Im done with this hobby
- Thread starter Zentg
- Start date
What happened? I hope the second part isn't serious and it's just your frustration talking. This is a crazy, frustrating hobby and everyone in it spends a lot of time crashing and repairing their quads - even the guys who make it look really easy in their videos. Obviously as you put in the hours, things get a lot easier. To get good, I think you need to learn to really enjoy the hobby from end to end, especially the build, repair, setup, and tune portions, since that's where most of your time will go, especially in the beginning.
When I started, we had three guys sharing one build because parts were a lot more expensive then. Also, our dumb asses saw too many videos that made it look really easy, so we bought EVERYTHING, including a full FPV setup, before we had ever even flown a quad. We would then spend hours building and tuning - then we'd go stand in the back yard and take turns trying to get our quad to take off and hover. Instead, it would flip over, spin in circles, drift like crazy, etc. Once we thought we had it tuned (after days posting in forums, etc. for advice), we would go to the park and within 5 minutes, we'd have a crash that required us to replace parts on our frame... which we didn't have, so we'd have to order from HobbyKing and wait 2-5 weeks for them to show up (no US warehouse back then).
When we heard about OpenPilot boards, we thought that was going to be our savior. We waited up all night and each ordered a board before they sold out. Since we were keeping everything with one person and having to travel for the build, we eventually said screw it and dropped the guy who lived far away. At this point, there were two of us. Since the OpenPilot board was going to be awesome, one of us decided that we were going to spend $200 on a QAV frame. We got our build done and flew it and it actually flew decently the first time. We felt really good other than at one point the quad dropping straight to the ground (but from only a couple of feet). We figured we just dropped the throttle too low. On the very next flight, we thought we were in business and felt pretty good about things - until the quad dropped from the sky out of nowhere and smashed into pieces.
At this point, we just broke a $200 frame and had never had much of a successful flight. Replacement parts were going to be over $100, and we didn't even know what went wrong, so we didn't know what to correct for the next flight. At this point, I wanted to get a cheap frame, keep FPV and video off of it, and get good at building and flying, but the other guy still wanted to go all in - so we broke up the group again and we were all on our own. I went back to the basics, bought a cheap frame (a few of them), and extra motors and ESCs. I also kept all of my FPV gear and my GoPro on the shelf. Then I went out and read and re-read everything about building quads and learned a lot of new stuff that I hadn't picked up before. Eventually I got my build done and the quad flew perfectly, except my throttle was too linear and the quad was super jumpy. This caused a lot of crashes just due to human error (poor piloting). At this point, I had over a thousand dollars invested, at least 100 hours involved in various builds, but I had maybe an hour of flying under my belt. I tried various simulators, but the ones at the time didn't really translate into real life.
**Note, during this whole time, I lived in the downtown area of a city, so I had to travel to even check to see if I could get off the ground straight after an adjustment. In the beginning, I was testing in the house, but one day I found out that my TX had a bug where it would send half throttle when turned on and I still had my quad powered when I turned off the TX then quickly remembered I wanted to try something else and turned it back on. It went straight into the ceiling of my house. That crash pretty much destroyed everything and even bent the motor housings on some of the motors. So not only did I have to order parts and wait for them to arrive to rebuild, I had to spend an entire day repairing plaster (house built in 1905) and blending paint on my destroyed ceiling.
**There's also the time where my carbon fiber prop broke and it cut my girlfriend's hand open because she got too close to the quad while it was off, but still had power connected... and we had to spend half a day in the emergency room.
After all of that (and then some), I was starting to get really good at building and figuring things out and slowly, but surely, I could go out and burn a few batteries without issue. I still had problems here and there and still spend more bench time than flying time just preparing, tuning, cleaning, testing, etc. I've been doing this for years and I don't have as much time as some of these people to fly every day, but I fly enough and I'm still not as good as all these guys you watch in these videos.... but I really enjoy the hobby - learning and building just as much as flying.
Just like me and my buddies when we started, most people don't realize what they're getting into. Unless you go and buy a Phantom and use all of their auto-pilot features to fly for you, 10x (or more) of the hobby is spent on the work bench and doing research than it is flying. And then to get good, you need to fly A LOT.
I read this book "Mastery" by Robert Greene and in one section, he describes this whole situation pretty well. He basically says that learning something new - a new language, an instrument, a skill, etc. - is very challenging, frustrating, and boring when you start because you are not good at it and your failure at it seems never-ending. The people who master things are the ones who put their head down and push through that and accept and learn from every failure. Before they know it, they are good at what they're doing and then increasing their mastery of the subject becomes very enjoyable. Too many people get discouraged because they don't realize that all of those that they see out there that are making it look easy had to go through the same poop they're going through now to get to build the skills they have.
One more tip... I recently bought an Indy250 from RCTimer. It was fairly inexpensive and almost ready to fly. This thing was super stable and flew well right out of the gate. I crashed in the beginning due to some of the screws loosening up, but for anyone looking to learn to fly, I would definitely recommend getting something ARF that is engineered, tuned, and tested to work out of the box. This would have saved a lot of frustration for me if I did it in the beginning, but back then, RTF and ARF was $1500+.
And if you're serious about the statement you made:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines
Not worth it. There is always someone who is going through or who has gone through a lot worse than you have - no matter how bad you think it is. You need to change your frame of mind and just know that every single thing that happens is an experience that you can learn from and gain strength from. I'm not one to preach, but the serenity prayer is the perfect thing to live by. Change the things you can change and forget the rest and move on. Just don't be delusional about what it will take to change those things for the better. Nothing worthwhile doesn't require hard work.
And it sounds like you have a pretty cool dad. I recently lost my dad unexpectedly (he was 56). He was my best friend in the world and when you said you went to see your dad and he helped you fix up your quad, it reminded me of the relationship I had with my dad. There were a lot of times I've posted in forums with the same time... we (he) did such and such to fix whatever (usually car stuff). Just having a cool dad like that alone should make you not worry about any stupid little things (that you can eventually correct) like your quad not flying right.
Mike
When I started, we had three guys sharing one build because parts were a lot more expensive then. Also, our dumb asses saw too many videos that made it look really easy, so we bought EVERYTHING, including a full FPV setup, before we had ever even flown a quad. We would then spend hours building and tuning - then we'd go stand in the back yard and take turns trying to get our quad to take off and hover. Instead, it would flip over, spin in circles, drift like crazy, etc. Once we thought we had it tuned (after days posting in forums, etc. for advice), we would go to the park and within 5 minutes, we'd have a crash that required us to replace parts on our frame... which we didn't have, so we'd have to order from HobbyKing and wait 2-5 weeks for them to show up (no US warehouse back then).
When we heard about OpenPilot boards, we thought that was going to be our savior. We waited up all night and each ordered a board before they sold out. Since we were keeping everything with one person and having to travel for the build, we eventually said screw it and dropped the guy who lived far away. At this point, there were two of us. Since the OpenPilot board was going to be awesome, one of us decided that we were going to spend $200 on a QAV frame. We got our build done and flew it and it actually flew decently the first time. We felt really good other than at one point the quad dropping straight to the ground (but from only a couple of feet). We figured we just dropped the throttle too low. On the very next flight, we thought we were in business and felt pretty good about things - until the quad dropped from the sky out of nowhere and smashed into pieces.
At this point, we just broke a $200 frame and had never had much of a successful flight. Replacement parts were going to be over $100, and we didn't even know what went wrong, so we didn't know what to correct for the next flight. At this point, I wanted to get a cheap frame, keep FPV and video off of it, and get good at building and flying, but the other guy still wanted to go all in - so we broke up the group again and we were all on our own. I went back to the basics, bought a cheap frame (a few of them), and extra motors and ESCs. I also kept all of my FPV gear and my GoPro on the shelf. Then I went out and read and re-read everything about building quads and learned a lot of new stuff that I hadn't picked up before. Eventually I got my build done and the quad flew perfectly, except my throttle was too linear and the quad was super jumpy. This caused a lot of crashes just due to human error (poor piloting). At this point, I had over a thousand dollars invested, at least 100 hours involved in various builds, but I had maybe an hour of flying under my belt. I tried various simulators, but the ones at the time didn't really translate into real life.
**Note, during this whole time, I lived in the downtown area of a city, so I had to travel to even check to see if I could get off the ground straight after an adjustment. In the beginning, I was testing in the house, but one day I found out that my TX had a bug where it would send half throttle when turned on and I still had my quad powered when I turned off the TX then quickly remembered I wanted to try something else and turned it back on. It went straight into the ceiling of my house. That crash pretty much destroyed everything and even bent the motor housings on some of the motors. So not only did I have to order parts and wait for them to arrive to rebuild, I had to spend an entire day repairing plaster (house built in 1905) and blending paint on my destroyed ceiling.
**There's also the time where my carbon fiber prop broke and it cut my girlfriend's hand open because she got too close to the quad while it was off, but still had power connected... and we had to spend half a day in the emergency room.
After all of that (and then some), I was starting to get really good at building and figuring things out and slowly, but surely, I could go out and burn a few batteries without issue. I still had problems here and there and still spend more bench time than flying time just preparing, tuning, cleaning, testing, etc. I've been doing this for years and I don't have as much time as some of these people to fly every day, but I fly enough and I'm still not as good as all these guys you watch in these videos.... but I really enjoy the hobby - learning and building just as much as flying.
Just like me and my buddies when we started, most people don't realize what they're getting into. Unless you go and buy a Phantom and use all of their auto-pilot features to fly for you, 10x (or more) of the hobby is spent on the work bench and doing research than it is flying. And then to get good, you need to fly A LOT.
I read this book "Mastery" by Robert Greene and in one section, he describes this whole situation pretty well. He basically says that learning something new - a new language, an instrument, a skill, etc. - is very challenging, frustrating, and boring when you start because you are not good at it and your failure at it seems never-ending. The people who master things are the ones who put their head down and push through that and accept and learn from every failure. Before they know it, they are good at what they're doing and then increasing their mastery of the subject becomes very enjoyable. Too many people get discouraged because they don't realize that all of those that they see out there that are making it look easy had to go through the same poop they're going through now to get to build the skills they have.
One more tip... I recently bought an Indy250 from RCTimer. It was fairly inexpensive and almost ready to fly. This thing was super stable and flew well right out of the gate. I crashed in the beginning due to some of the screws loosening up, but for anyone looking to learn to fly, I would definitely recommend getting something ARF that is engineered, tuned, and tested to work out of the box. This would have saved a lot of frustration for me if I did it in the beginning, but back then, RTF and ARF was $1500+.
And if you're serious about the statement you made:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines
Not worth it. There is always someone who is going through or who has gone through a lot worse than you have - no matter how bad you think it is. You need to change your frame of mind and just know that every single thing that happens is an experience that you can learn from and gain strength from. I'm not one to preach, but the serenity prayer is the perfect thing to live by. Change the things you can change and forget the rest and move on. Just don't be delusional about what it will take to change those things for the better. Nothing worthwhile doesn't require hard work.
And it sounds like you have a pretty cool dad. I recently lost my dad unexpectedly (he was 56). He was my best friend in the world and when you said you went to see your dad and he helped you fix up your quad, it reminded me of the relationship I had with my dad. There were a lot of times I've posted in forums with the same time... we (he) did such and such to fix whatever (usually car stuff). Just having a cool dad like that alone should make you not worry about any stupid little things (that you can eventually correct) like your quad not flying right.
Mike
Zentg
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your kind words, wow lot of people would prolly call it quits after the girlfriend got hand cut, guess ya can't keep a good man down l
I'm just really frustrated cus I have to drive 30 minutes to find a place to fly and I have no idea why I crashed today...my only guess is that one of my props was bent a little bit, but it's a dal prop that's supposed to be indestructible so I thought it would be fine and I bent it straight but it still had a bent part in the middle that I couldn't straighten out but thought it would be fine, I got off the ground and went forward a few feet then randomly just fell to the ground.
Been spending so much money on gas alone to drive to the field, and the drone and everything and it's just so exhausting to give it my 100% and still get screwed over like everything in life.
I'm just really frustrated cus I have to drive 30 minutes to find a place to fly and I have no idea why I crashed today...my only guess is that one of my props was bent a little bit, but it's a dal prop that's supposed to be indestructible so I thought it would be fine and I bent it straight but it still had a bent part in the middle that I couldn't straighten out but thought it would be fine, I got off the ground and went forward a few feet then randomly just fell to the ground.
Been spending so much money on gas alone to drive to the field, and the drone and everything and it's just so exhausting to give it my 100% and still get screwed over like everything in life.
RENOV8R
Well-Known Member
Don't be so hard on yourself, keep in mind this is just a hobby. As an addiction counsellor and recovering alcoholic, (sober 8 years) I understand the ups and downs of mental health issues. (No pun intended) If you're feeling this overwhelmed, definitely contact your health-care worker. Sometimes it helps just talking and getting it all out. As much as you may not agree, you have made huge improvements in the hobby since you started, and as said above, the Serenity Prayer is a very useful tool (I sometimes recite it 20 times in a day LOL)
God, grant me the courage to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things that I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Now get those new props installed, and get out there and FLY!!
God, grant me the courage to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things that I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Now get those new props installed, and get out there and FLY!!
No problem! Most of us have gone through the same type of frustration when we started (and even sometimes now).
Do you balance your props? I definitely wouldn't fly with a bent prop. You will probably fly fine, but being bent and then bent back likely means it won't be balanced anymore and that will wear your motors out quick. I used to buy fancy props, but then I switched to buying tons of cheap props and if they break or start to wear, they get changed and it's no sweat off my back.
As far as securing my battery goes, I may just have bad luck, but I had all kinds of issues with batteries sliding around - which makes it nearly impossible to fly. I crashed a few times because of batteries sliding forward and my quad leaning and taking off in that direction, then over-correcting in the other direction and having the battery fall right out. I'm pretty paranoid, so I never trusted battery straps too much, and I also don't want to tighten it too much and have the battery explode due to too much pressure if it heats up and expands for some reason.
So what I do now is I put a strip of soft velcro (with tape on the back) on my quad where I put my battery. Then on all of my batteries, I keep the hard side of the velcro. Typically I will just put the small square velcro pieces on the battery side. I line the battery up and stick it down, then I add a strap to hold it to the quad. The velcro between the battery and the quad keeps it from moving side to side or back to front. It also takes some pressure off of the strap so the strap doesn't have to be over-tightened.
You can get the velcro strips from Walmart or wherever. Or online. I think I use the 4x2 and then cut them to size for the quad side to have a good base there.
I also use these for battery straps:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003AU0XMW/ref=twister_B00OT7KOO2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I have the 12 and 8 inch, but I think I use the 12 for batteries. I actually usually strap on both ends of the battery. I know this is all extra weight, but to me, it's worth it.
Also - I used to have to drive out to the country about 40 minutes to fly at my parents' house. We had a lot of parks near by, but they were always full of people and I never got any flying done because everyone always wanted to talk. Now I live 400 miles from my mom's property, so I have to find parks to fly at. We have tons of parks and open space and hiking and biking trails near my house, but the town I live in was master planned and these all follow a canyon.... which is where all of the power lines run. So when I fly, I have to drive around and find parks that aren't in use. I now kind of know the parks and when they're busy and when they aren't, so it's getting easier, but all of the problems you have are shared by a lot of people in this hobby.
I do get jealous of some of these guys who live in open spaces and can walk right outside and fly... or the guys who have access to big gyms, etc. for testing =)
Do you balance your props? I definitely wouldn't fly with a bent prop. You will probably fly fine, but being bent and then bent back likely means it won't be balanced anymore and that will wear your motors out quick. I used to buy fancy props, but then I switched to buying tons of cheap props and if they break or start to wear, they get changed and it's no sweat off my back.
As far as securing my battery goes, I may just have bad luck, but I had all kinds of issues with batteries sliding around - which makes it nearly impossible to fly. I crashed a few times because of batteries sliding forward and my quad leaning and taking off in that direction, then over-correcting in the other direction and having the battery fall right out. I'm pretty paranoid, so I never trusted battery straps too much, and I also don't want to tighten it too much and have the battery explode due to too much pressure if it heats up and expands for some reason.
So what I do now is I put a strip of soft velcro (with tape on the back) on my quad where I put my battery. Then on all of my batteries, I keep the hard side of the velcro. Typically I will just put the small square velcro pieces on the battery side. I line the battery up and stick it down, then I add a strap to hold it to the quad. The velcro between the battery and the quad keeps it from moving side to side or back to front. It also takes some pressure off of the strap so the strap doesn't have to be over-tightened.
You can get the velcro strips from Walmart or wherever. Or online. I think I use the 4x2 and then cut them to size for the quad side to have a good base there.
I also use these for battery straps:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003AU0XMW/ref=twister_B00OT7KOO2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I have the 12 and 8 inch, but I think I use the 12 for batteries. I actually usually strap on both ends of the battery. I know this is all extra weight, but to me, it's worth it.
Also - I used to have to drive out to the country about 40 minutes to fly at my parents' house. We had a lot of parks near by, but they were always full of people and I never got any flying done because everyone always wanted to talk. Now I live 400 miles from my mom's property, so I have to find parks to fly at. We have tons of parks and open space and hiking and biking trails near my house, but the town I live in was master planned and these all follow a canyon.... which is where all of the power lines run. So when I fly, I have to drive around and find parks that aren't in use. I now kind of know the parks and when they're busy and when they aren't, so it's getting easier, but all of the problems you have are shared by a lot of people in this hobby.
I do get jealous of some of these guys who live in open spaces and can walk right outside and fly... or the guys who have access to big gyms, etc. for testing =)
Altsickeness
Quad Addict
Some really great posts and points here.
I probably have $2000 and countless hours into this hobby and I'm finally getting comfortable in my basic knowledge, flying better and quicker to discover what the cause is when I have problems. some of the problems take parts swaps or camera Vtx swaps etc... because I'm still not capable of finding the direct cause. I jumped in to this hobby with both feet, trying to streamline and speed up the learning curve and it cost me lots of money, with lots of mistakes. Much of this hobby is trial and error, but I stuck to my goals and didn't let frustration and disappointment get to me. I also have an automotive/electronics background that I'm sure helps me. I imagine for people without the means and without the technical background this hobby is even more difficult. This is not an easy hobby or really a well suited hobby for people that tend to get frustrated or let down fairly easy, because part of the process includes error and dealing with the currently unknown (until you know or find the fix or solution) There were times that I was overwhelmed with frustration and just had to walk away, then comeback later and the solution comes to me, or I find it on youtube or forums over the course of hours or days without knowing why the hell something won't work, won't fly, wont arm, won't power up or whatever. It's daunting to think that I still hardly know anything in this enormously large and technical hobby, but I see this as a long range hobby that will keep my interested and occupied for years which I tend instead to look at as exciting and challenging. If a person cannot deal with disappointment and frustration, cannot be patient and is overwhelmed by what they do not know, then this hobby is maybe not for them. It's much more then simply turning on the TX and flying around doing rolls and flips.
I probably have $2000 and countless hours into this hobby and I'm finally getting comfortable in my basic knowledge, flying better and quicker to discover what the cause is when I have problems. some of the problems take parts swaps or camera Vtx swaps etc... because I'm still not capable of finding the direct cause. I jumped in to this hobby with both feet, trying to streamline and speed up the learning curve and it cost me lots of money, with lots of mistakes. Much of this hobby is trial and error, but I stuck to my goals and didn't let frustration and disappointment get to me. I also have an automotive/electronics background that I'm sure helps me. I imagine for people without the means and without the technical background this hobby is even more difficult. This is not an easy hobby or really a well suited hobby for people that tend to get frustrated or let down fairly easy, because part of the process includes error and dealing with the currently unknown (until you know or find the fix or solution) There were times that I was overwhelmed with frustration and just had to walk away, then comeback later and the solution comes to me, or I find it on youtube or forums over the course of hours or days without knowing why the hell something won't work, won't fly, wont arm, won't power up or whatever. It's daunting to think that I still hardly know anything in this enormously large and technical hobby, but I see this as a long range hobby that will keep my interested and occupied for years which I tend instead to look at as exciting and challenging. If a person cannot deal with disappointment and frustration, cannot be patient and is overwhelmed by what they do not know, then this hobby is maybe not for them. It's much more then simply turning on the TX and flying around doing rolls and flips.
Altsickeness
Quad Addict
Like mm said, sticky velcro on the battery and on the top plate. I use 2 velcro straps with my low volt buzzer on top. Battery centered as good as possible. Had lots of crashes batteries shifting, unplugging and tried lots of things before I came up with this. I destroyed a few batteries and lost some buzzers too. Trial and error... Most of this stuff is trial and error. Another why to look at it is failure eventually leads to success. O
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Zentg
Well-Known Member
yes you are right, and thanks. i ordered some 5045 dal props from amazon (i think they are dal, hard to say cus it says dal in the pic, but i think they are...)
are these good? these are the ones i ordered
http://www.amazon.com/gouduoduo2018...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
i get frustrated extremely easily cus i have ptsd and anxiety disorder, but i also agree its best to usually walk away and come back later - which is basically what i did today, i just made a huge fuss about it too lol, but yeah got the props coming overnight, hoping to tear it up tomorrow! (the air, not my quad!)
Zentg
Well-Known Member
what frustrates me the most is that 1 crash can cause future crashes, and really none of these crashes were from lack of flying skill, i hardly got to spend much time flying at all!!
the first couple crashes was cus i didnt have battery secured good
and those crashes cause my motor tilts to break which i took off, but didn't screw the motors down tight enough, so they came off midflight - which would never happened if i didn't crash from the battery not being secured properly
and then the next flight was excellent, but i crashed at the end cus my voltage alarm was set too low and it bent my props, but i thought i could just bend them back and be ok
and then today i crashed after like 5 seconds and im bout 99.9% sure its cus my props were beat up.
so tomorrow ill have battery secured, motor screwed in nice and tight, voltage alarm set to a proper level, with a fresh new set of props... HOPEFULLY it will go smoothly...
the first couple crashes was cus i didnt have battery secured good
and those crashes cause my motor tilts to break which i took off, but didn't screw the motors down tight enough, so they came off midflight - which would never happened if i didn't crash from the battery not being secured properly
and then the next flight was excellent, but i crashed at the end cus my voltage alarm was set too low and it bent my props, but i thought i could just bend them back and be ok
and then today i crashed after like 5 seconds and im bout 99.9% sure its cus my props were beat up.
so tomorrow ill have battery secured, motor screwed in nice and tight, voltage alarm set to a proper level, with a fresh new set of props... HOPEFULLY it will go smoothly...
Altsickeness
Quad Addict
I'm not sure about those props. You might have to get them to find out if they are garbage. I've purchase lots of types from different suppliers to find out what I liked the best.
These say DAL on them:
http://www.amazon.com/Propeller-Spe...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
http://www.amazon.com/Propeller-Spe...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
These say DAL on them:
http://www.amazon.com/Propeller-Spe...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
http://www.amazon.com/Propeller-Spe...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
The good thing is that now you have really memorable lessons that will make you not forget to make sure all of those things are in order before flying. I was in the same boat in the beginning and now I inspect everything before every flight and if in doubt, I replace stuff (especially props). I still have issues though. There are just some things that you don't see coming. That's why I always keep extra frame parts, at least one extra motor of each size, ESCs, etc. Things are much less expensive now and you can always build cheaper to be able to keep the budget to buy extra parts. In the beginning, you don't need $40 motors and carbon fiber frames and whatnot to learn the hobby. Hell, you can get GREAT control boards now for 25 bucks.
Damage sustained from crashes do lead to other crashes - which always has me paranoid after a crash, but typically really good inspection and not taking chances will keep your odds pretty good of having a good flight ready quad after the repair. Again, unless you're actually racing or you're so good at flying that you're pushing limits, you don't need expensive props, so you can always get a ton of gemfans or whatever for a few bucks and toss them in the trash and replace them after every crash or when they start to show signs of stress, or whatever. If you do that, you should spend a couple of extra bucks on a prop balancer and you're good to go. **You may also want to use different props if you're trying to shoot really clear jello free video, but by then, you will have also probably invested a lot into other measures to make your video look good, so that usually comes down the line.
With all the crashing that happens in the beginning, my best advice is to budget your build around knowing that the thing will be crashed and repaired a lot. As far as getting practice flying, a cheap RTF is usually a good idea since it should be dialed in already. Plus when you crash your quad, the day isn't over since you can keep flying the RTF to continue practicing. Then you don't waste a trip to the flying field.
Damage sustained from crashes do lead to other crashes - which always has me paranoid after a crash, but typically really good inspection and not taking chances will keep your odds pretty good of having a good flight ready quad after the repair. Again, unless you're actually racing or you're so good at flying that you're pushing limits, you don't need expensive props, so you can always get a ton of gemfans or whatever for a few bucks and toss them in the trash and replace them after every crash or when they start to show signs of stress, or whatever. If you do that, you should spend a couple of extra bucks on a prop balancer and you're good to go. **You may also want to use different props if you're trying to shoot really clear jello free video, but by then, you will have also probably invested a lot into other measures to make your video look good, so that usually comes down the line.
With all the crashing that happens in the beginning, my best advice is to budget your build around knowing that the thing will be crashed and repaired a lot. As far as getting practice flying, a cheap RTF is usually a good idea since it should be dialed in already. Plus when you crash your quad, the day isn't over since you can keep flying the RTF to continue practicing. Then you don't waste a trip to the flying field.
Altsickeness
Quad Addict
Dude, your talking to guy that had 3 Eachine Racer 250s, lost 5 or 6 cameras (I lost count) and Lord knows how many VTXs (lost count) burnt up a PDB, fried 3 CC3D boards (one was my fault the other two just quit working), lost 3 ESCs, one motor and broke like 10 arms before I got smart and left Eachine behind. (my personal opinion of Eachine products- may not be typical). Its just that I was ALWAYS having problems.
This hobby includes all the mistakes and failures that will help generate a working knowledge, wisdom, diagnostic skills, critical thinking skills along with the fun of flying. It's almost more fun getting back up in the air with a successful flight after a repair. It's that much sweeter, plus the fulfilling feeling knowing you fixed it and its working great. Not so fun while its broke, but very rewarding to be back up flying once it's fixed!
right now I'm working on putting together a third quad with gutted ER250 parts. Not much on that clunker is any good, but I had an idea to put the motors on a 230 x frame with 20 amp escs a matek board with SP F3 fCB. if it doesn't work I'll scrap the motors and get something else. When I started the idea, I didn't think about all the proprietary parts on the ER250... I don't trust the CC3D board, the junky ESCs the VTXs I have a couple but wouldn't tarnish a perfectly good quad with them. The camera is still good but its not an Eachine supplied camera.
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Zentg
Well-Known Member
damn how come i didnt see those props?
requested to cancel my order but its too late now, coming tomrrow...hopefully they are ok, they say DAL on them, i think the seller just repackaged them - the reviews are good so hopefully they work out....tired of learning lessons.
Altsickeness
Quad Addict
Trial and error. If they are crappy, you just move on and get some different ones. Don't get your hopes up. Look at it scientifically.... you are simply testing out props to see if you like them. If you like them- great! If not you move on and forget about them. I have a crap load of gem fans that I hate and will never use. I had to get them to find out If I like them. I don't so they belong in the garbage... its just the way it goes. I moved on and like DALs.damn how come i didnt see those props?
Yep - if you look at it as R&D, then it doesn't seem so bad. If you really just want to be flying for the least amount of money possible and don't enjoy building and fixing, then it's definitely better to buy something that's been researched and developed and engineered and tested thoroughly by a company. But then if you do crash because of poor flying, you're still kind of in the same boat. Or if you accidentally buy crap.
Altsickeness
Quad Addict
damn how come i didnt see those props?
If you have prime you can simply return them. Or just try 'em. Maybe they are good.
Zentg
Well-Known Member
Yeah it's all good... got a few beers In me and feeling much more relaxed. I'm gonna try to live more care free, i feel really good right now, like i dont even care about anything, just chillin with my head leaned back and listneing to music... prolly cus the beer, but going to just try to stay in this state of mind forever, take life with an open hand, do the best i can and whatever happens, happens cus u can worry about everything and the 1 thing you didn't even know about, can go wrong....so just letting myself go like a drop of watter in the wind!!
Jackson
USA member at large
You'd probably be better off with these, less aggressive props.
http://www.amazon.com/Propeller-Spe...TF8&qid=1464744036&sr=1-8&keywords=5040+props
http://www.amazon.com/Propeller-Spe...TF8&qid=1464744036&sr=1-8&keywords=5040+props
