Long Range FPV

[DirtDiver]

Hi I am new to the quadcopter scene. Building my first quad. DJI F450. Wondering about a good long range FPV that will go around 5km if such a thing exists. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[John Doecliff]

If your new and this is your first build stay close for now and dont worry about add ons just yet. 5k is possible but theres always a trade off. DJI 450 is a great platform to learn on and build onto as well.

 

[DirtDiver]

If your new and this is your first build stay close for now and dont worry about add ons just yet. 5k is possible but theres always a trade off. DJI 450 is a great platform to learn on and build onto as well.

Thanks.
I literally just started my build. So far I have the frame, props and landing gear. Have a GoPro 3 Black Edition that I want to use for the camera. Everything else I am still trying to spec out so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[John Doecliff]

I built a DJI 450, its still my main quad. I have FPV on it but have yet to go beyond that. No gimbal or OSD. Considering building a Tarot 680 hexa next year. Most of these things are affordable individually but when you add them all up you can get a lot of money wrapped up in a decent quad. A gopro and FPV are probably to 2 most common add ons.

 

[Hugh Hemington]

DragonLink makes good long range gear. Most people who do long range do it on a fixed-wing platform. I'm not sure how you'd get a quad to fly 10km anyway.

 

[DirtDiver]

Sourcing out some motors right now. Was looking at the DJI 2212 920kv brushless motors. I've heard larger kv and smaller props are good for acrobatics and smaller kv with larger props are good for carrying loads (I.e. gopro and gimbal)

 

[John Doecliff]

Pretty sure those are the same as on my DJI 450. They work fine but I have only added FPV and a gopro. using a 22ooma battery. I have 10 inch props on it and will add a gimbal soon. It's a good quad to learn on and experiment with mods.

 

[Hugh Hemington]

A recent HobbyKing video introduces their line of "extreme" motors intended to get you flight time by using very high voltage batteries.

 

[John Doecliff]

Good video. Not 100% sold on the higher voltage though. I do beleive that you will get longer flight times but the fact that you can scale down the wires, connectors and power distribution board is kind of misleading. It's true but most people are not likely to do that and the weight savings would not be that great. Plus, 32 volts would fry most gimbals and Im not sure a DJI BEC can take that high of an input voltage so it may have to be reduced prior to going to the BEC. This would be a good choice for a build that you spec out from the ground up. But for instance I want to build a Tarot 680 like in the video so I'm going to go with what they send me and work around it. Anything that can go 30 plus minutes is a notable achievement and this may be the future of quads to come. Another thing is when you start to build a fleet and all of a sudden you have one quad that's 3S another that's 4S then a 6S and now an 8S it really kills the battery budget because nothing is interchangeable. All that being said I still see the benefit of an 8S system. Seeing that Tarot makes me want to pull out my Visa and buy one, Waiting for my bonus check to get it.

 

[DirtDiver]

I likedd the video and admittedly most of it was way over my head. But I am curious about your comment regarding flight time. What are some average flight times and what should I be looking at in order to maximize my flight times?

 

[John Doecliff]

with a 2200 ma battery on a DJI 450 maybe 15 minutes give or take. Depends on what your doing. Turns out that 15 minutes is a long time and 2200ma 3S batterys are fairly cheap so you can have a few on hand.

 

[Hugh Hemington]

Flight duration is always about weight. The less mass you are suspending in the air, the longer you can do it with a given amount of power. But obviously that is balanced by the amount of energy you are lofting, the amount of thrust you can generate from it, and at what efficiency.

The video awkwardly described the relationship between energy, thrust and efficiency, emphasizing the benefits of using higher voltage to reduce current for the same watts. But the information in the video was all entirely valid. A larger prop will produce thrust more efficiently, and higher voltage, correctly applied, will supply the needed power for longer, provided each component is correctly engineered to do it. Not every motor will run at 4S+ LIPO voltages, nor will they all drive a large prop without overheating.

The video was geared towards long flights for close-range video capture. If your mission is long RANGE, the recipe is complicated by the need for longer range control, which probably means moving to UHF.

If your goal is long flight times, you're probably looking at a frame larger than 550, so most DJI platforms are off the table. If you're willing to jump through a few hoops to get 15 minutes in the air, then DJI models are fine, but today, long flight duration is really north of 20 minutes.

 

[John Doecliff]

I agreee. A lot of people that want to sell you a quad will say things that are not entirely true, like long flight times and large payloads. Everything is a trade off. I watched a video the other day of a professional quad doing a film shoot that had 2 red epic cameras on it. ( red is a brand name) It was an octo and fully gimbaled with 2 reds for 3D filming. flight time was about 4 minutes. But still this thing was impressive.

 

[John Doecliff]

Hey Dirt Diver, If you havent seen this you may want to read it. It's long but full of great info.
http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/rc-lipo-batteries.html

 

[Hugh Hemington]

I love that 3D flying rig. I can imagine it gets shots that cannot be had any other way.
I think OFM Only Flying Machines does stuff that big, but maybe not 3D.

 

[John Doecliff]

I'm familiar with OFM. I almost bought a quad from him. He is an asset to the quadcopter hobby with his informative videos. I think his prices are a little high, but then he's better off serving asia due to his location. Once you really start to dig you will find out thet there is a multitude of suppliers at many different price and quality levels. This hobby has a long way to grow, the stuff that keeps coming out amazes me.

 

[DirtDiver]

That 3D quad set up is insane. Thanks for the link. Definitely going to check that out. I am concerned with flight times as I have this crazy idea to build a quad outfitted with my gopro and gps. What I hope to achieve is to be able to have the quad hover about 5-6 feet behind me and about 8 feet above and somehow using the gps, have it follow me on my downhill mountain bike down one of my favorite runs at the local ski hill. It takes about 15 minutes to do the run from top to bottom provide there are no yard sales and the quick stops are minimized.

 

[John Doecliff]

They have already invented a quad that follows everywhere you go. I saw an advertisement for it. Dont know if its available for sale yet but as soon as I saw it I thought what a great idea and could easily see the potential uses. In fact following a mountain bike was one of the things they showed in the advertisement. dont remember exactly where I saw it unfortunately. Not exactly sure how it works but it probably links with your smart phone somehow to know where to follow. Just another great idea. I would love to have that as an upgrade that you could buy and add on to your quad. I would defitnitely buy that.

 

[John Doecliff]

You could defitnitely do that mountain bike run but i'm not sure it could be done with one interupted clip. You could set it up to hover then get on your bike and ride by to get some footage. It would be easier with someone helping out.

 

[John Doecliff]

I put this "quadcopter that follows you" in a search engine and got a few different hits.
http://www.gadgetking.com/2014/06/19/the-airdog-quadcopter-follows-you-around-for-epic-videos/