News

  • Shipping kits - and building lots of Quadshots

     

    Hey all, since the container arrived we’ve been hard at work getting Quadshots assembled, boxed, and shipped out. Here’s the status of everything:

    Latte:
    Completed and shipped out on June 21!



    Cappuccino:
    Completed and shipped out on June 21! We know of one backer, Anton, that built his Cappuccino around a Lisa/M v1.0. He’s posted videos on youtube: maiden hovering flight and first mode 2 flight.

    We can’t wait to see more videos from all of you!

    Mocha:
    Obviously the biggest task - we’ve built about a third of the airframes so far. Chris is the assembly Zen master!



    On the electronics front, we’ve been getting lots of assembled boards from Dallas Electronics:


    The 150+ Mocha-bound Aspirins arrived first, and Piotr and Pranay have checked each one for functionality:


    While testing the Aspirins, we were gratified to see that they all have really nice and consistent output without any extra calibration required - we’re glad Piotr updated to the IMU-6000!

    The Lias also arrived - here’s the first 30 awaiting their bootloader:


    Jeff made some jigs to assist Piotr in flashing the bootloader and to precisely align the Aspirin onto Lia for soldering:



    Lastly, the RC receivers have been rebuilt with the correct firmware on them and are due to ship back to us today, so we should receive them next week - fingers crossed!

    Espresso:
    We have a little surprise for the Espresso backers that has turned into a good news/bad news thing. The good news is that Piotr upgraded the pressure sensor from the Bosch BMP085 to the Measurement Specialties MS5611-01BA03, which is mounted on Aspirin rather than Lisa. The new sensor is more accurate, has lower noise, and a faster measurement output rate, all of which should improve altitude sensing quite a bit. Unfortunately, the bad news is that the vendor accidentally sent us the tail-end of the component reel (small electronic components are sent on a what looks like film on a reel, with each part sealed into a pocket in the film). This meant that there were lots of empty spots where the sensors should have been :-( The vendor sent us the rest of the parts, but that delay, coupled with the July 4th holiday, is why the Espressos haven’t shipped out yet.
    In any case, the Espresso kits are otherwise all packed up and in zombie/Dr. Frankenstein mode (waiting for braaaaaiinnnsssss....)

    Kopi Luwak:
    Chris has assembled all of the Kopi Luwak airframes. We decided to follow Gumstix’ recommendation and upgrade the modules from the Overo Air (TI OMAP 3503 @ 600MHz) to the Overo AirSTORM (ARM Cortex-A8 @ 800MHz-1GHz). However, stock has been in somewhat short supply - our order has been on backorder for more than two weeks, but we’ve contacted them and they expect them to ship by the 19th.
    As soon as they arrive, we will install the Lisa/Ls and test-fly each one before shipping them out.

    We know you are all very excited to receive your rewards (especially the Mochas!), and we’ll post more updates as assembly proceeds. Thanks again for your patience in the home stretch!

    Now back to the shop to build some more Mochas...

    -the Quadshot Team.

  • ← Next Post Previous Post →
  • Leave a comment