advice for practical drone

yay

Well-Known Member
hi,
new to drones
briefly, looking for one with IR video feed and 50m range for property surveillance

and that's all, but here's the needlessly long, and hopefully entertaining part

i'm a curmudgeon
i'm old, and have a lot of real tech experience, and am totally disenfranchised from current technology, because it is sold to morons

eg. i wrote my own 3d graphics engine in c++ - i've never used opengl because my computer was manufactured in 2001. i don't want a new computer, because, as a competent programmer, i can already do all the things that i want a computer to do, except interface with new technologies. i have no interest in perpetually "maintaining" (upgrading, buying more crap) my compiler for whatever BS operating system microsoft wants to sell next. XP does stuff, it *does not* recommend movies to me, or tell me when i am sad and should acquire medication.

i find modern technology intensely frustrating.

eg. i am looking for a drone with video feed and IR camera - first item is the parrot

parrot description reads: "parrot headlights have two levels of intensity!"

that's awesome, who doesn't love intensity. but there are ZERO pragma in the description.. "night drone.." does this have IR? or just headlights? no one is going to tell me that because it has TWO LEVELS OF INTENSITY

whoever wrote that totally useless description, i bet i'd give them a new level of intensity to consider face to face eh mates? bloody useless.

no, i'm sorry. i'm a practial person. i am from an era where words had meaning, not "just go along with the vibe"

i want facts, data, pragma, criteria, not a warm gooey feeling in my trousers before i spend $100.

and i would *never* give $100 to someone who belives that "two levels of intensity!" is an adequate product description.

for god's sake, does anyone out there still cogitate? i've spent about four hours looking now.


i have some build experience, not much of an electronics maven, but at some point, i'll be hacking my own together. in the meantime, i've noticed there are many inexpensive products on the market which may be adequate for my purpose.


i want a drone for property surveillance - about a 40m range, and able to identify if there are humans in the area. so video feed, even totally crap quality, and IR would be nice.

i still don't know if "night drone" indicates any kind of thermal capability whatsoever, but i *do* know that inexpensive IR optics have been in the toy market for decades, so i see no reason to believe the capability should be that costy.


after IR, my priorities are cost and flight/recharge time, since it would be preferable to return the drone to a parking alcove in between flights and do several sweeps (1 minute..) before needing to be recharged.



part of the problem here may be that, as an older, practical person, i have *never* wanted to carry a phone on my person and microwave myself any more than would occur otherwise. i don't have a smart phone, and the entire paradigm is lost on me.

for instance, on amazon, one can find a number of cameras with antennae for $20 that "only need a battery" but the entire product description assumes you know what to use them for. a camera that transmits is fine, but wtf does it transmit to? no one includes this information because i guess everybody (but me) knows it. what would be ideal is something that will transmit to a laptop (windows, XP, works fine...)

i can't even find a site that dispenses this kind of information... i'm 50 and and can write the dsp for the motors, but i can't bloody read their mind and figure out what technology this camera is supposed to be used with.

it really concerns me, not because it disenfranchises people like me from new technologies, but also i wonder if the people using these new technologies, have any clue about the fundamentals, or if henceforth all the "messy details" will be left to corporations.


ultimately, my custom drone will include a raspberry pi speech/audio synthesis module because that's the way i roll. it seems ridiculous that i have to spend hours unsuccessfully searching the net for BASIC information about these products. "night drone" does it wear lingerie or are we talking thermal? let's be friends and try to use words to explicitly indicate things instead of sell crap to fools. let's build a glorious society of informed, capable people, not rip each other off and keep each other stupid and malleable. a culture with its head up its ass, ripping itself off straight into hell. there's only so much natural resources to sell to each other, folks.


have fun replying, and remember, i'm an old bugger and have seen all of your criticism and condemnation before, let's stick to moving forwards and helping each other accomplish our objectives.
 
on reflection,
i was blindsided by the 'night drone' concept by looking for IR capability and finding i guess a trip toy. the 'intensity levels' copy obvious for anyone looking for a device for visual entertainment, so at least marketing not really focused on surveillance use.

the diy drones i've seen often have very makeshift frames, eg. two pieces of wood and some electrical tape. (this is contrary to advice offered by another forum, "NEVER try to make your own frame" which seems penchantly ludicrous and opportunistic as retail imo) and it seems absolutely reasonable that motor calibration compensates for build imprecision.

my first concept for frame would be piano wire and triangulation, for minimal weight and resistance. cuts of soda bottle plastic for component shielding. both ought to make it relatively stealth. haven't seen any builds that are extremely minimal like this. i'm guessing this is because for most diy'ers, other materials on hand are sufficient. anyone thinking like this?

tbh and extra retarded, for some reason i think these tiny whoop deals would be much cooler with a low res image, 640 or 320 pixels.. that would work better with my lap (being so old it would handle less data better and be sufficient for the task). panache, you know?
 
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after browsing around this forum (seems the most diy friendly/noncommercial)

looks like one of the runcam owls will work for me, i get light from the city. haven't seen anything on it yet but i guess if a cam wifis to a phone it can wifi to a wifi network. hopefully!.

going to sit and think and search some more, possibly stick one of those on an ea chinee 11. one of the reviews says "take off the lego man, enough thrust for cam and bigger battery". am i fooling myself thinking it can carry an 11 gram camera 100 feet and back?
 
There is a guy on the Facebook Syma X Series Quadcopter Owners Group named Robert Good who has used a Runcam Owl on an MJX Bugs 3. If you are so inclined, he may be able to provide a bit of insight.
 
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I don't think I'd be too anxious to try to buy one for $5...that looks like a scam. The cheapest I've seen them on sale was something like $89 shipped from China (Banggood.com or Gearbest.com, can't recall which).

Edited to add: Apparently not a scam, but the price with a US-style charger is $120.
 
doubtless, could be parts tho.

going to jump in with the e011, fair price for something to mess with, lots of users. currently going through a 42 page thread on it at rcgroups, slow webpage.. i'll save my questions for after i've had a chance to answer them by investigation.

am i missing any choice resources, you start researching this topic and most of the information is commercial or commercially oriented communities. at some point what i'm doing is mostly going to involve my own code and construction, but a good part of this is staying up on the market options for various parts, and seeing what other people have made work is worthwhile.

eg. my first thought is that extending the arms would provide more stability if not greater power (more distance = less redundancy in prop region). removing the ducts looks like it would reduce the weight significantly based on weight of canopy, i guess this would make it slightly less responsive? things worth observing, thinking the $2 odd extra frame might be worth the investment.
 
here's a good question.. :)

people here seem fond of banggood, works for me

i haven't identified any way to compare specs.. and since product pages take about 2 minutes to stop loading (at 65mbps..) it's taking all day to browse.

atm i'm thinking about a gteng wrist screen and a runcam micro swift for day/night compromise. still no clue for antenna, would like a bit of range. i live in tucson so at daytime we get a lot of lumens .. and as said nighttime isn't that dark around the city. the gteng seems to be excellent apart from the size, which is a plus if i try to use it outside - it's difficult when its this bright, even in the shade. it would be nice to go at least 4" or 5" though. difficult coaxing banggood to show the options.. "screens" ??

totally not willing to strap a box to my head. i don't even like to wear headphones any more, and i'd recommend younger people question what they're accustoming their vision to. tho you are more durable when young :)

i'm pretty hyped because the diy for tiny whoops is super accessible. the gteng and cheap cam/antenna combos can be done for around $50, wild. as a human anecdote, seeing an evolving technology where the manufacturers work for the public interest is really nice to see.
 
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you know i swear though

after a few hours of youtube gear reviews i'm getting this complex. like the whole picture has big meaty hands on each side, constantly. the whole world is nothing but big hands. there was one guy who kept fondling his quad, spinning the rotors around slowly with his finger while he was talking about stuff. it was like a tech talk with porn visuals. traumatised :p
 
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