drone pilots / FPV quad and plane

[rex soldier]

Forgot that you use your laptop for live feed.

Do any night flights yet?

 

[rex soldier]

Forgot that you use a laptop for live feed.


Dx6i or HK orange controller would work.

My first camera was the sony 440? Or something its the one below yours . All dvr always loose the quality of the camrea , except the gopro's cause there built in recorders.

You do any night flights ? Took most of the lights off my quad and thats most of my flying time is at night.

 

[Lebowski]

No night flights yet, but I did finally do a maiden of my newly built mini-quad this weekend. It's been a frustrating past few weekends trying to get it into the air, but it's paid off. Issues I had and resolved:

• Dead circuit race on original Naze32 board. Channel two on the reciever was never recognized yet worked on my KK board. Resoldered, used different wire, etc. No luck. Ordered new board.
• One of my Tiger motors wasn't spinning properly... it'd just sort of twitch. Had to re-solder the bullet connectors... must have had a cold solder. I will be soldering everything directly in the future to clean up the rat nest of wiring and to decrease weight.
• Finally everything was 'working'... but it wouldn't fly. Turns out the motor layout on the Naze32 board is DIFFERENT than that on the KK board I was used to. It doesn't go 1, 2, 3, 4 but instead goes 4, 2, 1, 3. I mean, it even shows it in baseflight but I never took note of it. I just assumed it'd be the same as my KK board which resulted in the quad flipping when trying to lift off.

But, I was able to maiden it this weekend and she flies oh so good. It took me months to get my big SK450/deadcat build to fly in a manner that is comparable to the stable flight out of the box of this mini-quad and the naze32 board. Only thing that took some getting used to was how responsive this thing is. So so stable. Even with unbalanced Gemfan props. I don't even know if props this small need to be balanced honestly... my father madiened his mini 250 this weekend as well. Different frame, motors, ESCs, and parts but same props and same FC board. We both crashed ours a few times but he was flying props that had cracks and chips in them... I couldn't believe it, but his was just as stable as mine. (And my props were beat up too, just not as bad as his).

Regardless, I got a order of stuff from RMRC sitting on my couch now a handful of Gemfan props in different colors, Direct Drive 6" props which should be fun and some 5" 3-blade props as well... And, of course LED lights! The LEDs will come in handy during night flying. The front will be all white, rear will be red.

Also did an FPV flight with it, first 'real' FPV flight as in the past I kept my big quad in LOS even if I had the laptop out there with me. This time I flew completely out of LOS with a spotter and had a blast. It's very challenging. One instance, I went up high, straight up. When I brought it back down I realized I had drifted about 50 yards to the south east and was close to some trees in that direction. From the air where I took the photo below, I had no idea I had drifted that far.

Keep in mind that behind these houses and where I was flying is a big field. The shot makes it looks like I was flying in or above a neighborhood, I was not. I was in a big field which borders the river. I do not and won't fly over houses for fear of malfunction of the quadcopter and for obvious concerns some may have if they saw one of these flying overhead.

That's a better representation of the fields.

Sure is a blast to fly this!

Next up I promise will be a plane or glider of some sort... just unsure what. This winter I may slow down a bit and work on some other hobbies but come Spring time I'll hopefully be at the local AMA flying field with a quad and a glider... maybe a new tri-copter... or hex copter...

 

[rex soldier]

Was gonna do a qav250 to but backed out to use funds for a z2 wing.

What are youre flight times ? You running 3s or 4s ?

 

[Lebowski]

Was gonna do a qav250 to but backed out to use funds for a z2 wing.

What are youre flight times ? You running 3s or 4s ?

That's a QAV250pro frame, at least according to eBay.

Running 3S 2200Mah batteries for the time being, going to order some smaller/lighter ones, but I got about 10.5 minutes of consistent flight time that included some rolls, full throttle climbs and general rocking around. Not necessarily a 'normal' flight, as I wanted to be sure I kept it near me and didn't touch ground at all... but 10.5 minutes is actually better than what I get on my SK450.

Here is the frame I purchased. Even in the USA which is rare for eBay RC stuff... so no slow boat from China 2- ?? week delivery time.

 

[Stang51d]

You guys lost me with all of that. I'll stick with my 1950 140A

 

[rex soldier]

10 min on 3s that an't bad. There is a guy who set his up for running off 4s there was a big difference in power from 3s to 4s.

 

[rex soldier]

You guys lost me with all of that. I'll stick with my 1950 140A

Had a plane that was modeled after a 140a , crashed her in to the ground doing 106 mph while trying to do a loop.

 

[Lebowski]

10 min on 3s that an't bad. There is a guy who set his up for running off 4s there was a big difference in power from 3s to 4s.

I need to read more about it, but I am 90% sure my new setup will take 4S without frying anything. Only issue is that this thing is fast enough as-is on 3S. I don't think I 'need' more power... at least not yet.


For a glider I'm thinking I'll just get an almost ready to fly kit like the Bixler2 from HobbyKing:

Afterwards I may decide to build something a bit different. I think FPV on a glider/plane would be a lot more fun and feel a lot more 'natural' in regards to flight. Flying a quad copter is fun but planes/gliders also interest me.

I'm going to need a bigger area to fly in though once I start playing with gliders and planes. I like the fields I fly in now because they're near me. I'm going to need a larger car or a plane/glider with removable wings too to haul it anywhere, some of them are huge!

 

[Stang51d]

Had a plane that was modeled after a 140a , crashed her in to the ground doing 106 mph while trying to do a loop.

Loop a full size 140 and the results will be the same. I think. But I'm not about to try. Had a citabria, it would do loops but was a blast to spin. Then had a Starduster and it was a load of fun.

 

[Lebowski]

@Rex:

Didn't try to do any night FPV flying, but LEDs are great for line of sight in low light / no light. This is a small quad and if you get it far away and are flying aggressively in line of sight or just doing circles and figure 8's or whatever losing orientation isn't that hard... It's a flying 'X'.. unlike a plane it's hard to visually tell which way is forward and back sometimes. The LEDs are going to help out a lot. It was already dark when I was done cleaning up my wiring and adding these, so will have to take it out in normal light and see if they're visible and helpful.

 

[Cemetery-man]

You guys sure sparked my interest again. I dusted off (and a little epoxy fix) my old Blade MX-2 to refresh my flying (non)capabilities before diving into the quads. I read up on the DJI models and almost took the plunge while at their website but resisted. Today while at the LHS I decided to start with a good entry level quad and ended up buying a Blade 180QX-HD. It gets pretty good reviews and I thought it would make a good trainer (safe mode) while allowing for aerobatics with it's 3 modes when I get more experienced. Sure is a lot of fun so far.

 

[Lebowski]

You guys sure sparked my interest again. I dusted off (and a little epoxy fix) my old Blade MX-2 to refresh my flying (non)capabilities before diving into the quads. I read up on the DJI models and almost took the plunge while at their website but resisted. Today while at the LHS I decided to start with a good entry level quad and ended up buying a Blade 180QX-HD. It gets pretty good reviews and I thought it would make a good trainer (safe mode) while allowing for aerobatics with it's 3 modes when I get more experienced. Sure is a lot of fun so far.

I see most people recommending ordering something like a Hubsan quadcopter before diving in and getting a more expensive unit. Lot of hobbyist hate on the DJI Phantoms, but that is only because inexperienced people are flying them in areas that are absolutely bad places to fly. In the city between skyscrapers, into skyscrapers, over people's back yards, into peoples houses... over large crowds... etc, etc. The system itself is actually quite good for an out of the box, ready to fly quad. Not everyone has time or patience to build their own, so in that sense it's a great buy. Just please, please, please practice on a less expensive one first. You may thank me after you crash it a few times and realize that you'd rather crash your $130 cheap quad versus learning how to fly on your more expensinve DJI Phantom


I've got some sonar modules coming for my mini quad that I'm going to get wired up to my naze32 board for some testing. I'll point them at the ground to see how they do in fast/low proximity flying on/near hillsides. Ideally it will be used to prevent collisions with the ground and low-altitude altitude hold.

This guy has a good video of his naze32 board powered quad with sonar going up a flight of stairs. This is doing it without the need for manual throttle adjustment to increase the altitude of the quad, and instead is doing ot based on sonar and surface distance to maintain height from surface. Pretty neat stuff really. Curious how fast it can do it's calculations as I want to go full throttle like 1 foot off the ground, haha.

[video=youtube;seVDPjSFRrE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seVDPjSFRrE[/video]

 

[bwframe]

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...-fox-59-story-drone-invasion.html#post5416273

 

[hoosierdoc]

Any idea on which countries allow you to bring them in? I would love to bring one to the caribbean but I'm afraid they'd take it at customs.

 

[CHCRandy]

I seen this on CL earlier....any of you lost a DJI? May be a good buy if nothing else...

[h=2]quadcopter or drone found (Clermont)[/h]
I found a drone quad helicopter in the woods while hiking. it is white and and says DJI on it . my son says you can get these for $100 online so I am selling it for $50. There is no remote for this. I work midnight so call or text anytime between 8pm to 6am.
quadcopter or drone found

 

[downlinx]

I am a cheap skate, i only have a Latrax Alias with dark edition motors and an 808 camera

 

[JollyMon]

Somewhat off subject (as its just around RC helicopters not fpv). Have any of you guys bought or used training software (such as RealFlight) to aid at getting better at flying without crashing all the time? I bought an Axe 100 ssl on a whim earlier this year, and for the life of me have the hardest time just even hovering. Its getting pretty pricey for me to constantly replace booms and main gears after all my crashes. I am just looking for a better way of learning.

 

[rex soldier]

Somewhat off subject (as its just around RC helicopters not fpv). Have any of you guys bought or used training software (such as RealFlight) to aid at getting better at flying without crashing all the time? I bought an Axe 100 ssl on a whim earlier this year, and for the life of me have the hardest time just even hovering. Its getting pretty pricey for me to constantly replace booms and main gears after all my crashes. I am just looking for a better way of learning.

Ya flight sims help alot with helicopters. That being said ive never used one before and i fly helicopters but i taught my self the hard way. Some where around 120 bucks should get you set up on a flight sim.

 

[rex soldier]

You guys sure sparked my interest again. I dusted off (and a little epoxy fix) my old Blade MX-2 to refresh my flying (non)capabilities before diving into the quads. I read up on the DJI models and almost took the plunge while at their website but resisted. Today while at the LHS I decided to start with a good entry level quad and ended up buying a Blade 180QX-HD. It gets pretty good reviews and I thought it would make a good trainer (safe mode) while allowing for aerobatics with it's 3 modes when I get more experienced. Sure is a lot of fun so far.

Me and my FIL just set his 180qx up with fpv and flew it around in the house . We all so both have 350qxa2 that we fpv with to .