/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Bros I love FPV.

>>2527281
is 1C generally the best rate to charge lipos? I've seen some spec sheets that say they can charge 2-3C.
I've been pumping 6A into 6x450mah packs, nothing gets warm, but wondering if i'm ruining the longevity of these small ones.

>>2527385

>>2527464
1C is like going the speed limit. Best to stick to it whenever convenient, but not a big problem to break it by even 3x when in a hurry.

I charge at 1C at home and at 2-3C in the field. You DO shorten the lifespan, but it's a trade I'm willing to make. Also, my lipos die a horrible firey death before they get chemically exhausted from charging a bit too fast.

>>2527464
1C is only necessary to max the life of the battery, or if you probably/possibly have bad cells. Otherwise the manufacturer recommended charging rate should be fine.

soon

Guys I want to build something like a Switchblade from scratch, but with a rocket motor. Thinking of strapping a D12-7 into it. I'm familiar with quads, FPV and RC, but never used rocket motors. Is there anything in particular I should be looking out for during this build?

>>2527558
Do you mean a quadcopter with a rocket motor attached, or a quad powered with rocket motors? Either way, here are a lot more problems than solutions, I'd imagine.

>>2527580
Neither, I want to create a plane that uses a rocket motor for limited flight, but the wings are springable (foldable open after launch). My big concern is how do you get the flight controls to work from a springable launch site?

>>2527586
Something like this? You just put a servo in each wing, and hope to God that you don't slice a servo cable upon deployment. As a bonus you get flaps in the deal, so you can run a real crazy nigger of a fast airfoil, while still having a somewhat survivable landing speed!

>>2527593
Is it spring or servo operated? Not really sure what the point of a servo is if you launch it from a mortar/tube? And the empennage?

>>2527597
and why is the vertical stab of the switchblade so big?

>>2527597
I don't know, but it's made by Estes, so probably something janky like a spring. The vertical stab is so big to stabilize this piece of shit rocket while it blasts off from it's $14 (in 1980 dollars) launch pad.
I sure you can do better than that, at least!

Took the Tinyhawk 2 out for a proper newbie fly and had a blast, got the fpv bug now but have to get used to the FOV. Ran out of batteries so we got me our Typhons out, he broke a driveshaft so I put his Mojave tyres on my 6s and now it's a backflip machine. Good day overall.

>>2528240
Jelly you have such nice weather, every free weekend I've had the past 2 months it's been raining.

>>2528240
Congratulations, your life is measured in mAH, kv, cell count, and Hz now.

>>2528308
I was in the same boat anon, been keen to try my drone but it's been windy and shit last 3 weekends.

>>2528464
It was already getting that way with rc cars, can't wait to go down the rabbit hole again but with goggles, antennas, remotes etc.

I want a Recce drone, open to building my own if necessary.
Specifications are that it should have a camera that can be live streamed to a phone/laptop, and that it needs to weigh in at 100g or less to avoid any sort of regulatory restrictions/registration.
Is there anything commercially available that is going to clock in at 100g (or close enough I can shave it down) with a live camera feed or do I need to look into building my own?
I don't have high demands of it - I just want a stable platform I can launch up to get an aerial view of my surroundings for 5~ minutes at a time.

>>2528546
At least with stick remotes you can get a decent one and use it with pretty much everything.

>>2528645
I'm not adverse to gamepad style remotes as long as they have the same or better range than the stock one and better sticks because the emax one is horrendous, something cheap like pic rel would do me fine for now. There a list or guide of what brand is gud and which to avoid?

>>2528681
I think the quality varies rather from model to model rather than the manufacturer, the only real difference would be lesser support for less common models. It would be best to watch reviews of a given model and see what features it has that you would need. The models in one price range are generally very similar with slight variation of features. Once you get to higher price ranges there will be better gimbals, more switches, color screens, support for more external modules and such, at least with OpenTX/EdgeTX radios. With that Betafpv radio you would need to upgrade when/if you get something else that runs on a different protocol, or needs a long range module.
Here's a list of radios that run on and are supported by Edge/OpenTX.
https://edgetx.org/faq.html
https://www.open-tx.org/radios

>>2527464
I almost always charge at 2c unless it's my high capacity Li-Ion packs. Been getting 6-9 months out of my packs before seeing any significant degradation.

>>2528681
Radiomaster have a decent rep. I have the pro certain of that betafpv controller, and it's not a bad choice, but not a great one either. The new Radiomaster boxer one looks better, albeit triple the price with the battery

>>2528906
The Pro version is the only one I would get in the betafpv lineup.
>actual hall gimbals
>runs Edge
>external module option

>>2528712
>>2528906
This is going to be more than I thought regarding controllers hmmm. Took the Tinyhawk for a quick fly just before and landed hard on dirt, not enough to damage anything it seems but the battery connector popped off so it had a bit of force. When I went to fly again the writing on the screen went weird and I had @ symbols all over the place so I, landed, disconnected/turned off, everything then plugged it back in, now the tinyhawk doesn't make a sound when arming and I have no UI on the display except the battery level for the goggles, must be a new one for google.

>>2529126
get used to breaking things, re-soldering, and collecting spares for troubleshooting. you're going to be doing that a lot.

I made sure to rum my motor cables on my Shocker in the most autistic way possible.

>>2529338
View from the top:

>>2529338
why'd you bother twisting them around the arm?
You should buy some tesa tape, better than shrink imo.

>>2529354
It keeps the wires off the top of the arm for most of the prop strike zone, but then flips around again to keep them from being long and floppy. Also, that's how they are on the CMW website, so I figured I'd try it their way, and I'd have extra wire to trim if I decide to change to a more straight routing later. I'll look into that tape though, thanks!

>>2529397
have you considered racewire? you can also get epik gaymur RGB ones.

>>2529338
Careful doing that. Quads are a high vibration environment. If they can move at all, they're going to wear through at the frame edges.

>>2529146
Found a few people with the same problem and apparently it's a broken solder on the FC. No idea what a reflow was until now.

>parents ask what I want for Christmas
>30 years old, so don't really need or want anything
>but suggest a new soldering iron to work on my drones
>dad excited to go shopping for tools
>mails a gift
>it's a wood burning iron
I appreciate the thought, but...

>>2529660
It's a tough spot to be in when your parents ask what you want but have no idea what you're asking for.

>>2529671
Well...... that's the more worrying issue. My dad has a degree in electronics and designed circuits for most of his life. He didn't do a lot of hands-on soldering himself, but he does know what everything is. He's also 66 though, and now I'm starting to wonder if there's any age-related cognitive issues...

>>2529660
maybe that came up when he searched for Weller soldering iron? Or he clicked on the wrong product. My dad never had the coordination or patience to do something like RC planes, but I'm working on it with my son.
>latest project is a scaled composites model 401 EDF

>>2529660
Just go on your favorite non-amazon store, TS100 or Haako. Dad tried...

Hey /rcg/, what is a nice drone with a camera I can buy to fly around the garden/fields on Amazon around 120€?

>>2529676
Oh dang, that's hard. Hope you're wrong.

>>2529737
Does that include radio control link and batteries? If not, the Mobula or Mobeetle rip pretty hard while being cheap and durable.

>>2529621
you can buy small reflow plates, really useful for this hobby, not just for reflowing but sometimes heating up big chunky esc's can make soldering the terminals a lot easier and neater. can pick them up for $100 if you plan on investing some time into the hobby.

>>2529776
I'll look it up, thanks

Anyone got any protips on amateur rocketry/ Should I buy my first kit or go balls deep and try and build?

>>2529829
How balls deep into building would you go? it's pretty simple to build model rockets if you buy prebuilt motors; making your own motors is pretty fun but more involved than making the rest of the rocket, most people use a potassium nitrate/table sugar composition since those are both cheap and easy to source.
www.nakka-rocketry.net is an excellent resource if you want to make larger motors or try different chemical compositions.

>>2529845
I want to buy the rocketmotor, but build the rocket itself. 3D / laser cardboard cut the rest.

Preferably then I can add spring-able wings (think Switchblade 300), add the usual RC flight controls and then there is a RC rocket/missile. Pipe dreams, they elude me.

>>2529737
Not on Amazon, but check out the drones by DarwinFPV. They are around that price (not including goggles and control link), and have a little better stride outside than a tiny whoop.

I don't get it.

Why do I not see any posts on the internet about any RC vehicle with two cameras with each feed going to a different eye of a vr headset? Hardware limitations, software hasn't been written, it makes you too motion sick? I think it would be interesting to try out, but don't really have much expirience with the diy side of drone assembly.

>>2530797
2 cameras mean 2 VTX, means 2 channels, means the goggles now needs to display a channel on one eye and another on the other eye. You just added weight to the drone and a lot of potential technical fuckups for little to no gain.

>>2530797
Because FPV is mainly used on aircraft & you don’t tend to fly aircraft close enough to anything for stereopsis to have any effect whatsoever.

>>2530797
you mean like this?

Anyone ever tried a relay balloon or something to gain massive freedom of exploration? Going behind trees and buildings always makes things iffy. I know they used a Mavic during that Red Bull event, but a passive lifter makes more sense.

>>2530919
you ever tried using a dual diversity elrs rx with a 1W tx
It's got some pretty good penetration, i fly my little whoop in the forest and can get pretty far.

>>2530919
>>2530979
or are you worried about the video dropping out? not seen a video relaly that's feasible myself.

>>2530886
neat

>>2530861
>>2530872
I didn't mean to imply it was for a flying drone specifically, even if it's only practical on a RC car it'd be fun to drive that around the farm and fields to look at stuff.
>>2530886
I got excited for a minute, but then saw things like 35° FOV and 480p. I'm dreaming, but it would be nice to have something comparable to modern VR headsets with at least 100° FOV and some sort of HD resolution, possibly even upscaled using the recently developed techniques. Of course, this may add too much latency to the feed, or be impossible (I don't know where the GPU pulls motion vectors from). I found a comment on an article that lead me to this website (http://real3dfpv.com/Default.aspx)) but this thing is a total abomination. The gimbal is fine but the headgear is terrible, maybe ill ask him if he's made any progress with modern hardware, not from 7 years ago. Thanks for the help!

>>2531039
there are HD FPV setups now, but everything is through one camera. you don't need two cameras for stereo vision. I use box goggles which just have a single screen in front of both eyes and it's fine.

>>2531039
it's kind of a gimmick desu, you don't really gain anything apart from a little more "immersion", its the same with using VR on flying games.
If you really wanted it, then taking two dji air units, and 3d printing a bracket with some servos to fit on your drone, then disassembling two dji headsets and merging them and add some head tracking is the only real solution.
the real problem is you'll have 100+ms of latency on head movements and syncing between air units will be an issue.
ive seen people do the whole head tracking before using a single camera. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWENMUBLnOU

>>2531079
The entire point would be the immersion, yes. I really enjoy my vr games, so I imagine it would be fun. Unfortunately, I only have CAD skills and no coding skills to make a lot of things work by myself

>>2531097
you don't need to code, just stick two headsets together and buy off the shelf parts. Good luck.

>>2530981
Video is always the first thing to go, but doing both would be ideal. There's only so much radio waves can do when you start flying behind hills or thick/multiple buildings. I'm mostly putting it out there as a hypothetical rather than something I'm seriously considering.

>>2531153
i seen a guy ages ago that had an elrs relay on top of his car, can't find the video now but i suppose you could just do that, but put the relay on a tethered balloon.
if you use analog, video should be easy to retransmit. dji and other will need custom hardware.

>>2531211
You sure that wasn't just a long wire to an antenna? ELRS is a little tricky to retransmit.

>>2531218
nah, he had the receiver on his drone and the relay on his roof bound to the same controller, iirc they were fighting with each other when the drone was close(so not freestyling), but as soon as the drone got far enough away that his controller couldn't see it, the big ass antenna would be controlling it.

I assume that's how other people do it, although i've not looked into it myself.

>>2531218
>>2531220
annoying that i can't find that video but he had to modify something when compiling to get it to work, i kinda zoned out while watching it as I was looking into cellular bvlos systems and this wasn't exactly what i was wanting.

>>2531220
That's pretty interesting. I've never managed to wrap my head around writing code, despite knowing how it all works. (It's the syntax.) But yeah, the only solutions I've been able to come up with are signal repeaters or figuring out how to get higher. Have even considered a treehouse in my backyard.

Anyone have any experience with the QF009 off aliexpress? It seems quite capable for the price and seems reasonably quick despite being a 1s. I'm considering buying one and throwing a cheap AIO micro vtx on it as a cheap introduction to fixed wing fpv.

>>2531519
get something more stable for FPV.

>>2531580
Not him, but what physical characteristics usually promote stability on FPV planes? Been meaning to dip my toes in, but it's winter, so it's research time.

>>2531679
A good rule of thumb is: the gayer looking the airplane, the more stable it flies.

>>2531742
Flying penis it is!

>>2531679
A high wing, pusher is better for an unobstructed view, but not necessary. Look at the Bixler series.

>>2531935
>A high wing, pusher
I rest my case.

>>2530981
Didn’t DRL make extensive use of video relays? They were literally flying underground & through concrete tunnels in a football stadium.

>>2532099
analog should be easy to retransmit, i dont think you can with digital systems though as you need to pair the devices.

>>2532099
>>2532115
just as i hit submit, i thought about audience mode in dji, that's just transmitting to multiple receivers. could set up a line of goggles with video over hdmi, then use a capture device to ingest and you can then transmit it.
some technicals details you would need to iron out, but I think it would be possible.

All audience mode does is makes it operate like HDZero where bad packets cannot be requested. A digital repeater is a bit different.

I'm building a robot car for a machine learning project
I'm gonna power it with a 6s1p pack made of molycel p42a
Problem is that I have 4 ESCs each capable of pulling 30a(peak), the cells are rated for 45a(continuous), but the BMS goes into protection at 12a
How dumb is it to leave the BMS on the charger and hook up the ESCs directly to the pack with no safeties?

>>2532773
It's not dumb at all. Most battery-powered RC vehicles operate with 'dumb' batteries (eg just cells & wires, no BMS). However these batteries are then charged using an 'intelligent' balance charger.

I have a Pavo30 I want to rip apart and transform into something else non ducted. It has 1505 3400 KV motors, 26mm FC... what frame could I put this on?

>>2527538
mine arrived two days ago
I'm gonna try connecting it up later today. maybe

>>2532787
I'm mostly worried about over discharge, cause unlike, say a drone, I don't have a flight controller, just an Arduino and a pi

>>2532809
Either use something like picrelated or read battery voltage into the arduino/pi (use a potential divider to drop the voltage down to an appropriate range for the ADC) & set some sort of threshold in your software.

>>2532773
Why not hook up a lab bench supply and see what your car can draw under max load? If it's too much, perhaps consider going 4S2P, or even 6S2P.

>>2532865
Did you even read the question

>>2532906
He's not wrong, if you can stomach the weight of a 2P pack with the same Series count, you can double your safe Amp draw from it. Or you can just get a LiPo battery like most people and get probably 4x the Amps draw.

>>2532916
At a fraction of the runtime
I need this bitch to run multiple laps
>>2532865
How would I know what it draws under load if it's on a bench
I'd need to run it around with a huge extension chord

>>2532916
It's not wrong, but it's also nothing to do with the question - which was whether it's safe to use a battery pack without a BMS.

>>2532941
No, my doubt lies with wether a Chinese BMS can stomach being connected and disconnected without frying

>>2532970
Like you’ve been told, just use a balance charger. You don’t need a BMS anywhere.

I want to design cpu

>>2527281
Im looking to build a budget friendly observation fpv/uav ardupilot plane to observe and inspect a few woodland wildlife habitats.

Of course the most important thing would be a camera with a variable zoom any recommandations on:

Chassis
Camera

This is mainly to help a wildlife non profit

>>2532921
>>2532941
Gotta find out what it draws to know if you need the protection or not. When I need to know what it'll draw, I just stick a capable LiPo on it and push the limit and see what it draws. If the peak is too high, I implement a throttle limit or run a parallel setup. If the weight is an issue, add a dummy load to simulate battery weight.

>>2533387
Again, you haven't actually read. OP never expressed concern that their battery couldn't deliver enough current, rather that their BMS goes into protect too early (well below the limit of the cells).

The actual question was whether they should run the battery without the BMS, which ofc they should.

>>2533241
For that kind of thing, you're really better off just buying a DJI AP drone. It can be done yourself, but will probably end up costing more, especially if you are trying to get similar performance. I think there may be some DJI competitors now that are more reasonably priced, but I'm not really into drones that do anything besides smashing sick bandos.

>>2533241
Sorry, just noticed that you said "plane". My point still stands though, since small airplanes are pretty shaky camera platforms, especially if you are trying to have variable zoom. You would absolutely need to mount the camera on a gimbal, plus find a software solution to stabilize the gimbal. Just get a quadcopter, they are really great camera platforms.

>>2533647
>>2533657
I don’t see any mention of ‘small’? For covering large areas (which I guess is what they want) fixed wing is always going to win out over multirotor.

What's the cheapest flying drone a low-budget band of revolutionaries can use to overthrow a third-world government?

>>2533661
What's the point of covering a large distance if you can't get a stable camera shot? Wings blow around a fuckload, and it's very noticeable when you watch the footage.

>>2533672
That's not how coups work, teenlarpertard

>>2527464
I race RC cars and routinely charge my batteries at like 5C+, you’ll be okay.

>>2533868
If only you could mount a gimbal under a wing.

Oh wait, you can.

First flight of 2023 & maiden flight for this little Heewing didn't go entirely according to plan.

First flight of 2023 & maiden flight for this little Heewing didn't go entirely according to plan.

>>2534211
Electrical tape came to the rescue though!

>>2534211
>>2534213
From what I've seen every plane maiden flight is like this, if not worse.

>>2534223
Tbf with this particular one it didn't help that the manufacturer's explanation of where the CG is in the manual is completely fucking wrong.

whats the most basic cheap autopilot quadcopter build for someone who doesnt know shit about building quadcopters
i dont wanna order stuff and then find out things are incompatible because then i wont learn shit and the guide linked in op is more geared towards racing

>>2527586
>build rc airplane
>make wings fold back on springs and lock out when open
>strap model rocket engine to it
>put in tube
>?????
>PROFIT

>>2533672
The ones you build yourself.

>>2533989
Depends on the battery. Some have high internal resistance and will get hot at that charge rate.

>>2534248
The issue with the cheap ones is that they go and use your phone as a screen through Wi-Fi. You end up with shit picture, shit latency, and exceptionally limited controls. You'd probably have a better time with a ready to fly tinywhoop kit.

>>2534282
i mean i wanna build something that can do a hover, connect to a gps and fly waypoints, shit like that.
my understanding is that i need a different type of flight controller than the stuff linked in OP for that and id need to build the drone around said controller so im asking if theres just a part list that would work together.

i dont mind shit/no video as long as i can add low latency video later

>>2534297
https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/introduction.html

>>2534297
Ah, you need either iNav or Ardupilot. I've got my 7 inch cruiser on iNav and it's really pretty cool how precise autonomous flight can be. Just make sure your flight controller is compatible before you buy. Autonomous functions are heavier on the RAM and CPU.

>>2534425
What frame?

>>2534448
AOS Falcon 7

>>2534425
Actually all of the filtering in betaflight/iNav that makes acro flight so smooth is way more CPU/RAM intensive than autonomous flight. You can run waypoint missions on an 8-bit APM (ATmega 2560), but you can’t run any of Betaflight’s modern filtering features on anything less than a 32-bit F4.

Anybody here have experience with "jailbreaking" a DJI drone? Good way to go or should I just build my own? This will be for a general purpose photography/inspection rig.

>>2534277
That’s a good point actually, race batteries tend to have real high discharge rates. I will say hot batteries are actually good for performance in a competitive setting though since it helps to lower internal resistance.

>>2535088
Just buy a freestyle quad and put a GoPro on it, then pull a split S over whatever you want to inspect and pull the frames you need from the footage later.
Or alternately, you can let a drone that you paid for and own tell you what you are ALLOWED to do (like a total c.uck). There is no in between.

>>2535267
This is a huge portion of what drove me away from DJI when I first thought about getting into this stuff. It's like a flying Apple product. They decide everything, and you're just along for the ride. Not having a bunch of gooks and FAA bureaucrats telling me I can't fly for whatever reason they pull from their ass. (Fuck Remote ID btw.)

>>2535088
Get a kit drone, an ardupilot controller, a Storm32 Gymbal and a GoPro4. You can stream the video live and record video in 4k at the same time.
Fuck DJI. I worked in a company, we had to get codes to fly near the infrastructure we were inspecting.

Ok, I'm a newbie in rc world, bought my son an Axial scx24.
Now we're upgrading to 1/18th scale and I narrowed it down to 2 producers - FMS or Absima.
I'm looking for upgrades in advanc, specifically motor and servo. What brands should I check? I've looked through amazon, ebay and aliexpress and all I can find is no name chink stuff. Had chink metal axles in scx24, and upgraded Injora motor broke them after a very short time (like 2hours) so I'd prefer something of a decent brand.

>>2527281
>>I want a dirt cheap drone to fly around my yard/garden
>Syma X5C
is it possible to mod this thing into some sort of budget dji phantom (by gutting it and printing a bigger chassis that can accommodate bigger motors/camera/battery/etc)?

>>2535472
It sounds like you're going to buy something, then replace every part on it. Why not just build it from the start?

>be bonger
>buy drone in november
>6 hours of daylight, no good places to fly at night
>never stops raining unless i'm at work or doing something.
this was a horrible time to buy a drone.
tempted to just coat all the electronics and fly about in the rain while i sit in my car and risk water damaging the drone.

>>2535607
Best guide I've seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfZ-OnMmnMw

>>2535456
I've heard good things about FMS, no idea about Absima.

>>2535607
Get something small you can fly around your house/apartment, even a small toy drone will do, or get a simulator and fly on there in the meantime.

>>2535267
>>2535444
This is my sentiment exactly, fuck that program.
>>2535451
Cool thanks, any kits to recommend? Id' like to mount a thermal system on it eventually.

>>2535804
>Better install a tattle module on your UAV so we can catch the lawful for the slightest infraction.
>The Karens can track them too!
>That'll be $300 a module, goyim.

>>2535917
I'm interested to see how they try to make fag modules "tamper proof". It's like that law was not only written by someone who has no knowledge of drones, but also clueless about electronics and RF in general.
I'd share some of my ideas on how to break RemoteID here, but I don't like to give any warning before I fuck someone in the ass.

>>2535604
>then replace every part on it
Not every part, just the external ones

>Why not just build it from the start?
Because I'm new at RC and don't actually know how to build the controller board(?) from scratch

>>2534804
APM is EOL since years and not supported for a long time. newer FW versions of ardupilot do have those filters

>>2534425
GPS directly over the cam might not be the best decisions. cams are the most common source of RF noise

>>2535947
or spamming hundreds of imaginary drone :P

>>2536148
>Because I'm new at RC and don't actually know how to build the controller board(?) from scratch
it means building from available components. just look at any tutorial on building FPV copters, it's really not hard

>>2536160
My GPS placement was very deliberate. In the back, it had to compete with its wires running next to nearly every other wire, and the video+telemetry signals were blasting it terribly. Used to get 7 sats if I was lucky. In the front, it's 16-24.

>>2536160
> APM is EOL since years and not supported for a long time. newer FW versions of ardupilot do have those filters

I know. My point was that the automation itself (in the sense of waypoint navigation, etc.) isn’t computationally expensive, as drone logic goes. If you compare Betaflight with stock settings against Arducopter with stock settings, on exactly the same FC, the former will have a much higher CPU load during flight because the default loop rate is much higher & far more of the filters are enabled by default.

>cams are the most common source of RF noise

HD cams with built-in wireless features maybe, but I’ve literally never heard of anybody experiencing issues with RF noise from a FPV camera.

>>2527281
help my fs-i6 transmitter's channel 1 randomly stopped working. if i check channel monitor it doesnt move, always displays "0/1000".. but i can still use it to enter the factory reset mode by putting both thumbsticks in a corner... wtf is going on? something still registers it but the firmware doesnt.

>>2536661
If that doesn't have hall sensors, then your gimbal may have joined the 41%. Try a stick calibration, and if that doesn't work then open it up and see if you can clean out the gimbal guts.
And if THAT doesn't work, I'd get a Radiomaster Boxer, they aren't super expensive.

I'd like to launch a plane from a short runway, say 30M but I'm on the side of a hill so it drops off steeply once the runway finishes, I'd like to run Ardupilot with a decent camera fitted for recon/photogrammetry. I have a few multirotors, but no experience with fixed wing, and have no idea what a suitable plane build for the task would be. any suggestions? thinking of getting a basic/cheap kit fixed wing to just fly with and get an idea where it is lacking to then have the knowledge to build what I need

>>2536736
you can either hand launch or us a catapult launch
30m should be enough for landing. that's the bigger issue

concerning the plane itself, it depends on the size/weight of your payload
but i guess you can't go wrong with the Talon series. either the mini or the original big one

Hey guys, when pandemic first started I decided to try FPV hobby so in.. april 2020, I bought the parts and built it, but I lost interest, ended up buying a dji maverick mini flew that for a bit.


What has changed? I heard about basically requiring to add a gps to drones? anything else?

>>2537163
nothing has changed, unless for you the hobby is about consooming and not flying

>>2537163
since april 2020, not much, few better cameras and controllers, but nothing significant.

fucking hate this thing, voltage cuts way too early, still 2.4Ah left of a 6Ah pack. Can't even disable it or put it into NiMh mode like the lower tier ones.
I can see why so many people chuck this thing out straight away.

>>2537187
>>2537196

Hmm, I guess what I saw in a previous thread is about remote ID? Saw people complaining, but not sure if its significant? I just dont want to fly then suddenly being interrogate from a cop that has nothing else better to do.

>>2537294
The general thoughts people have had on Remote ID is that they think it's worthless to public safety, dangerous to personal safety, and a financial burden on the end user. The system cranks out a WiFi or BLE signal to the public to tell lots of info about a UAV and pilot, omitting only the name of the user. It's been speculated to be generated out of either lobbying from congress/DHS, or big businesses wanting to do autonomous deliveries.

Most people are saying that they do not plan to comply, and will tell the FAA to kick rocks. To this day, there are still no recreational UAV caused deaths, but they keep screeching about safety. Basically, just show up, fly, and leave. Law enforcement has better things to do than check to see if your toy helicopter is following rules more strict than automobiles.

>>2537163
Since then, I have gained 50 hours of flight time. You'll never catch up.

>>2537200
>he fell for the Traxxas meme

>>2537163
>digital fpv is now viable
>ELRS is now basically the norm
Nothing much

>>2537357
I'm just some random anon that caught this scrolling by, what's a good out of the box ready to run rc trugg then?

>>2537362
Arrma, because it makes Traxxas fags seethe.
But seriously, just get what you like best. The only reason to hate Traxxes is their lawsuit happy business model and proprietary bullshit.

>>2537370
wow that's really lame. I did notice that traxxas seemed to have a very small availability online other than their own website

Hi chumps. I know only the very very basics of RC. What can I watch to learn enough shit to build a submarine?

>>2537439
https://www.instructables.com/Overview-of-the-CPS-5-Underwater-Drone/

>putting new connector on my batteries
>cut the connector off
>pliers create a short between the wires while snipping
>flashbang.exe
easy to forget how much energy these things hold.

lipo questions:
What is a good charger for single 18650? How do I charge custom batteries? For example, if I have 10 cells in a pack, so 36V. Do I need to have a balance board that attaches to each cell? Do I need a single balance board that will cut off at 36V for the whole pack?

Is there a single charger that can handle all these different options?

>>2537702
Oh yeah, I was soldering up a 6S Li-Ion pack and was using a set of helping hands to hold the XT60. Stuck the grabber into the socket both times, and the second had me feeling lucky it didn't weld on and blow my dumb ass to hell. Big pops and flashes.

>>2537797
I've been using a ZH222C with good success, but it's nothing special. If you go and make a battery pack with many cells in it, you're going to either need to use a charger that supports a balance connector, or you're going to want to integrate a battery management system.

>>2537370
They're expensive as fuck outside of the USA too, a friend of a friend wanted me to fix his old e-revo up and for the price of all the Traxxas parts I could have just bought him another used one from gumtree. Even an Xmaxx is $2000+ without any batteries or charger lol.

>>2537702
>cutting two connectors simultaneously
That's should be the first big no-no for anyone into RC.
That said I have shorted a 1S battery by checking its voltage with a multimeter. Had a small puff of smoke and the connector got quite hot, nothing catastrophic thankfully.

>>2537846
Checking voltage with a multimeter is very high resistance, the connector shouldn't have cared about that. You must have shorted your probes or pushed the connectors together for a second.

>>2537797
you're looking for a constant voltage/constant current power supply. just set the desired voltage depending on your pack config and let it rip.
if you want to balance you can just add in a cheapo balancer, just check the balance rate.
your pack should have balance wires going to each cell or each group of cells if you have many in parallel

>>2537847
I should have said that the probes did short

is 867mhz elrs the ultimate Long Range pill? I see fixed wing guys going >20km and I get around 1km LOS before it starts shitting itself.
i find myself losing transmitter signal more often than video on 2.4g, with a 250mw transmitter and a dual diversity rx.
is this antenna setup shit? Kinda like it for it's compactness, but wondering if i should but two of the big antennas and put them out on the end of the arms.

>>2537888
Have you fine tuned your radio frequency? Here's a quick guide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdM_JcKzwCc

>>2537915
Also I should add is that the way you position your antenna also affects the range.
https://oscarliang.com/antenna-positioning/

>>2537915
don't even have that option on my radio.
probably radio is just shit, i do get decent 0.6km ish range on those shitty little ceramic antenna receivers like picrel though which is throwing me off a little, they should be significantly worse in my mind.

>>2537924
Doesn't that Betafpv radio run on open/edgetx? It should allow for frequency tuning. Not sure if every make of receiver allows for it however.

RemoteID has been defeated: simply manufacture all brand new drones before September 2022, forever!

>>2537924
tried playing around with packet rate too, currently at 250, don;t really want go lower than that. std telem
>>2537927
edgetx 2.8.0

>>2537927
this is all you get

>>2537924
>>2537931
>>2537932
Waits, that's an ELRS receiver? Then the setup is completely different.

>>2537933
yeah, elrs, guess that fine tuning is just for the other protocols?

>>2537936
Yeah. My guess is the internal antenna on the radio isn't any good.

>>2537929
or just DIY, fook da goobermunt. my homies hate da goberment

>>2537797
You build your packs with a balance connector or a BMS.

>>2537873
>you're looking for a constant voltage/constant current power supply. just set the desired voltage depending on your pack config and let it rip.

This is NOT the correct way to do it.

>>2537888
That antenna placement is perhaps the worst it could possibly be. You're literally pointing the null spots of both antennas at yourself as you're flying away from yourself.

>>2537800
>I've been using a ZH222C
Couldn't find that one, but I assume something like this EBL one would be fine? https://www.amazon.com/EBL-Universal-Battery-Rechargeable-Batteries/dp/B07PRJRHHB/

> If you go and make a battery pack with many cells in it
I'm looking at a hoverboard battery pack right now. The battery is 10 cell 36V, and 29.4 V. It will not charge in the hoverboard, I assume because it is below 3v per cell. There is a wall wart, which turns green when plugged in directly to the battery XT60 connector, and when voltage drops, it turns red. When connected it shows 42v, but the battery won't charge past 29.4. Is the balancing board stopping me from charging up, or the wall wart? I'm trying to get these charged up just a little more, so hopefully they will start charging normally in the hoverboard.

>>2537873
> constant voltage/constant current power supply
Is constant current a max value? For example, If the power supply is set to 12V 1A, My battery can't pull more than 1 Amp, but it could just pull 500 mAh, right? or is it going to force 1 Amp through my system? ( Sorry there are some basics of electricity that just don't make sense to me )

>>2538097
Wait, so are you talking about a custom battery pack you’ve made, or a commercial ready-made battery pack from a hover board? If it’s the latter & it just charges from a regular DC barrel connector, that means it will have a built-in BMS which you won’t be able to bypass without physically dismantling the pack.

>>2535607
Yea i conformal coat and sometimes fly in the drizzle if not full rain. Tiny whoops are fun indoors too.

>>2538097
I won't lie to you. It's great that you wanna get into this stuff, but lithium batteries are no joke. Read some guides or watch a tutorial. There are helpful people here, but many of us (including me) will either have incorrect or incomplete instructions. Just don't want you burning your house down or exploding your face off. That's not meant as hyperbole either, because both can definitely happen if you screw up badly enough.

>>2537888
The point of a diversity receiver is to give yourself a fallback when antenna orientation is bad. Mounting them in the same orientation means the diversity is wasted. As another person said, avoid pointing nulls (the tips) at yourself, and make sure your transmitter antenna matches the orientation of a receiver antenna as often as possible. For long range, you'll want to set your packet rate nice and low. I've seen a dude go like 10km on 10mW ELRS 2.4GHz, so it's all in the setup for sure.

One last thing I'm noticing. Are you running 867MHz on those antennas? If you are, it's no wonder your range is shit. Antenna length determines the resonance frequency, and those are definitely tuned for 2400MHz.

any off the shelf cars with fuck huge range?

>>2538194
Define fuck huge range because something like pic rel I could drive my nitro until I couldn't hear it and it was just a directionless black dot on the horizon

>>2538195
like 2 km fpv

>>2538196
With a rc car?

>>2538197
yes

>>2538198
Scale it down to 200m and you should be fine. Then again this guy gets some decent range in his weird videos, has all his equipment in the description
https://youtu.be/He4lfrZM1gM

>>2538201
thanks that's the vid that i was thinking about when i asked actually

also why doesn't anyone use repeaters?

>>2538196
you will probably lose the video before control link, but you'll have more obstructions than a plane would. Just buy a normal transmitter and test it.

>>2538194
What's the point of huge range on an RC car? Unless you're in a treehouse or on a hill with FPV gear, you'll be unusable to control it anyway due to being unable to know wtf it's doing.

>>2538093
>You're literally pointing the null spots of both antennas at yourself as you're flying away from yourself.
if i spin it doesn't improve though? I'm not always flying away
>>2538190
I thought it took both signals are uses the strongest? active/active, not active/passive?
they are 2.4 antennas.
not too fussed about it desu, i just freestyle in the park, might test again when i get my boxer in to rule out the tx.

>>2538405
Oh… no reason

>>2538471
So your reception sucks because you’re using 2.4GHz antennas for a 900MHz signal.

And as another anon has pointed out, the whole point of having two antennas for a diversity setup is to have them in different orientations. If you have them right next to each other & in the exact same orientation you may as well not have two at all.

>>2538566
no, i'm using 2.4 on everything. I was asking peoples thoughts on 867 in general in this post >>2537888
even one antenna, in a shit position, should be more than 1km, no? That's what i was asking. what I've heard about the capabilities of elrs, and what i experience is significantly different, but again, it's not a biggie for what i use my drone for, i'll 3d print some antenna mount off the rear arms when i get around to it.

>>2538609
>even one antenna, in a shit position, should be more than 1km
not necessarily.

>>2538613
i mean, if the signal was that weak, as soon as you spun your quad around you'd lose signal.

>>2538617
>>2538613
ultimately, there's only 3 things that affect it, and i'll get round to swapping things arounds and testing. thanks for your help.

>>2538613

>>2538650
This is strangely erotic

>>2538188
Yes, I am aware of dangers, and do this outside, on concrete, with a C02 extinguisher nearby, and an understanding that these things can burn for a long time. I also have a fireproof container that I use when charging anything dicey.

>>2538106
I have prebuilt battery pack ( 2 actually ). I unwrapped the "dead" one and it has a BMS. For some reason the 'good' battery won't charge when the battery is inside the hoverboard. I think this is because the batteries have over discharged, and something ( the BMS? ) is not allowing it to charge.

If I want to charge these cells up a bit ( 2.94 V to 3.01 ) Do I need to bypass the BMS to do this? I think picrel is 5S2P right? So could I charge each individual cell with a 3.5V charge until they get above 3? Or maybe since they are in parallel, charge 2 of them at a time?

>>2538478
Oh lol, come do ours next! Seems nearly every government of the world is headed by pathetic rats.

>>2538664
I was hoping that if I took the battery out, and fed it 42V very slowly, it would charge, however - when I attach the wall wart to it directly, it will not charge past 29.4 V even though my multimeter says there is 42V when connected. Actually it says less, like 35V or something, which I assume is because I'm getting an average voltage from the two power sources.

>>2538684
How many cells in series?

>>2538688
I think it is 5S2P

>>2538695
That should be at 21V at maximum charge. If you're reading 42V, that's a 10S pack at max charge. If something else comes out the discharge plug, it's probably got a regulator trying to give a constant voltage.

>>2538664
stick 4.2v 1A directly on the bad cell, it'll slowly recover, or it won't if it's too far gone.

>>2538664
>>2538895

With regards to 18650, I was able to salvage some from a old thinkpad battery, and they all read 1.8V I looked them up and said not tocharge under 2v, but I did anyways, they all went to 3.8 or 4.2 idk its been months, still seem to hold a charge the week after I charged them. I assume they're okay but im too much of a pussy to use them.

If they are still holding their charges months later, do you think they're safe to use?

>>2539374
What is the Amp rating on those particular cells? Because if you don't know it, then it's not "safe" for you to use them for anything. Do they say anything on the side?

>>2539380
they are lg brand, these ones here, but I think they amp rating is different than on the site, unless different amp ratings are color based IDK

https://voltaplex.com/lg-abc2-18650-battery-lgabc21865

>>2539551
oh I also forgot 3.75 - 3.8 is the voltage they stopped charging at too.

>>2539374
if they recovered back to normal voltage, they don't get too hot and the capacity is alright, then sure.

What's a good way to discharge lipo batteries into a lead battery? i have a charger than can charge pb from ac, also have another charger that can pull from the lead battery, but not found a charger or diy solution to discharge lipos into a pb battery.
was going to just buy a bunch of resistors and put a fan ontop of them to quickly discharge my batteries, but feels like a waste when i'm going to need to charge them up again in a week or so, would be better if i could just dump it all into a lead battery and then pull back from it at a later date.
how do you guys put your batteries into storage? most chargers are like 15-30w discharge max. when you have loads of batteries it takes days to discharge.

>>2539740
I charge them, run them at or below storage level, then charge them to storage. The trick is to never charge anything I don't intend to send flying. The exception is transmitter and goggle batteries. Those 18650s just live at whatever charge level until they get low.

>>2539746
I tend to try and do that as well but I charged up 12x4s 6.5AH lipo cells for a bashing session and never ended up taking them out, won't be able to take them out for awhile either so rather not keep them at full charge.
i need to discharge 35A~ and it's going to take literally days, think i might just make my own cheap resistor bank for the sake of a few occurrences of this happening again in my life.

>>2539758
Oh dang, those are some chunky packs! I mostly fly a little quad that weighs 290g with the battery on board. I've actually discharged some of those by dumping it into my phone battery, but yours are gonna take some doing.

Do you think fixed wing is becoming more popular relative to multirotors these days? I seem to be seeing a lot more of it, but I have no idea what the reality is

>>2539988
I think it's worth it to build one and check it out. Most will feel pretty slow and clumsy compared to a multirotor, and you have to think a little bit about where you launch and land from, but they are still pretty fun.
As for having a fleet of wings, you probably won't get bit by the bug that hard.

>>2540005
Forgot to include this instant classic:

>>2540011
>Dumbass does it in such a wooded area.

The fuck did you expect?

>>2539988
I think a lot of it is that multirotors & especially FPV quads have introduced people to fixed wing who would otherwise not have thought to try it, especially with things like iNav/Arduplane & FPV wings rather than flying balsa models in circles with the retirees at your local model flying club.

>>2540011
based. fuck that tree.

I have this MJX B19 that will take off from literally anywhere (uneven grassy ground/bumpy backpacks/literal water/etc) EXCEPT my palms. Anyone know why that is?

>>2540232
Are all of the other surfaces things that will remain perfectly still during takeoff?

>>2540262
I guess yeah, but i don't think my hands are THAT shaky

>>2540271
probably calibrating before takeoff and your shaky hands are enough to stop it getting a reliable reading.

>>2540273
Yeah, that's how all my Betaflight quads are. They gotta sit still for about 2 seconds, then I could frisbee throw them for takeoff if I really wanted to.

>>2540186
>flying balsa models in circles with the retirees at your local model flying club.

>>2540434
Bruce is about the coolest old dude on the planet. He's the reason I have a good understanding of antennas, resonance, and how to be a pain in the ass for bad law makers.

>>2540434
he really is the antithesis to the boomer
the real OG and the reason i got into the hobby
i think he got kicked out of the balsa wood field and that's why he does his own with a few buddies now

the balsa dudes are a real PITA. absolute aversion to anything outside their autistic world. no copters, FPV, autonomous flight, ....
even actively lobbying against it, thinking they can guard their hobby. basically the equivalent of HAMs

>>2540563
I chop through branches with my 5" quad, recover in mid air, and keep flying. Balsa planes are made out of branches.
It sure would be a shame!

>>2540563
>no copters, FPV, autonomous flight,
because it's not analogous to full-scale aircraft, and you don't directly control the motors but instead everything is put through the PID controllers in software algorithms. it's an inefficient way to fly. the tricks and races are cool, but it's more like counter-strike or esports compared to traditional rc, which is closer to full-scale airplanes and the structure and aerodynamics hasn't changed much in 100 years.

>wanted to get an FPV quad but completely enamored by wings since i found out about them
>havent done anything with electronics in years
>https://www.team-blacksheep.com/products/prod:tbs_caipi2_pnp
Is this bundle and a DJI goggles/controller all i need to start actually flying? is there anything I can do to ensure the longest range possible? Can I launch this leaning out my window? (balcony opening is 1m wide and 3m high, overlooking a small park) could i bank 90 degrees and build a cushioned landing zone inside my window to bring it back? (assuming ive gotten the hang of flying) is an old gopro hero 5 too heavy to mount for flight footage? could I resonably replace the motor and battery with a mini turbine and fuel pump down the road? would side by side motors increase the cruising speed or just make it harder to fly? main goal is go fast

What are some good budget options for a pocket selfie drones similar to tello that doesn't require a remote (only your phone) to fly? I personally find 1080p kinda lacking for $100
Or is tello the best one there is on that price range?

>>2540766
you need that + a receiver and transmitter to fly
and any vtx and goggles should work, the newest o3 needs a FC to get out of low power mode afaik, and the old ones can still be taken out of low power mode if you disable the temp control.
I would start off in the park while you are getting used to it, you will uncontrollably crash it multiple times, once you're comfy you can land it anywhere big enough
weight depends on your trust and lift capabilities, that tbs one is 1.4kg with gopro and battery if you rad the specs.
if fast is your option then pick a craft with better aero.

>>2540766
>longest range possible
First step, ditch the DJI setup. There are hard limits on how far that stuff will let you go. Everything else will go till the signal is gone.

>>2540676
detected the balsa boomer
all modern big planes are FBW. not even getting into modern fighter planes which drop out of the sky without a computer on the controls
noone's interested in flying in circles if you can do so much more and fun stuff. btw, airplanes aren't flown from outside the cockpit

>>2540923
>all modern big planes are FBW
don't care
>not even getting into modern fighter planes
why not get into modern fighter planes? their fbw laws are designed to mimic the characteristics of a normal, positively-stable airplane.
>>2540923
>you can do so much more and fun stuff
I agree. You should do whatever is fun for you.
>btw, airplanes aren't flown from outside the cockpit
airshows and aerobatics are all flown with ground reference and for a ground-based audience. it may change with drone cams and digital consumption, but the live aspect will always be relevant.

>>2540937
>their fbw laws are designed to mimic the characteristics of a normal, positively-stable airplane.
the same can be done to a multicopter

>>2540947
>the same can be done to a multicopter
but nobody actually does this.
The mission of a modern fighter is pretty depressing and shitty, if you made the missiles last long enough to turn 180 degrees they wouldn't fit on the boat or in hangars, so they allow the fighter to do a turn which burns off a ton of energy and makes you a sitting duck, but increases the probability of getting a kill before getting killed.
a multicopter doesn't expend energy the same way, it's basically always expending a huge amount of energy, and flying forwards only improves it slightly before it starts to increase drag.
future vertical lift is all about compound helicopters or adding fixed wings to them so that they can be more useful in combat. multicopters don't scale, fixed-wing aircraft do.
Just do whatever's fun. My dad forced me to go to the R/C field and 'accidentally' broke my park flyers so that I didn't have a choice, but I'm happy that it worked out that way. balsafags & friends are more fun than CS autists and tech gurus.

>>2540676
Even rwd rc cars need a gyro if you want to drive them with any kind of control.

>>2540782
Most of the cheap chink toy camera drones wont even output their claimed 1080p image. The only thing I would suggest is to go through reputable reviewers on what is good, or not.

>>2540951
> a multicopter doesn't expend energy the same way, it's basically always expending a huge amount of energy

You do realise efficiency isn’t the sole consideration in many scenarios, right? Nobody is debating that fixed wing is always going to be inherently more efficient than multirotor flight, but often that’s completely irrelevant.

>>2540973
I didn't know that they used them in car racing. I had a tail rotor gyro on my Raptor 50. It worked really well, the technology is great, it's basically a fact that we're going to use them in everything. Small plane aviation is so niche of a hobby and mired in regulations so it'll take longer than it should.

>>2540982
>that’s completely irrelevant
I'm not encouraging you to choose one or the other. I've seen the freestyle fpv footage (flying through abandoned buildings) and the action camera stuff (following an off-road car) and I think that's the coolest shit ever. Reminds me of those surf maps for counter-strike.
All I'm doing is providing a rationale for the exclusion of quadcopters from this --
>>2540186
>flying balsa models in circles with the retirees at your local model flying club
Every balsa r/c airplane has certain things in common with every full-scale plane made after 1914. There are a few exceptions, but in general your basic crappy ARF trainer has the same structural considerations as an Edge 540, a Sopwith Camel or a BD-5, and aerodynamically they fly the same way. When you show up to the R/C club you're learning the skills and knowledge of that entire ecosystem. I'm not saying it's better or worse than quadcopters or if they should be excluded, I'm just saying that these are two distinct types of R/C and providing the justification.

>>2541051
>Raptor 50
pic related (sage)

Any guides to make explosive drone for terrorist purposes?

>>2541107
strap a bomb to a drone, that's it, you dumb faggot.

>>2541111
Rude, lmao

>>2540792
Do you know of any more aerodynamic options that aren’t miniature jet models? For some reason the model airplane style wings are much less attractive than the ones that look more “droney”

>>2541107

>>2541107
Go ask the middle east. A drone such as yourself would learn quickly.

>>2541107
Make a reddit account and join Ukraine.

>>2541107
Join the FBI or CIA, they are the experts on enacting such activities.

>>2528240
i wish i had a nice grassy area nearby.
well, there is one nearby but it's full of dogshit from the local yuppie dog owners not picking up after their inbred bundle of rabies, so i can't use that one.

>>2541709
Back when I was a kid that area just looked like this and none of those buildings in the back existed.

Tfw getting a new carbon design cut, it's been ages since the last time.

>>2541973
you're not using wood for the arms, right?
alos, why have you got so many holes drilled? it's weakening it significantly.

>>2541980
>you're not using wood for the arms, right?

Maybe wood, maybe aluminium. Both work fine in my experience.

>alos, why have you got so many holes drilled? it's weakening it significantly.

Flexibility for mounting electronics. It's really not making much difference to the structural integrity, especially where it matters around where the arms mount. This new design is a development of second-from-bottom in picrelated which was maybe the stiffest frame I've ever handled.

>>2541998
oh, that's a lot bigger scale than I thought.
are they all autopilot?

>>2541998
>especially where it matters around where the arms mount
This is correct, the structure around the spar mounts is the highest-loaded part of the structure. Assuming the cf is some kind of honeycomb panel, then it's not good to be attaching it without a denser core, it would be better to bond it with glue or use phenolic inserts, but it probably doesn't matter. Also, good-quality wood is stronger than most composites and lighter than aluminum. The problem is mostly availability.

>>2542298
Mix of Betaflight & Arducopter.

Soldered and wrapped my first parallel XT60. How'd I do, fellow rotorheads?

This thing is worth it, simply for the fact that I now have a use for my saggy old beat-up freestyle batteries. Too bad the FUCKING GPS DOESN'T WORK FROM THE FACTORY IF THE O3 AIR UNIT IS POWERED ON. As of now, this can be an FPS drone, or a GPS drone, but not both at the same time. As shipped by iFlight (who are now on Chinese New Year break for the next two weeks).

>>2542722
Looks good, I've only done this with two 1s connectors. Had the wire snap at the solder joints a few times, but this is probably not an issue with thicker gauge wires.

>>2542727
it's a nice frame, was considering swapping out an old analog quads guts with this and moving to the o3, that or that speedybee frame anyway.
is the gps/o3 issue a widespread issue, or just lack of QA? I assume it's just a shielding thing, or does the gps not function at all?

>>2542722
you intertwine the strands together and dump a huge amount of solder on them?
I've stared to do picrel myself instead of buying splitters.

>>2542805
Definitely a lack of QA in either case, but I haven't pulled the GPS harness out yet to see if it's shielded or if that's just shrink wrap on it. It looks a bit skinny to be shielded, but that's just a bandaid for getting a GPS module with proper bandpass filters integrated. I mean, it's an M8Q-5883, but it's an iFlight one, so it's either bad, or doesn't have the filter that the Matek version has. No sats ever, unless I unplug the O3 on this, sounds like a roundeye problem now.

>>2542807
I squeeze the ends together with ceramic tweezers while brazing solder around until the whole joint mooshes together. Probably not perfect, but it's good enough for the battery pads on the ESC, so it's probably good enough for this.
That splitter looks nice, but I would definitely break that the first day of recreational crashing.

I know a quad is probably the way to go for getting into FPV especially considering I'm moving around quite a bit these days, but theres something about fpv wings that are just super cool. Whats the smallest quad i could ideally mount a gopro on for fun and getting the hang of things while i build a wing?

>>2543016
For a GoPro, you are going to want a 5" quad. Anything smaller and it's going to feel like you are flying with a ball and chain on. I guess a 3" cinewhoop could cut it (not very acrobatic), but those are like the worst of both worlds between an FPV drone and a DJI camera drone. You have to be a real special needs kind of pilot to want one of those.

>>2542722
> How'd I do

No idea, we can’t see your soldering, which is the only actually important part.

>>2542727
I had this issue with HDZero, and I hear the same thing goes for Walksnail. Apparently digital video shits on GPS receivers. I solved my issue by front mounting my GPS to get it as far from the antennas as possible. Averages 15 sats indoors and 22 outdoors.

I feel this is too loose, but can't fucking move the gears closer coz of the motor mount pins, thanks traxxas.
Should I yolo and remove the pins and hope these plastic threads will provide enough clamping force to hold the motor?

>>2543192
> Averages 15 sats indoors

Let me guess, you live in the US in a house made of cardboard?

>>2543874
I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.

>>2543877
>Bong bragging about his "breck an' mortah" tenement shoebox in 3...2...1....

What is the benefit of a larger wingspan, for instance 40" over 32"? Im hoping to do quite a lot of flying over the ocean, and Im not sure what size would be better for windiness

>>2543884
a bigger wing provides more lift, this scales up until the point where your materials start breaking down from internal stresses. Go as big as you can given your limitations of the practicalities of transporting the thing

>>2541412
Bonus points for posting your hotel location while farming for upvotes.

>>2542722
Nice, I bought a bunch of xt30 connectors for the tinyhawk 2 and batteries but fogot you could make those too.

>>2543398
Mesh looks fine to me, if you really must, feed a strip of printer paper through the pinion and spur and go to pull it out, if the mesh is perfect the paper will come back out slowly but not tight enough to rip.

>>/wsg/4920200
Okay, that kinda went as expected, the FC did not like that camera placement. I was trying to hold a smooth throttle and it was shitting the bed. completely flipped and lost control at one point.
kinda nice viewpoint though, imagine it would be quite trippy if you managed to tuned out the camera weight and done some freestyle

>>2544047
>>>/wsg/4920200

>>2544047
Nice shot! What are you doing to mount the boom?

>>2544076
sponge and zipties, wanted to play about with the placement so didn't want to print anything permanent up.
might try it a little closer by moving the gps mount to the top and using the frame standoffs as a mount.

>>2544101
You could always delete the GPS, and use the antenna mount I modified: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5564500

>>2544155
Yeah, could use something like that, might try it on the weekend if it's not raining again.

Does anyone know the wiring for the ZOHD kopilot gps?

I absolutely hate the kopilot but love my Drift and bought a matek f405wmn to replace the kopilot. Hence I want to just wire up the new fc with all the existing hardware, but can't find a diagram for the gps.

>>2544404
based on a picture of the Kopilot Lite, it looks like this GPS unit. See if yours has any markings on it. This ebay listing has different models with wiring diagrams.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/183050546646

>>2544404
You should be able to work out which pins are 5V & ground using your multimeter, then for the RX/TX pins you can just pick at random & swap them around if it doesn’t work. You won’t damage a FC by connecting RX/TX backwards.

Are there any books about building drones? I don't like watching videos.

>>2545630
yeah, they are called instructions.
maybe this hobby isn't for you anon.

>>2545639
I misspoke homeslice. I mean a book on drones in general, mechanism of action, history, past present use, building them, materials, principles of flight. Like there are cookbooks that just have recipies then there are cookbooks that include the why and how

>>2545630
>Wrap it 3 times
>Wrap it 3 more times again
So...wrap it 6 times?

>>2545643
I only know of a book about learning to fly them. If reading is your jam, try Oscar Liang. He has dozens of guides about basically anything you need to know on the topic.

>>2545630
It's a lot easier to monetize a YouTube video than some clearly written instructions, especially now that people's attention span has been shotgun blasted down to 5-10 minutes by phone apps.
I'm sorry, but you are swimming in a sea of retards now, and will continue to do so until you die of exasperation in 23 years when a minority taking your fast food order can't read the pictograms on the register and fucks up your food.

>>2545917
> especially now that people's attention span has been shotgun blasted down to 5-10 minutes by phone apps

The irony is that you end up skipping around in that 10 minute video trying to find the 20 seconds of actually useful content that should have just been a bullet point list on Web page.

Freestyle pilot's preflight checklist:

>1. Is Drone Able to Take Off? []
>2. Are GoPro Settings Appropriate for Current Lighting? []

Looks like we're good to go!

I crashed my tinyhawk 3 and a camera wire snapped off
what’s the recommended soldering iron for tiny wires?

>>2527385
>traps your consciousness in there

>>2547166
TS100 is nice, and it can run off a LiPo.

>>2547166
>>2547227
Then again, a new camera is like $15.

>>2547227
>>2547231
i’ll try and get one soon, read good things about these but wanted to get a second recommendation. a new camera wouldn’t make much sense, the wire actually snapped on the flight controller end.

said goodbye to my last analog setup today, swapped out my caddx from an old cinewhoop that was sitting about not getting flown and shoved it in. had to use longer standoffs to get it all squeezed in, but we're all set up and ready to fly.
is there any reason to recommended analog now that we have so many good digital systems? Used to be all about the latency, or if you were into whoops, but seems like we have options for both of those now. Cost might be the only factor left.

>>2547287
Analog is nice if you are flying with friends, since there is less interference between headsets and it's easy to spectate someone else's flying. Only HDZero has comparable latency to analog, and not all digital VTXs are going to be able to fit in every frame (but it looks like you made do pretty well). Also, I know long range pilots still like analog because it just works, without a hard cap on the maximum distance and it doesn't blow out the GPS reception as much.Final, waning advantage: analog VTXs are cheap as fuck. I think analog will still be around for a while for more niche purposes, but digital is pretty much the standard now.

I imagine drone photography is a pretty oversaturated field already?

>>2547387
There are new bandos created every day, and only so many pilots available to power loop them. As long as you aren't worried about making money, there is plenty of room for you.

>>2547387
Has been for many years.

>>2547287
Cost is still a big factor. You can buy a pretty decent set of analogue goggles for under $100.

>>2546632
Hell, I don't even bother with the GoPro. My budget gets allocated towards more modifications and repairs. The time I spend flying is for me, and a fat ass GoPro is just more cost and weight.

>>2547166
I prefer the Pinecil. The heating time is wicked fast!

>>2547287
Audio. I love that sound in my DVR!

>be me
>plan out a nice new location with picturesque views for my Sunday flight
>put all my things on charge when i wake up
>1h drive away and rain inc, so quickly throw everything into my bag and hit the road
>get to the location, open my bag, left the controller on charge at home.
>as I get home to pickup controller rains already here.
fml.
maybe next weekend.

>>2548140
Don't forget to storage charge your LiPos, goy!

>>2548182
The fact that they die slowly when charged or discharged is easily my least favorite aspect of lithium batteries. I'd love to just keep them all charged and ready to go so I could just go use them.

>>2548231
How far off do you think we are from 1300mAh sized fusion reactors?

>>2548047
dangerously based. I see too many people reasoning along the lines of "if you didn't upload your flight to social media, did it even happen?"

>>2548234
>How far off do you think we are from 1300mAh sized fusion reactors?
lipos piss me off so much I've been considering getting into nitro, even though I know they come with their own set of problems

>>2548247
If they want proof it happened, they're gonna watch some analog footage. Despite the grainy image, there's still plenty to love about the simplicity of analog. It's cheap, it can wire into anything you want with just a penny's worth of wire, weighs nothing, and I get the roaring motor noise. It also boots instantly and the OSD has no lag at all. On top of all of that, it'll go for miles.

>>2548331
I definitely enjoy the old school graininess of analog, it takes me back to a time when things were simpler, and happier. Still though, once you get better, you will lose the fear of strapping a $400 4k camera to the top of your flying scrap-heap, and get seriously addicted to the vibrant color, and crystal clear stabilized footage. I don't even post most of my videos, I just like to catalog every single flight I do as I get better. I have several hundred gigs of it so far!

>>2548397
Oh, it has nothing to do with fear. I simply see no reason to spend a big heap of cash to add weight and shorten flights.

>>2548397
I tell myself - one day i'll make a montage outa all this footage - never have, never will. do enjoy just watching it back myself though.
scares me away from doing risky stuff though if i have it attached. I'm okay with throwing a $300 quad into the water, not so much a $300 quad with a $500 gopro.

>>2548421
It’s almost like different people have different reasons for flying.

incase anyone is interested. not a bad price.

>>2548930
I honestly considering buying a second one. You know, since they randomly brick sometimes (it's usually recoverable though).

>>2548933
wish it was 150 without the sub, i would have bought two at that price. tempted to strip it down and make my own naked mini/bones

>>2548951
Do you think it would work without the heat sink? That shit's at least a heavy as a screen, and our use case only has it running for a few seconds before it's getting all the airflow it could need. I'm just worried about crashing my drone in dry brush, and having it be like an emergency flare landed there, although I guess the naked Vista I sometimes fly is probably more likely to do that.

>>2548960
think it's basically the same as the normal naked hero10, they usually have active fans on them and are cool to the touch after flights. probably go into thermal shutdown long before causing a bushfire.
that being said, i'm not going to be the guinea pig for it, I'll let someone else make the case and test it out before i start ripping mine apart. not sure how it'll react to it's battery being removed and if it can be powered via passthough usb without any other mods.

>>2548989
GoProLabs firmware might have an option for that, I think it's Trust_USB_Power or something like that.

>>2547287
>we got too cocky bros
not used to running 4s. o well, new frame time.

>>2549062
That was quick!

>>2549062
What number of cells are you used to?

>>2549235
tbf it was a very mild crash on wet grass, must have just landed awkwardly.
>>2549294
been flying 6s with a much more aggressive tune on a different frame, dramatic change going back to this. I remember when this quad felt quick.
kinda wanted to try the speedybee master frame out, guess i have an excuse to now.

>>>2549725
>>>2549725
>>>2549725
new bread.

>>2549062
reborn from the ashes, didn't even need to resolder anything.