Meet the Copper Horse Drones
Copper Horse Solutions’ Lead Developer, Mark Neve introduces some of our recent acquisitions…
Here at Copper Horse we’ve recently been taking to the sky with our mini-fleet of quadcopter drones. Although we have some really cool projects simmering away which we can’t talk about just yet, we think this would be a good time to introduce our quads.
The first copter we purchased was the Hubsan X4 which cost around £40 from the high street. This quad was primarily used for flight practise before we graduated to bigger and better equipment. It’s a very robust piece of kit, having had a few crashes and going through a few sets of propellers. I actually bought prop guards, as it’s very easy to damage the propellers when flying into objects around the house. I did find the quad much easier to fly in advanced mode. We’ve called this one Magneto, as it seems strangely magnetised to objects in my house, or could that be my piloting skills?
| Nickname | Magneto |
| Gyro | 6 axis |
| Size | 60 x 60 x 22mm |
| Flight time | at least 8 minutes |
| Charging time | Around 30 minutes |
| Battery | 3.7 v 240 mAh LiPo battery |
We were given the Cheerson CX-10 as a gift for attending the excellent dronesforgood event, which was put on by the awesome guys over at Lab. The CX-10 was the world’s smallest quadcopter when we got it. For such a small device, the handling is very good. Even our CEO was making it do flips in no time. We’ve nicknamed this one Wolverine – even though it’s a little small, it sure as claws. Here are the specs:
| Nickname | Wolverine |
| Gyro | 6 axis |
| Size | 40 x 40 x 22mm |
| Flight time | about 5-8 minutes |
| Charging time | 30 minutes |
| Battery | 3.7V 100mah |
Our most recent purchase is the impressive DJI Phantom 2 Vision. Boasting a 1080p camera with first person view on your mobile phone. The quad flight is very smooth and the inbuilt GPS triangulation is able to keep the quad hovering within’ a 2.5m area. As this is our first quad with a fitted camera, the name Cyclops seemed fitting.
| Nickname | Cyclops |
| Size | 37.1 x 21.1 x 33.5 cm |
| Flight time | Up to 25 minutes |
| Charging time | 2 hours |
| Battery | 5200mAh LiPo |
| Camera | HD Video Recording (1080/p30 or 1080/60i) with 14 Megapixel stills. |
Just to demonstrate the size difference between the Hubsan and the Phantom, here’s a picture of the Hubsan taking a ride on the Phantom
Would any quad blog be complete without a crash video? It has been suggested to me that it was more of a bumpy landing, but I’ll leave you to judge for yourself –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502b6CeoS7M
