Hello from Hawaii

[WolfSpring]

Hello all. Doing the newbie thing. I am a beginner at drones and a total newbie and building them, but I am proficient with forums, have moderated a few and was a co-owner admin on a few as well. A little about me 43years old Military, have a family with kids currently in Hawaii(Oahu) I've been flying drones since the phantom 2 and have the Phantom 2, Mavic Mini and Mavic Air 2 as well as some tellos, parrot Mambos and some random other drones I toy with, to include the lego flybrix(my intro to diy). I have a background in Satellite Communications and have done electronic repair and even taught basic electronics, on a very microscopic level. So all that I don't know squat. I have been reading a lot and took a sharp turn towards DIY for several reasons to include understanding, repair and freedom. I respect all drone laws, but one of my problems I have right now is I live on a military base and can't fly any of my good drones in my own house due to it getting GPS signal and being fenced. I am not trying to build anything to break the law, but I'd love to practice in my own back yard with something more than a tello drone. I don't know what I hope to build yet, I'm not into FPV much at all, more videography and fun. I did buy a homemade drone on eBay with some parts and going to try my hand at it and have some fun.

 

[wafflejock]

Nice to virtually meet ya. I'm one of the nerdier ones here I think, have a computer science BS from DePaul in Chicago and primarily do web dev focused stuff during the day but like to tinker with hardware in most of my free time. I am very into fpv now I'd say, and started off with some very cheap toy grade stuff like air hogs ar1 and some small holystone ones I think. Since I had recently built a 3d printer from a cheap diy kit (mind you a few years ago now) I decided to print my first frame for a diy build which in hindsight was a bad idea. I'd recommend anyone getting into DIY go with a 3" build or a 5" build with a CF frame if in budget otherwise a plastic frame can work but very likely to break an arm eventually. If looking to do GPS/waypoint flights you'd want to dig into iNav or I think the proprietary alternative is pixhawk. If looking for just angle mode flight (no flippy floppies but still manual throttle control) then betaflight can work fine and is widely used so easy to find vids on YouTube for all sorts of edge cases.

The current fleet:

 

[Dugdog47]

Starting out everyone always says "not into fpv" but after getting bored flying line of site in angle mode you start to realize fpv in acro mode is when the real fun starts lol.

Welcome!

 

[T121DKY]

Welcome buddy
Fpv is unreal only.
If these guys can't answer ur questions no one can ur in good hands,helped me out to no end already