Can you see the new quad in this picture?

Pelican case for large multirotor copter

I’ve been shopping for a protective transport case for my large hexacopter for a while.  The size of this bird, even when folded, is oversized for flying and requires a long and deep space.

I looked at SKB hard cases and many others.  Dual rifle cases were also on the table.

As an early birthday surprise the lovely wife actually researched and bought me a Pelican 1780 Case with Foam (Black).  I had not considered Pelican as I figured a Pelican case of that size would be far too expensive.  Somehow she managed to get a great deal which I found to be more than reasonable for a case like that.

The 1780 is huge, heavy, and spacious.  My hexacopter will fit, props off.  The gimbal will also fit inside as will many accessories.  I have yet to figure the layout, but that’s next on the slate.

Travel

The one big drawback to this case is the size.  If traveling with the hexacopter, this oversized case will cost as much as $200 EACH WAY to check.  I suppose that is just the way it has to be with a bird of this size.

There have been a few tweaks to the hexacopter setup.

• New GPS pole to get GPS higher up and away from electronics for better GPS accuracy and less interference
• Two battery/power supply cables attached directly to power distribution board for redundancy. That way if one battery or supply wire fails, the other battery/wire would hopefully have enough power to bring the bird down
• Lowered Arris Zhaoyun gimbal to get props out of frame.  Works well except in situations where there is a lot of throttle, which is expected.