Phantom A12 Hybrid Fully Modified V2

[Thebooperman]

Hello everyone, this is my first post so take it easy on me!
I saw a build like this a while back with a regular phantom 1. So I figured it would be cool to do it with mine.
After several weeks I completed building what I like to call the "Phantom A12 Hybrid"
What your looking at is all the internals of a Phantom 2 Vision bolted into a new frame.
Custom taller landing gear
The unit is fully functional with FPV and GPS, roughly 20 min flight times.
Let me know what yall think.

 

[Thebooperman]

Here is the YouTube video of it starting.

 

[bernek]

It sure looks funny what is the weight compared to a stock P2V ? I think its about the same and honestly it looks a bit ugly with those white components left out ... maybe if you could change it all to black ... put the camera in another box/assembly and the battery mod should be done to use regular 2 x lipos. I would personally try to tidy it up a little more including moving non vital components around.

Do you have any GPS lock problems or its working like that ? I would recommend a sepparate antenna for GPS like the quads in this category. I hope compass is ok where you've mounted it.

To make it a "bad boy" you should really get rid of the egg camera and original battery its looking like a failed hybrid no offence

 

[Mark The Droner]

Pretty cool!

 

[Thebooperman]

Haha, thanks for the feedback! It definitely has room for more work!
But GPS Locks perfect! No compass issues either! Compass is mounted in the rear.
I work 65+ hours a week so I could only work on it when I had free time.
I'll get the exact weight, but with battery and camera it's definitely heavier then a phantom, probably by at least 1lb.
The wider frame with a little extra weight made the quad more stable during windy conditions I noticed.
I'll be painting it black soon... Your mom thought the white and black was cute though...

I'll update soon with black accessories, I'm looking into the battery mods next though, I would like more flight time...

 

[Thebooperman]

OK, so I got the pitch servo working! I'm able to actually use the camera like it's intended. So I remounted it on the front of my quad with all the original hardware. It's much nicer having control of the camera pitch then just a stationary camera position.
I think it looks better as well. I tried making as much of the camera gear black with the time I had. So I'm attaching 2 new pictures.
Test flight was awesome.
Next is the battery mod...
Stay tuned.

 

[Mark The Droner]

Well done!

 

[bernek]

Haha, thanks for the feedback! It definitely has room for more work!
But GPS Locks perfect! No compass issues either! Compass is mounted in the rear.
I work 65+ hours a week so I could only work on it when I had free time.
I'll get the exact weight, but with battery and camera it's definitely heavier then a phantom, probably by at least 1lb.
The wider frame with a little extra weight made the quad more stable during windy conditions I noticed.
I'll be painting it black soon... Your mom thought the white and black was cute though...

I'll update soon with black accessories, I'm looking into the battery mods next though, I would like more flight time...

Since its heavier than a Phantom why would you do this mod ? Its interesting but ... Why don't you get a P2 shell and paint it black ? it will look better imho.

Did you have any stress cracks problems and switched to this frame ? I doubt its more stable since the software is tuned for the exact size of the Phantom ... your engines axes are maybe a bit off from the original. Also is the center of gravity correct ? If you have it wrong it will crash sooner or later.

 

[Thebooperman]

Well I bought it wreaked for $80, drone battery controller everything... believe it or not it was cheaper to go this route then it was too order the shell, this Frame only cost $15. as far as the proprietary flight system for the Phantom I have tried to mimic the position of the flight controller GPS and compass completely which has left me with a pretty stable quad. When I first set it up I did notice a bit of oscillation during flight sometimes that's when I made the current adjustments. It weighs in at exactly 3.01 pounds or 1364 grams

 

[bernek]

Oh I think a brand new shell is not more than 50 or so. But its has its own personality like this. I didn't know the entire story would be interesting if you can tweak and customize it even more so you get some benefits/upgrades over the original. At least a battery mod or something

 

[Thebooperman]

Yes, I just got it flying. So much more to come...

 

[bernek]

Yes, I just got it flying. So much more to come...

Great can't wait to see what's next !

 

[Thebooperman]

Just so you guys can see it in flight.

 

[bernek]

Just so you guys can see it in flight.

Seems quite stable ! Its interesting to see a naked Phantom fly I've seen a Parrot ArDrone 2.0 on a F450 frame with bigger motors/escs and it was really stable ! was quite surprizing to see that done.

Goodluck with your project ! I really appreciate your ambition to make it work and all.

The only things that have the original look are the camera and battery ? I would honestly do a battery mod on that just to look better and maybe get a few minutes of flight time ! Also using bigger esc and motors maybe you can use 10 inch props or 11 so you will eventualy gain something regarding flight time.

 

[Thebooperman]

Yes I used the original camera because I wanted all the telemetry and recording features. I'm looking into battery mods next. Maybe some antennas upgrades to. Right not I'm only getting about 900 feet in distance without loosing control. I will update as do more with this
unit.
Thanks for the positive feedback!

 

[Thebooperman]

So a few updates. I ordered a folding GPS Antenna mount from eBay and boy it made a big difference in how quickly the quad acquires GPS. I remember on several occasions it took a few minutes for the drone to catch GPS but with the new mount it's literally takes under a minute. I test flew, and it's working great! No oscillating or undesired movement!

I attached a few photos for you guys to see. This thing is really starting to look sweet. Battery mod coming soon...