashionable trend seems to be to build slightly larger more powerful miniquads. It';s not going to climb as fast or cover open ground anywhere near as well as most of the miniquads people are now flying who';ve put a bit of effort into their setup.

It will probably be harder to tune out all the twitchyness as well. Even TBS';s video isn';t the smoothest i';ve seen considering they are supposed to be pros;

https://vimeo.com/110831709

So the design will probably be better and more fun for slaloming around forests and stuff at closer ranges and smaller distances but you wont get the kinds of videos from it that the better (usually sponsored) fliers who fly more powerful custom mini H quads manage.

I could be proven wrong in time of course (not like I';ve flown one) but i predict the only people that will have lots of fun with them are those racing in small fields with lots of obstacles to go round at moderate rather than fast speeds.

LOL - sorry flybywire! 

[Ground Engineer]

Agree with Testla.  I think they should have gone for the 330mm size minihex using 6x45 props and 6S batteries.

[nub]

6S batteries, BOOM!

[teslahed]

If they';d done custom ESCs that could take 6 cells without frying and without taking up too much space or weight then built a mini quad with 6 cells they';d have produced something truly special.

[Ground Engineer]

If they';d done custom ESCs that could take 6 cells without frying and without taking up too much space or weight then built a mini quad with 6 cells they';d have produced something truly special.

Im sure its just around the corner

[kilby]

To me the Gemini looks nice, but that';s as far as it goes, once you factor price into it then I';m fraid it';s a case of Meh!!!

I like the fact that the flight controller can simply be snapped into place, though to be honest I would rather that the ESCs had the same capability, rather than having to unsolder them (we know what will happen in the real world).

considering all the machines leave the factory sharing the same specification I would expect it to be tuned properly (after all they also supply the battery), and it should be no problem to use the voltage setting to decide which PID set to use depending on 3s or 4s being used.

So it does worry me a bit regarding the poor tuning (something very good straight out of the box should be a given)

I don';t doubt it will find it';s niche and I hope it does something bring quad racing (or similar) into the public eye (lets face it that would be a million times better than the current press that we receive)

Yeah I know there';s setup costs for producing anything but price/performance for this is definitely a case of no thanks as far as I am concerned (wondering what replacement ESC';s, main boards (when when tracks are lifted desoldering the ESCs) flight controllers etc are)

[Hands0n]

Isn';t this a manifestation of what we';ve already seen with the larger multi-rotor?  A commoditisation of the genre, probably with compromises and a general one size fits all approach.  It is never likely to completely satisfy the person that designs and builds their own (many of the correspondents above). Although ideas it has implemented have very obviously sparked interest and spawned ideas of our own.  And that can';t be a bad thing

Design limitations aside - I think the Gemini gives a walk in and buy one opportunity for those who want to get in on the excitement of 250 gymkhana style multi-rotoring.  The Gemini may not stack up against a customised competition racer, but that I think is a complete given.  And coming from TBS I would expect it to be priced opportunistically high. They are trying to run a business based on a now-famous brand. 

As a RTF or a BNF the Gemini does it for me in terms for what it is setting out to do. I wouldn';t have one, I';m far too cheap to pay that much for something that I know that I know I could build myself

[kilby]

I have no issue with ARTF multirotors, I would be happy to buy a mostly assembled Armattan Vtail (or perhaps a tricopter)

It basically is the spec that I would put together myself, whether that is the spec it would stay at is an entirely different matter though.

I even believe that the Gemini will be pretty well built, but at that price you want a bit more than well built.

I will genuinely be interested to see what issues turn up over time what broken parts result apart from the obvious arms. In my case it';s not to mock but I would love to get an idea of what the running cost actually is.

BTW YES I would like to play with one so if Trappy is lurking then send me one, I promise to do a better job than flying it into a bridge at full speed (in my case a rugby post at half speed, then I can compare the damage against my Tesla H)

[Cloudbuster]

Reading this thread through (yawn), it';s clear that the great British hobby of knocking success is still rife.  I think a lot of you are clearly clueless about just how much it costs to develop and produce this stuff?  Then, on the same hand, you slag off cheapo Chinese gear when it falls to bits in the air!

Lol!  Have a word with yourselves!!   

Ditto !!! I have spent thousands on RND projects only to be bashed to bits by people that have neither seen touched or flown any of my designs... Britain land of the neghead !!!!

Regards rob

[teslahed]

Just because some criticism is sometimes unwarranted doesn';t mean that in every case it';s unreasonable to criticise a design.

I';d be interested to know more about the things you';ve designed then had other people take the ****** out of Cloudbuster. I can understand that';s not going to be a pleasant experience. But just because it was unreasonable in your case doesn';t mean it is in this case.

I';d like to see a good quality TBS gemini shot video that isn';t 30 seconds or so of heavily edited advertising or extremely wobbly footage from a terrible pilot before i come to any conclusions.