AR.Drone Modness

Not a whole lot to talk about today. Not to mention the fact that I was super busy at work and everywhere in-between so I barely had time to write. I figured I had better jot down "something" since I am trying to consistently add one per day on Blogger just as I do in my personal Day One blog / journal. Well, one-a-day until my days start to get crazy-busy. This usually happens about once a year for 4 to 6 months when I am starting a new game at work, then I sort of get into the groove of it and things taper off a little bit and become steady. When crazy-busy ends up happening I will space posts out as time permits as I have mentioned in the past. If I could use Siri at work without driving my cube-neighbors nutty I would because it would help a ton, but that is not an option.

Mac Drones

So after the first couple of flights with my AR.Drone I was left with a need for more control over my new quad-copter.While the iOS as-a-controller is high-tech and geeky-cool, it felt only "ok". When controlling a device with another device and one that you are not looking at there needs to be some tactile feedback, especially if you want a more precision flying experience.

I found myself looking down and constantly checking where my fingers were position on my iPhone 5 which then takes my eyes off of my AR.Drone soaring 15 feet above and twice that distance away at least. At times I would try to do some more advance maneuvers only to nearly crash because my fingers were not over the touch screen buttons location as they were before the maneuver.

I should also mention that I have many years experience with RC's of various types from cars and monster trucks to boats, planes, motorcycles and helicopters. The cool geeky part of controlling my helicopter with one of my iOS devices while awesome, just never felt quite right so I almost immediately started a search for a way to convert it to a traditional RC type controller. I assumed it was a long-shot, but worth the try.

After finding several DIY methods for modifying my AR.Drone scattered across the internet, along with detailed lists of where to get all of the necessary parts, instructions on where and what to solder, what needs cutting and taping and so on I kept coming across something people were referring to as the Mac Gyver mod. So I pulled up my buddy Google and initiated a search for the Mac Gyver fella and whatta you know? There is a guy out there setting up the entire modification so that it is essentially plug-and-play. Holy crap! - can you say "hair standing up on the back of your neck from excitement" awesomeness? I can.

The name of his company is MacDrones. The availability of such an all-in-one kit is friggin' awesome to say the least! For someone like myself that does not feel like soldering on his brand new toy, a plug-n-play option is exactly what I am after and I think most hobbyist would be in a similar situation if they were looking to do the modification.

For the reasonable price of $162.49 (shipped to my door) I had to pull the trigger on a kit for my AR.Drone 2.0 and since doing so I can barely contain my excitement and the anticipation for it to arrive. Had I ventured out and bought all of the necessary components on my own it would be nearly that price and I would have been tasked with doing all of the modifications to the boards and so on, so "less expensive" only assumes that I would not botch something up in the process. Not a risk I am willing to take when piloting my $300 toy. With the Mac Gyver modification there are only supposed to be a few minor adjustments. Things like taping on the receiver board and possibly a small amount of cutting and trimming on the foam hull for the new items.

Whats-more is that you do not lose any of the original features of the device. For example, if you still have your iPhone in your pocket then it will still record the flight to it just as it did before doing the modification. If you want to use the on-board USB to record you still can. Should you start running low on battery during flight, it will give you that feedback as well just like it did with the iOS controller option. Basically anything you could have done with the iOS device you can still do. But what happens if you want to fly it again with an iOS device, totally ok and do-able. Just unplug the receiver for the Spektrum receiver and you are back to iOS piloting.

The other cool thing (not that I would be ballsy enough to do it until I have several more flights under my belt) is that you can fly much further since you are not flying on a WIFI network between your iOS device and the AR.Drone but rather a radio frequency as you would with traditional RC's. This means using the 2.4 GHz controller and receiver you have up to 800+ feet of flight vs. around 150 feet while using a WIFI network. Pretty cool stuff!

Outta Here

So obviously I could drone on for hours (pun intended) about this topic but I just don't have the bandwidth in my day. So I will end this entry for today and potentially post some information on the modification to my AR.Drone and how friggin' cool it is at a later date, how hard it was and that sort of thing. According to the website my parts should be here in 2 to 7 days which is rad, yeah I used "rad", so what ya' hippy!

Oh, something else I should mention - I ordered the kit at 1:15 today, then to my surprise at just after 1:30 I received an email stating that the kit had been processed and that the shipping company already had it so it was on its way to me, tracking number and everything -- holy light-speed shipping batman! I absolutely dig-it when companies or individuals are "on it" like this. I pride myself on being that way so it's nice to know there are others that care just as much. Ok for real this time, I am out of here - enjoy the hump-day!

Photo: AR.Drone 2.0