No more waiting

Okay, the package from HobbyKing has arrived. It was pretty quick once it finally left the shipping warehouse in Hong Kong. (Wonder if they just wait until the air-freight container is full?)

Yes, unboxing photos. How geeky, right?

The two white boxes in the foreground are the quad-frames, with the rest of the parts laid out on a work table. The four motors are light blue (and tiny). The slim little 15-18A ESCs have orange labels. By weight it certainly feels like that blue LiPo battery is the most heavy component.

Remaining is a trip to Radio Shack or Fry's to get wire, solder, soldering iron and a trip to the craft store to get some Gorilla Glue for the frame. (Second frame is "spare parts".)

I'll have to choose this weekend between crafting in Skyrim or crafting in the real world. Good thing I have this blog to act as accountability or else I would totally slack-off this weekend. I still might slack-off some...

[Addition]
Interesting side-note. My invoice apparently lists the wholesale prices for these parts (oops!) And the shipping and handling just lists the shipping costs. The wholesale for my $300+ in parts is $74 and my $77 S&H charge only costs them $27. Nice profit margin there.

Still waiting

Propellers are sitting safely in the box they were shipped in, cluttering my work desk. But the big package from Singapore is still en route. Tracking says it left for the USA yesterday evening, local time.

Meanwhile, my minor concerns about whether the cheap and simple ESCs and flight controller board will really work are starting to bloom into a touch of paranoia because I can't verify until I actually build.

I guess I should just blot that out with lots of hours of Skyrim.

Or I could pester people on Quora about their understanding about how privacy will be affected by UAVs.

No, it's going to be Skyrim.

Waiting for the mailman

The bulk of the multicopter parts are on order from HobbyKing USA. But since this is just a local shopping site for an Asian manufacturer and distributor, the parts will be taking quite some time to get here. Tracking lists the items as processing at the sorting center in Singapore, awaiting shipping to the USA. Interesting, since HobbyKing has been loudly congratulating themselves on the opening of the US warehouse. That explains why shipping was so expensive, I suppose.

 Meanwhile, UPS estimates that my props will arrive from Aeroquad on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. I supposed I can show them to the family, thus avoiding awkward or dull conversations for at least 15 minutes.

 The Beginner Makes a Multicopter blog will be taking a holiday hiatus, as you might guess. Not only am I awaiting parts, but I will be working on location shooting junior football tournaments in Auburn, WA in between holiday meals with the family.