Tough to fly here in northern Utah in the winter. It’s cold, windy, and of course there’s the snow thing.

I took my Arris X-Speed 250 racer out today and got through one battery. On the second battery I was having some FPV interference and not able to see where I was going very well. I ended up losing altitude on a turn and then the FPV went “white.” I can see why now.

Before the crash. Happy face.

Meet the newest addition to my fleet, the ARRIS V676 Micro RC Quadcopter. This tiny quadcopter would make a great Christmas gift and can be found on Amazon.com for around $26.

I’ll post a full review soon. Batteries charging now!

I always have to be building or tweaking something in the drone world it would seem.  It’s like an addiction really.  Unsatisfied with GoPro images, I’m hoping to get my old Canon S95 or my new Sony RX100 camera mounted on a gimbal on my 680mm Alien quadcopter.

3-Axis Gimbal

After a lot of research I decided to pick up this “DYS” 3-axis gimbal pictured above, on Amazon.  The main parts are milled aluminum and I like the way they can be easily tweaked for balancing various cameras without even needing a tool. This gimbal will hold a NEX camera as well, which is the one I use on my large hexacopter. This gimbal could save a lot of weight as compared to the very nice, but overbuilt Arris Zhaoyun 3-axis gimbal I’m currently using.

Part of the reason this setup above is inexpensive is it is not assembled. Versions may come in 2-axis or 3-axis, and often times the controller board is not included. I have a SimpleBGC 32bit controller ready to go for this unit. I’m almost ready to start mounting that part, then will come the PID tuning.

I’m going to be on vacation for a few days, so this project will probably be on hold for a week or so, but looking forward to getting this rocking on a foldable bird I can take to remote locations.

Here’s where I bought the DYS 3-Axis Gimbal.