Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

Yeh I'm not sure what to make of it. For what it's worth, I've always been comfortable in controlling choppers in games (ie BF2) and am comfortable with the controls involved in line of site flying. So I'd like to think I could get the hang of flying FPV pretty quick with the ability to see in perspective.

Re: what fpv stuff to buy, on the other hand of considering the DIY setup.... I half expect I'll get fed up with trying to get things to work so looking at a fatshark bundle. Can get the Predator V2 bundle for £250 ish. That would include camera, transmitter, receiver, goggles and battery. Anyone here using this combo and have any comments? Looks like it should be effortless to setup with it taking power from a balance connector (or is that only the headset... reading the manual at the moment...) and I guess I could upgrade the aerials in the future should I want more range.
 
Skeeter said:
Has anyone got one of the DIY FPV goggle sets? I'm tempted, but once you add on the additional bits required like a transmitter, receiver, camera, power supply, head mounting, etc it soon adds up, and I'm wondering if its better to just buy a second hand Fat Shark or something?
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I just paid out £99 via Hobby King to get some gear...

1x #9171000444-0/53706 Quanum DIY FPV Goggle Set with Monitor (KIT) = $29.99
1x #STCR351305/15295 Boscam 5.8Ghz 200mw FPV Wireless AV Tx & Rx Set = $54.99
1x #Voltage-Alarm/18588 Hobbyking 2-8S Cell Checker with Low Voltage Alarm = $3.80
1x #9052000065-3/6478 IMAX B6-AC Charger/Discharger 1-6 Cells (GENUINE) = $36.99
1x #435000018/35657 5.8 GHz Circular Polarized Antenna RP-SMA (Transmitter and Receiver) = $12.60

The Boscam Tx and Rx will do 500m without better antenna but are only straight ones so opted for the Polarized ones which also increase the range not that I want to go beyond line of sight, cheap enough upgrade.

I don't see the point of the Fat Sharks to be honest... sure they are more compact but I won't be doing FPV to look cool, I want it to see cool stuff :)

I am also fed up with charging from car battery only as the charger you get with a Blade 350qx only has croc clips.

And I already have a Mobius Action Camera with FPV cables so only need to modify them a little.
 
d_brennen said:
At £50, probably. It's hard to advise about second hand RC stuff tbh, especially when you don't know what sort of life its lead. It looks decent spec stuff but the KK2.1 is a curious choice of FC in this age if GPS etc.



FPV is a whole different beast tbh. I'm still not great at LOS but took to FPV really easily. Too much time on the PS1 DualShock or something like that ;)
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That's the first thing I will upgrade, most likely the naza v2, the gopro he said was a bit beat up as he used it for virtually everything.

Pinkfloyd I'll let you know what I think of them after the weekend when I have had a play :-)
 
Cool, will watch with interest. Got my interest back in doing this again after flying at the weekend, but all the contrasting reviews of various FPV setups has me struggling to make my mind up again which is where I got a bit lost at the start of the year. It's not even a consistent "more money is better" which I would atleast find easy to accept, many people saying that the screen on the Predators is too small, but then a few posts later you'll see people complaining that the bigger screen on the Attitudes is too big... lol
 
So what I can gather from that video and other documentation, is that the vast majority of any FPV gear you can get in the UK is illegal :/
Here I go back to the why even bother mindset :s
 
FunkyCowie said:
I just paid out £99 via Hobby King to get some gear...

1x #9171000444-0/53706 Quanum DIY FPV Goggle Set with Monitor (KIT) = $29.99
1x #STCR351305/15295 Boscam 5.8Ghz 200mw FPV Wireless AV Tx & Rx Set = $54.99
1x #Voltage-Alarm/18588 Hobbyking 2-8S Cell Checker with Low Voltage Alarm = $3.80
1x #9052000065-3/6478 IMAX B6-AC Charger/Discharger 1-6 Cells (GENUINE) = $36.99
1x #435000018/35657 5.8 GHz Circular Polarized Antenna RP-SMA (Transmitter and Receiver) = $12.60

The Boscam Tx and Rx will do 500m without better antenna but are only straight ones so opted for the Polarized ones which also increase the range not that I want to go beyond line of sight, cheap enough upgrade.

I don't see the point of the Fat Sharks to be honest... sure they are more compact but I won't be doing FPV to look cool, I want it to see cool stuff :)

I am also fed up with charging from car battery only as the charger you get with a Blade 350qx only has croc clips.

And I already have a Mobius Action Camera with FPV cables so only need to modify them a little.
Click to expand...

That Boscam kit is the one I was looking at. I've got an 808 keyring camera that will work for FPV, but the battery will be good for only 2 flights at most.

How does that Boscam setup get power? Ideally I'd want to run everything off the single battery, but the 808 will require its own onboard. If I could get a small camera to run off the FPV Tx it would save weight and give longer battery life.
 
It depends what voltage you Tx needs, my Boscam Tx is ok to be fed straight off the battery. Tx's sometimes output power as well but mine fried when I ran the camera off it, apparently it is a common fault

All my FPV gear runs of the main battery, I just run wiring from the power distribution board to wherever I need it

You probably will need that soldering iron though Skeeter!
 
If you do get one don't buy a cheap one from an auction site, I bought one that lasted about ten minutes before it popped and tripped out the electrics in my house
 
Can you get battery powered ones yet? I see there are now battery powered hot glue guns which run off RC model batteries, which is genius.
 
No idea, you can get gas powered ones which suck! Don't know if battery powered would be any good or not

Do you not have any plug sockets in your house?
 
I've got a gas soldering iron that I quite like, takes a bit longer to warm up than the decent electric one I had borrowed previously and doesn't get as hot overall but it does the job and not having to worry about the cable is really nice. It's a Draper 78774, got it off ebay but looks like you can get them on Amazon and other places too.
Not used a cheap electric one to compare against.
 
Whilst draining the LiPo so you can't fly the fixed aircraft!

Out of all my various crashes and issues (there have been a lot!) solder joints have never been an issue for me. It isn't difficult to make a decent solder joint and I've never had a need for a soldering iron in the field
 
True, whereas I imagine hot glue guns in the field are pretty much a necessity for plane flyers :)

Do you have anything between the battery and your Boscam other than the board, or is it a straight feed?
 
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Yeah I've got a low pass filter in line to clean up the power supply, the low pass filter is fed directly off the power distribution board and then the FPV gear takes its power from the filter

I'll try and get you a picture of the wiring later if you like?
 
Yeah that would be great thanks.

I've got to wait for my parts from China, so may as well spend the time learning to solder and sorting out the power distribution I need.
 
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