Multirotor, multicopter and quadcopter discussion - The Drone thread

Caporegime
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Insurance? It would be like insuring a motorcross bike third party, when you can only use on private land.
The regs for recreational flight already state to stay away from people/property, so what would be the point of insurance?
If you go commercial and do pfco then of course that would be a different story.

Personal liability is always handy, particularly if you can take someone's / something's eye out
 
Soldato
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Atcham, Shropshire
I might have missed it but has anyone done their PFCO for the CAA on here ? It's something i'm looking at doing, think i'll learn a surprising amount and will let me be insured for the use of it, at the moment i've yet to find an insurer who will touch you without it.

I have and yes you will learn a great deal. There is a lot to take in but you will benefit from it every time you fly.
 
Associate
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Found a worm hole with my drone today......

Some acro went wrong, I think the battery came loose causing a crash, I heard the thud and the bleeper then nothing battery disconnected? Anyway 4 hours searching a perfectly square field methodically, it only has short clover being grown.

I for the life of me cannot find the quadcopter so annoying when it was only a weekend old.

I knew I should have paid the extra for a hellgate bleeper that comes fitted with a button battery.
 
Associate
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Found a worm hole with my drone today......

Some acro went wrong, I think the battery came loose causing a crash, I heard the thud and the bleeper then nothing battery disconnected? Anyway 4 hours searching a perfectly square field methodically, it only has short clover being grown.

I for the life of me cannot find the quadcopter so annoying when it was only a weekend old.

I knew I should have paid the extra for a hellgate bleeper that comes fitted with a button battery.

I feel for you. Been there.
 
Caporegime
Joined
7 Nov 2004
Posts
30,194
Location
Buckinghamshire
Found a worm hole with my drone today......

Some acro went wrong, I think the battery came loose causing a crash, I heard the thud and the bleeper then nothing battery disconnected? Anyway 4 hours searching a perfectly square field methodically, it only has short clover being grown.

I for the life of me cannot find the quadcopter so annoying when it was only a weekend old.

I knew I should have paid the extra for a hellgate bleeper that comes fitted with a button battery.

That sucks, sometimes you need to look further out, you'd be surprised

Did you have video feed or DVR going?
 
Associate
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12 Dec 2006
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Drone Found:D!
I must have walked past it 15-20 times and the disconnected battery landed 1 m away.

spent soo long walking lines up and down the field (size 100,815m2 or 20.5 acres) and it landed near the blimmin entrance gate! my last fpv view was over the middle of the field.

going to be ordering the HellgateFPV buzzer now....
 
Soldato
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Stoke area
Wife bought me a basic quad drone 2 Christmas's ago, 2 batteries each lasting 7 mins and takes hours to charge. Runs via remote or you can control it via wifi and your phone screen using the onboard camera.

In all honesty, I've not touched it in 12 months because it would never fly as you would expect. A simple hover and it would shoot over to one side, almost as though something wasn't right but it cost £40 to not really surprised.

I've a couple of hundred pounds and looking at getting a basic but decent setup, ideally FPV as i'll find that easier to fly. Also looking at the Eachine EV100 for £76, gets some good reviews.


Am I better buying an off the shelf drone + FPV head unit or is it wiser to buy components and build yourself?

Regarding FPV, I take it the footage is done via frequency in a similar manner as controllers, meaning you can run several units at once? Is it also possible to run 1 drone onto 2 FPV headunits? It'd be nice if I was any good for the kids to be able to watch as well and experience it?
 
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Soldato
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Caerphilly
I've a couple of hundred pounds and looking at getting a basic but decent setup, ideally FPV as i'll find that easier to fly. Also looking at the Eachine EV100 for £76, gets some good reviews.

Am I better buying an off the shelf drone + FPV head unit or is it wiser to buy components and build yourself?

Regarding FPV, I take it the footage is done via frequency in a similar manner as controllers, meaning you can run several units at once? Is it also possible to run 1 drone onto 2 FPV headunits? It'd be nice if I was any good for the kids to be able to watch as well and experience it?

I have the Eachine V2 DR Pro goggle, I'm actually yet to use them but from what I researched they seem the best budget end goggles for FPV.

You should really learn to fly LOS (line of sight) before attempting FPV flying. Yes it may very well be easier to fly FPV but what happens when/if your FPV setup fails? If you have no experience with flying LOS and knowing what orientation / direction the quad is pointing (reversed controls etc etc) then there's only one way that is going to end :)

One option with FPV is to replace the goggles with a screen. That way the kids will be able to see what you are seeing at the same time. Unsure if you can pair up more than one goggle/screen to a fpv transmitter.

Someone far more knowledgeable about current drones/quads on the market today can help you choose one but I myself bought all of the parts to build my own, because I like tinkering and building RC models. Plenty of RTF (Ready to Fly) quads out there though.
 
Associate
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Wife bought me a basic quad drone 2 Christmas's ago, 2 batteries each lasting 7 mins and takes hours to charge. Runs via remote or you can control it via wifi and your phone screen using the onboard camera.

In all honesty, I've not touched it in 12 months because it would never fly as you would expect. A simple hover and it would shoot over to one side, almost as though something wasn't right but it cost £40 to not really surprised.

I've a couple of hundred pounds and looking at getting a basic but decent setup, ideally FPV as i'll find that easier to fly. Also looking at the Eachine EV100 for £76, gets some good reviews.


Am I better buying an off the shelf drone + FPV head unit or is it wiser to buy components and build yourself?

Regarding FPV, I take it the footage is done via frequency in a similar manner as controllers, meaning you can run several units at once? Is it also possible to run 1 drone onto 2 FPV headunits? It'd be nice if I was any good for the kids to be able to watch as well and experience it?


For starting out, just buy ready to fly. You can make it your self if you like that part of the hobby and it helps putting it back together if you crash (you will), but you don't need to. I have one I built myself and two off the shelf.

For goggles, unless you buy a quad with some weird propitiatory video link, the quads vtx (video transmitter) all send out a signal on 5.8 ghz. So you can have as many receivers as you like looking in. I have my goggles and a simple receiver that plugs into my phone if others want to watch.

You can change the specific frequency on the vtx to one of around 40 different channels and match the goggle up and away you go. Hence you can have more than one quad flying around at a time.

As to if you should learn LOS first? I wouldn't bother, other than to be able to hover in front of you to see if your quad is OK.
I can't think of any time where I've been flying and lost video signal that I've thought, on the way to find/pick up my quad, I could have taken my hand off the controller, lifted up my goggles, put my hand back on the transmitter, found the quad with my normal eye sight, worked out it's orientation and regained control before it hit the ground/tree/bush.

Just to add, you might want to up your budget a little. You will need a transmitter to control your quad as well ad batteries, charger, spare props and that in a bundle might be pushing your budget a little.

something like the wizard x220 rtf bundle from unmannedtechshop for £183.

Simon
 
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Soldato
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Stoke area
turns out the drone I have got is an X5SW-1, it looks like I could mount my samsung phone inside my vr head unit and use an app for a VR experience from the drone.

Got to figure out why the drone goes up and sideways regardless of the controls that are being pressed. Also how to increase the range and battery length. 7 mins flight time per battery and 120 minutes to charge... not exactly easy to fly for extended periods for practice. Might strip it down and lighten it too, see if that helps
 
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So, I've got my drone today, I have read the articles on the CAA website, I have no interest in flouting any rules. What other resources would people suggest I look at?
 
Soldato
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Associate
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turns out the drone I have got is an X5SW-1, it looks like I could mount my samsung phone inside my vr head unit and use an app for a VR experience from the drone.

Got to figure out why the drone goes up and sideways regardless of the controls that are being pressed. Also how to increase the range and battery length. 7 mins flight time per battery and 120 minutes to charge... not exactly easy to fly for extended periods for practice. Might strip it down and lighten it too, see if that helps

manual says try place quad on horizontal level surface then push both levers to the bottom right from 2-3 seconds. Some indicator light on the quad will begin flashing and then stop. Looks like a recalibration operation.
It also mentions the same but with levers to the bottom left for some other correction. Try both of them.

The up/down will just be the position of the throttle stick, You don't have height hold on this model I think. There are trim buttons to try to correct the drifting but that is for minor drifts, not large movements.

7 mins per battery sounds pretty good going, the manual says 5.5 minutes, they aren't that big. The charging time is because they are being charged over USB, Although even on a proper charger it would take an hour on 1c charging.

Simon
 
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