New member looking for help!

[Greg D]

Hi,

I have just joined the forum and I am looking for advice. Nothing new there!.

I bought one of the cheap "toy" type quadcopters and had great fun with it over the summer and decided I wanted to move up to something bigger.

I was looking at something like the Phantom FC40 which seems to fulfill my needs pretty well.

However, I really enjoy the building side of modelling, having built many RC planes and cars over the years. What I want to ask therefore, is it possible to build something of a similar spec myself for around the same kind of money? The return to base feature looks a must, and a link to my smartphone for the camera too.

I am quite experienced in electric flight in fixed wing planes, I can solder and I am ok with electronics up to a point. I would much sooner build it myself if possible both for the pleasure of building and for ease of the inevitable repairs! Also, I do not have to shell out the cash all at once!

Thanks in advance for any assistance, any suggestions for equipment gratefully accepted.

Greg.

Liverpool. UK.

 

[holtneil]

Hi mate yes you can well may be a little more as your land up using the best , naza do gps and return home mode , take off mode etc but they are not cheap , but your better off doing it right the first time , its better than doing it twice dji does frames as well but there are cheap copies as well

 

[Hugh Hemington]

All the features you mentioned are readily available in a DIY quad, but video on your smartphone is a little odd. Your phone would have to be in a WiFi link with your quad which has a range of 150 feet at best. And watching the video on a phone, even if you could will not be worth much outdoors.

You're probably going to want 5.8GHz or 1.2GHz FPV video using goggles or a screen larger than a phone. You can do waypoint flights and RTL on APM as well as Naza, and you can implement telemetry with APM back to a laptop or even a tablet.
There are a lot of frames. If you're building your own quad it's easier to place all the components if you have a larger center frame than you generally get with a round center hub style. Do you want acrobatics or stability? Do you want a video platform?

If you want to build, decide if you want this quad to be a migration platform where you leave everything in place and build another, or you want it to be an upgradable platform where you expect to add functionality and improve motors, props camera and possibly the controller. Reason being, if you want to keep this frame flying, go ahead and buy good motors up front -- SunnySky are excellent.

 

[Greg D]

Thanks Gents for the comprehensive replies!

The Phantom FC40 has some kind of link to your smartphone but I take on board your comments about range and brightness. I wasn't really after full FPV just some idea of what I was filming really!

I have had a thought about buying a fairly simple kit as a stepping stone up the ladder from the toys to what would be fairly expensive for me, especially if crashed! I had something like this in mind:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221539834836?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

I could improve my flying (hopefully) on something like this at a lower risk before either upgrading it, or more likely a complete new build.

Any thoughts?

Greg.

 

[Hugh Hemington]

It looks like a perfectly good migration platform. You could add to it, but you'll be better off just flying the hell out of it and building again to get GPS, waypoints FPV etc. You'll probably want a better radio at that point too. Many here prefer the Taranis.

Get this and build it. You can have this in the air a couple of days after it arrives.

 

[holtneil]

If i remember right there was a guy on here got one and said the image to the phone was not that good and was trying to upgrade the camera , and the range is low , line of sight too works on a blue tooth link

 

[Hugh Hemington]

Bluetooth is 30 feet! I also have a Parrot AR Drone 2.0 that runs on a tablet using WiFi (direct). WiFi control for ANYTHING is a bad joke. I think I've managed to keep control of it to 80 feet. But video is pretty much gone before then. If you want FPV, buy goggles and actual FPV gear.

 

[Greg D]

Thanks again! Will be bidding this evening on e bay.

Greg.