Great work

Nice job GHI and MS on the Gadgeteer. Got mine today. I did not realize at first the need for a wait loop is removed. I started off with a wait loop (as in panda, etc) or sleep and could not get my button event working. I then looked at the sample again and realized they must do this now with slight of hand like NodeJs. Nice.

First impressions:

  1. Love the hardware UI plug map integrated with VS project. I had hoped for this before, but expected it was pipe dream. Very Cool.
  2. Package contents very neat and well done. Would be cool if the box doubled as a simple mounting plate for the spider.
  3. Love the plugable power module.
  4. Deep coolness here. Great selection of modules to start with.

After 3 minutes, need the following on my wish list:

  1. A power module with large lipo bat supply. Long last. Bat charged from the external pwr board which could also run the power at same time as charge.
  2. Some kind of simple mounting platform to keep things mounted with thumb screws and on the desk.
  3. Hoping all mounting holes follow some kind of std 10mm or something.

Great job! This kind of thiing is the path to success.

For #2, consider Tamiya Universal Plates…info in this thread:

http://www.tinyclr.com/forum/21/5539/

For #3, the holes are on 5mm centers, IIRC.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Gadgeteer! :slight_smile:

Love the idea!

[quote]After 3 minutes, need the following on my wish list:

  1. A power module with large lipo bat supply. Long last. Bat charged from the external pwr board which could also run the power at same time as charge.
    [/quote]
    Yeah this is one of the top ones on our long list of modules (over 50 so far!)

A video will be posted in few days and shows the coolness of using stand offs, which will will stock and offer very cheap soon.

5mm is guaranteed :slight_smile: Yep, we thought about this too and holes use the very common 4-40 screws

Thanks for the good words. This is what we need to work even hardware.

@ William - nice to have you back in action… several of us have cranked out some custom mounting rigs, which you’ll find by poking around this forum. By far the cheapest are the Tamiya plates @ devhammer mentioned, unless you have your own CNC router or similar to make one.

Since you’ve been gone, GHI has seriously tooled up, including purchase of a CNC and laser cutter. We’ll hopefully soon see something like the Tamiya plates made very locally.

Here’s a cough slightly cough overpriced stop gap for lipo powering your Spider/Hydra

http://www.liquidware.com/shop/show/BB-BJC/BeagleJuice

Or a much lower cost one to do it :wink:

Oooh. those plates are nice. Ordered two! :slight_smile:

For power, I see no need for lipo. Lipo is generally used for high-amperage requirements, which is definitely not the case for gadgeteer or any of it’s modules as far as I can tell (maybe the motor driver, but even that can’t pull many amps through the mainboard). They are also way too physically sensitive (liable to puff up and burst into flames) and they’re also sensitive to voltage. drain them too much and they can become completely worthless (and puff up and burst into flames).

That being said, given my application (UAV plane), I am using lipo but that is mainly intended to power the plane. I am running a 5v ubec off the batteries to give power to the gadgeteer and another 5v ubec to power my servos. But unless your application actually calls for lipos I would avoid them.

UAV plane? Pictures? Videos? Please!

Here’s a picture: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20722278/2012-02-02%2000.54.21.jpg

The helicopter behind it is a 500 size to give an idea of scale. I believe the wing span is about 98 inches. Not even done with assembly yet. Waiting on electronics from good ol’ hong kong.

Cool uav boogieman. How you going to make use of the fez in terms of control?

Entirely! It’s likely going to fly with a fez spider directly controlling the motor and servo’s. cellular (if I can ever get it to work), GPS, Gyro, accelerometer and a baramoter will be feeding it all the data it should need to stay in the air and follow a pre-defined path (or just stay within an area surveying on it’s own)

I will likely have a regular radio onboard to take over if needed, and probably do the initial takeoff/landings until I can get it stable, but ideally I will be well out of regular 2.4ghz range majority of the time so it will be completely on it’s own for the majority of the flight.

I do hope somebody comes up with a better solution then the Tamiya plates as I find them on the small side.

@ Duke - I’ve got a bigger (than Tamiya) acrylic design at Ponoko, Online Custom Laser Cutting Service - Used By Apple - FREE Sample . The price is a bit hard to swallow if they cut it, but I’ve found it extremely useful. I also finally found some reasonable nylon 4-40 sized mounting hardware in quantities of 100 for just over $7.

Maybe we can get GHI to cut a few of these once they get that shiny new 80W laser cutter going! Hint, hint, nudge, nudge…

Isn’t this why we have the CNC and laser? :slight_smile: We are still trying to figure them out and see how we can help everyone here.