My F450 is now a F550!

When I first came to this website/forum with my little toy WLtoys V686G, I was told something along the lines of "you'll go bigger". Well it was very true!
I built my very first brushless quadcopter (the F450) from all the information that is already in here and from my own questions. I learned how to do it right and even how to make it look like it was professionally built.
Now I have taken it all apart and built the F500 hexacopter with all the stuff floating around in my brain thanks to this bunch of pretty darned smart people! So if I crash it, it's all your fault! Just kidding.
I can't wait for the summer months to get here so I can get out and go hog wild with my new hobby. The wife calls herself a "Drone Widow" and really doesn't like all the free time she now has.

Anyway, here's what I have done for the F550. I bought a frame kit of eBay and robbed the arms off the F450 since they were already done with motors and esc's. I also updated my FC with a NAZA-M V2 and am currently updating all the ESC's to something that works all the time (need to talk about that in a different thread). Really tired of the quad dropping out of the sky. Bought 4 more of the same motors (Emax 2213-935Kv) from eBay. I'm also doing an experiment with 1050 props to see how they work out for hovering in 10-20 mph winds. I have added a way to carry two batteries (4000's and 7000's at the same time. I wanted a camera gimbal on the top of the hex so I could look up when flying under stuff, that's an experiment I'm currently working on. Also 4 cameras facing out and one facing down, I'll use more of the Chinese cloned cameras for that.

I'm doing all this for aerial videos I hope to use in TV commercials and such without buying a massively expensive drone right out of the box. Building it will keep me in front of the competition by being able to do repairs on the spot and flying in crappy weather.

I lost my train of thought, so I'll end it here. Oh and the large Octocopter is being planned (no kit this time)!

All the money I have spent on this new hobby has come from all the junk I have collected over the years and am now selling on eBay! Not a dime out of my pocket!

BTW, I built a ground station too. Car rearview camera monitor, TS5828 transmitter to a Rc832 receiver and a 700 FPV camera on the front, all on my spare tripod with all 12v power from a lipo I don't trust to use in my F550. Works GREAT! Just can't see the screen in the daylight with the sun up. I'm not crazy enough (yet) to put a hood over it all and fly in FPV. I'm still not quite sure if it's even legal to fly with the goggles/hood on unless I have a "spotter" with enough free time to hang out with me just to watch me have all the fun.

It just dawned on me .... this is Quadcopter Forum .... I have two extra arms now, am I still allowed in here? I know, I'm a freak and shouldn't be in public

DuaneM said:

ith my little toy WLtoys V686G

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My first one was the JJRC V686g..................then 3 X8s..................two HG models and one HC...........

I loved my little toy quad, so much so, I rebuilt it completely and it is now on a shelf in my home office/shop/catch all room being display proudly. I did use the monitor as my first experiment with FPV. Once again, that damned glare!

DuaneM said:

I did use the monitor

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Hey Duane.....I'm about to do the same thing with Frankendrone. I just ordered that same transmitter and a camera, going to use my V686g FPV monitor. Not for flying as such, but for when my drone gets so far I can't see it clear enough to know the orientation. Basically a reference to which direction I'm flying..............

You may have better luck than I did, I got it to work with the TS5828 600w transmitter, but I had to go through every single channel until I got one to work well (on YouTube and other places will tell you the frequency is 5645, don't believe it!). You'll get a few channels that kinda work, but don't stop there, at least 2 channels will be perfectly clear. Although, the monitors receiver leaves much to be desired since it flashes in and out a lot! I had it mounted on a small wood board that slid into the handle on my FS-i6S. worked good, but a bit ugly.

Don't forget about that glare! I haven't found a cheap anti-glare plastic film that will work. I probably should try something more expensive, but then I'm pricing myself into a much more expensive monitor ...

Yeah, the frequency on my LCD is 5805 per another FPV camera/tx combo that came on a QX90 my son sent me. I kept trying the 5645 freq but it never worked so I started thru the channels and that's the one I found that worked. Of course when I found it I quit channel hopping.