Newbie Questions...

[ap4me]

I started reading many posts, however most of them already assume you have a pretty decent grasp of this.

Some basic starter questions for anyone willing to answer.

I've seen in most of the videos someone with a Tx. Do you have to launch the plane (and land it)? If so, are there ways to automate this as well?

What size cameras are being used. I currently do AP and the "new" it camera is seems to be the canon a570is. I'm not sure if this would be too heavy though. Any ideas?

What kind of cost is involved to do this?

How much of a "programmer" do you have to be/how difficult to do this?

I'm just looking for a simple solution to help me take better pictures. Worry less about flying and more about taking the pics. I'm not sure if this is an option.

thanks!!

[dmgoedde]

I've seen in most of the videos someone with a Tx. Do you have to launch the plane (and land it)? If so, are there ways to automate this as well?Sure, landing could be by parachute, or use ultrasonic ranging sensors to measure distance to the ground. GPS position error is kind of big to hit a runway though. I wouldn't bet my plane on it. It is much easier to manually pilot the takeoff and landing, IMHO.

What size cameras are being used. I currently do AP and the "new" it camera is seems to be the canon a570is. I'm not sure if this would be too heavy though. Any ideas?I have an Olympus FE-230, at about 3.5 ounces. It is 7 Megapixel, though the lens is probably the real limiter.

What kind of cost is involved to do this?I have made several homeade autopilots. The time and money involved are not trivial. I put $400 into materials for my 1st autopilot + a few hundred hours of time. My latest unit I have 1000+ hours into it and about $5000. If you care more about flying than geeking out on the electronics/programming/control theory, I would suggest spending the money to buy a pre-made commercial unit. It will save you a lot of time and money.

How much of a "programmer" do you have to be/how difficult to do this?The basic concepts are straightforward. Your goal is to make an ultra reliable real-time embedded system. Once you get the basic methods and program flow worked out, you have to think about every contigency for things that go wrong. I have found this is not for the faint of heart. If you have passion, you can work through the hurdles. For me, it fights me tooth and nail. Every step of improvement I have 'earned'. You can do it all in high level languages if you want. The core concepts are not that hard to write into code, but the functionality will be pretty basic.

I'm just looking for a simple solution to help me take better pictures. Worry less about flying and more about taking the pics. I'm not sure if this is an option.Maybe you just need an FMA CoPilot, plus something to hold altitude?

[zlite]

Check out DIY Drones (http://diydrones.com/), which is meant for beginners (as well as experts)