UFO Light Ring!! (retitled rather than reposted)

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(Edited) I first made this post for suggestions on why my bird had the shakes with the light ring on a test flight. I figured out the arms cannot be bound to each other by the hula hoop since they fight each other. Anyway, it works fine now and this is the video of it's maiden flight at night!
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I made a UFO light ring and when I did a test flight today it made the drone shake a lot especially the camera of course. Any ideas what would cause that? I have carried heavier objects without getting a shake before.
 
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Looks great, don't care even if its shaky during flights :)

Whats the additional weight? Whats the material used for the ring? Are LEDs constantly on?

How firmly ring is sitting on prop guards? That seems to be the weakest spot in design.
 
I used a dollar store cheap (light) hula hoop that I painted black and then it is attached to a quick release prop guard set by 4 little fiberglass sticks that I slid through drilled holes in the hula hoop and the prop guard, then hot glued them. The lights are one of those cheap Chinese ones with the 40 button remote.

The power and remote system is for another thread. I basically tapped the battery power to a headphone jack. I also have the smaller size headphone jack as a relay if you plug in a 3 conductor mini phono jack you have a choice of normally open or normally closed connection controlled by the front LED's. The "connection" between the relay and the front LED's is a photo sensor circuit that powers a transistor to power the coil of the mini relay. It was kind of a pain but it works great now and it is all internally installed. I can power and/or remotely control anything attached to my drone now. I can also snap off the light ring in seconds, and just unplug it from the drone. I will use this remote plug for my 100watt LED (self powered) and my disco light accessories I made.

As for the shake, maybe the arms should not be bound to each other??
 
I bet it is because you have that extra weight extended out past the prop guards which are not very secure themselves. The whole guard and ring assembly is probably vibrating up and down pretty vigorously from the prop wash and the guards are acting like springs. FLYTRON has a nice led system that has its own controller inline and can run on a small 2S battery for about $30. It has something like 40 patterns and is super light weight. I have it. If you want it to look like a UFO. that is what you need.
STROBON NEO + 4 Stripes Pack - Flytron
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Also, you wont have to drill holes and modify the quad. Or add any silly wiring or control packs. Saves weight.
 
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The wiring was something I was doing anyway. I have two other lights I like to put on that are fun to play with. I also like to build stuff from scratch. BUT the Strobon is pretty cool. Maybe I can use my remote trigger to change light modes.
 
The wiring was something I was doing anyway. I have two other lights I like to put on that are fun to play with. I also like to build stuff from scratch. BUT the Strobon is pretty cool. Maybe I can use my remote trigger to change light modes.
You can change modes with a remote trigger. The lights are extremely bright. I have a bunch of their stuff. It is great.
 
You can change modes with a remote trigger. The lights are extremely bright. I have a bunch of their stuff. It is great.
I may get it for the extra features such as strobe and random
 
I think the connection between the hula hoop and the prop guard may be just stiff enough to shake and start a vibration. I think if I drop the light ring down it may stabilize it. The drone gets a little wobbly with it overall. I think it is too top heavy now. My 9,000 lumen LED bar is heavier with it's big 3 cell battery but it does not shake. .
 
Hang it with some rubber band or small bunji cord material. Probably a ½" long would be fine.
 
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Hang it with some rubber band or small bunji cord material. Probably a ½" long would be fine.

Yeah, that may help. I thing another part of it is the balance being top heavy. I had it hovering next to me and grabbed the hula hoop to see if that helped. The shaking only slowed down a little bit. Then I grabbed the landing gear and that seemed to stop the vibrations. I think that the arms must need to be able to flex independent of each other and I guess they are fighting each others flexing. After just hovering for about 10 minutes and playing with it the motors were pretty hot when I landed because it was obviously working it's A$$ off.
 
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Well, the rubber band test was successful. The problem was the arms apparently need to be isolated from each other to prevent them from harmonically interfering with each other. I had the ring hanging from rubber bands and it was pretty stable. The ring does make it fly like a giant old car with bad shocks though. The extra weight means I have to take it easy since it over corrects when stopping, rolling, etc. But at least the shake has been figured out. I also think I need to go back to giving it it's own power source. The amp draw must be pretty decent because the battery died within 10 minutes or less. That combined with the bird working extra hard to support the weight is not helping. Funny thing is the battery life is way better with my giant LED light and 3S battery that is heavier. But it does not introduce any wind drag and that must matter a lot. The lights are covered in a clear silicone to make them waterproof and that makes them a lot heavier. It does like crazy good though.
 
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Try running the LED strip arm to arm without the ring. Once in the air,you will not be able to tell if the ring is round or square.
Attach the leds to a firm backing and from arm tip to arm tip.
 
I really wanted to keep the large round ring. The shake is gone now and I flew it around for a while tonight. The video is not great. No matter how far away it is it still looks bright as hell! I flew about 1/2 mile away and it was even cooler when you could not hear the props. I also put some tape over the regular front and rear arm LEDs. You cannot see it at all until I hit my C2 button to turn on the front LEDs, which is my remote relay trigger. Then it just appears and disappears when I want it to.
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You can pull the 2 pins on the camera, then open the ribbon cable connections and pull the camera off easily. Just push the washers onto the pins for a couple minutes then quickly slide them off. Then the camera drops and you can see the plug in's for the ribbon cables. The P3's really fly great with the camera's off of them. Great video and that was a great idea with the hoop light :)
 
That is a good way to drop weight and reduce what I may lose in a crash, BUT I fly in stealth mode until I turn the lights on. Meaning all 4 DJI LED's are blacked out with tape so I really can't see it at all until the lights are on. The lights are also a perfect circle so I do know the direction until I move the stick. I can see it on GPS but I just really like the camera to see where I am going, where obstructions are, etc. Honestly the whole fun in this is flying far enough away from my house that people other than my neighbors see it, are baffled or maybe think it is a UFO. I plan to take it out over the big lake I live near, then turn it on and come back. People will perceive it as coming from across the 26 mile wide lake and probably not think of a drone at first. So far joggers in my neighborhood were baffled last night. I wanted to fly at a red light intersection nearby but decided not to because of the possibility of my distraction causing an accident. I couldn't live with myself if that happened. I love this hobby but I thing Rule#1 is: Never do anything that will diminish the safety or peace of others. Freaking out some people jogging at night seeing weird lights in the sky is fun though.
 
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I didn't think that you could see much of anything with the camera at night. Using Home Lock would be a good way to go. Even with the camera off, the map and radar still works, just no black picture :)
 

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