Ardupilot Mega arrived from uDrones today!

Just got a call from Josh, the assembled and tested Ardupilot Mega has arrived from uDrones today.  This is a pretty big deal thing, as I was a bit intimidated by all the soldering that needs to be done for the plain board version.  What if the board didn't work when I was finished?  How would I tell if it were a problem with my assembly, or something else?[*]  I would hate to turn "Josh's Flying Camera" project into "Mark's Learning Electronics" project!

But, udrones.com to the rescue, who is selling an assembled and tested package including the main board, IMU, GPS, and magnetometer, all assembled, tested, and loaded with code.  Hooray, and thanks to diydrones for the heads-up!

Speaking of diydrones, I met with head-droner Chris Anderson this last weekend.  He lives in Berkeley, and tests at the same places that I fly.  I'll follow up with another post, but I told him about the Arcticopter project, and that I was interested in writing a document oriented to the beginner.

So, onwards and upwards, hopefully to the exact altitude specified!



 [*] which would match 100% my first experience with RC planes.  I bought my first receiver (a Spektrum AR6100E), and spent literally hours trying to get it to bind to the transmitter.  Since I had never seen in real life a bind procedure, I had no idea what to expect, or how to diagnose the problem.  I eventually put a youtube up on rcgroups and asked if I was doing it correctly (they said I was).  The story has a happy ending -- I contacted Horizon, they looked at the video, confirmed I was doing it right, and sent me a replacement unit which I received in two days.

I also had the same experience the time I tried flying my first plane.  It was a foamy I had built using plans downloaded from rcgroups.  It had a lot of problems, and I had no idea if it was something I was doing wrong as a pilot, or something I had done wrong building, or some combination of both!