Next weekend I’ll finally be building both a V2 and V3 rotor. I plan on recording and documenting both of my builds to help new comers. While ordering parts I researched quite a few suppliers and in cases of most of the smaller parts I ended up getting 10x what I needed.
What I’m wondering is, would anyone be interested in purchasing complete kits. I won’t be doing this to make a living obviously, so I believe that I can sell everything at a fair price while still saving people money. I feel it might help the project if groups and individuals can order everything they need from a one stop shop who has tested everything, rather than multiple suppliers and guess work.
I have the room to store parts so I can purchase a surplus up front to reduce cost. I’ve also built jigs for my bandsaw for cutting the aluminum extrusions to the proper size easily. I’m also willing to sell certain portions, say pcbs and the parts to fill them, or all the mechanical hardware. I won’t officially be ready to sell until I get my first two rotors running, but after that I’ll be ready to go. If there’s enough interest, I’ll set down with some spreadsheets and work out pricing.
Thank you!
I know that kits are the ‘hit list’. Probably worth talking to Pierros about them so it fits in the overall plan. No reason why surplus stuff shouldn’t be passed on though. I do it myself.
It would be useful to have a co-ordinated effort that could be world wide. Maybe start the discussion on IRC?
I’d be very interested in a hardware kit (rotor, motors, maybe even tripod, etc). Don’t really need the arduino, and definitely don’t need the RPi, but if that’s the only way the kit was available I’d probably get it anyway.
Thanks for the feedback. I think I can definitely part it so people only get what they need. My V2 build ran into trouble so I’m sorting that out now. Hopefully the V3 will go more smoothly. Once everything’s been put together and tested I’ll get everything going.
@Zathras you’re welcome These ones are the ahem right v2 ones. DM me your address and I’ll sort out a cost for shipping. The last lot were surprisingly cheap to shift
Sorry for the disappearance, work got hectic.
As a brief update, I’ve been working on the v2 gearbox issue, to little avail.
My new extrusions for v3 are on the way.
As soon as I receive those and finish a full build/documentation of V3 I’ll be ready to ship those.
I have enough funds set aside to order roughly 10 complete V3 kits a few hundred worth of the smaller things.
If everything goes well with this build, I’ll purchase that and see how everything goes.
I’ll be setting up a page on my website to handle orders, that allows everyone to purchase just what they need as well as see the cost breakdown per item. This way if you just need the framing materials, you can get that. I’ll do my best to keep up with the best priced vendors and make sure we keep these as affordable as possible for the community.
I still need to research shipping and contact a few vendors to see if I can work out any better deals.
Here’s hoping my V3 build goes well and I let you all know more soon. Thanks again for all the feedback and support.
@thomasns has a couple of PCB’s but if they’re spoken for there are some at my QTH or the gerbers have been uploaded to DirtyPCB’s (there is a minimum order there unfortunately). Alternatively I still have a couple of spares.
