Drone questions

DanyCro

New Member
Hi, I am interested to build a 4 motors drone. Tell me some answers please before start.

1) Is there exist some drone which is note "racing"? :) The speed is no matter to me, so..

2) If I want use Googles and record too, is same camera can be from live watching googles and recording, or must be always separated camera for recording, I saw all exaples where is action camera added on it.

3) What exactly give a dron altitude limit? What components and setting important for that? I know that is not alowed to go in plain area, but 50-200m above will be fine :)

4) What is important to range, how far can go with remote, antenas or?
 
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The best way to get started is to Google your questions and view the multitude of YouTube Videos on the subject. There are so many options and quadcopters (we don't call them drones) on the market, giving you any one suggestion would be hard at this point.
 
Have you ever flown a drone before? You should start with something simple and cheap. Check out the drones at Hubsan.com. They have a variety to choose from. Get something like a Hubsan X4 as an idea. I have one and it's good for learning to fly with and doesn't cost too much to fix if you crash it. And, crash it you will, we've all crashed our drones, learning how to fly them without crashing them. Drones are Helicopters and they are difficult to fly. As for height limits, in the USA it's four hundred feet. Of course, that also has to have your consideration as to the range from your transmitter that adds into the altitude configuration. You can fly up to 400 feet above the ground, but if your transmitter range is say 500 feet and you're at 400 feet altitude, you'll only be able to fly 100 feet out from the transmitter before you lose control of the drone. That's my take on this. Perhaps someone else can give you more insight. Good Luck!
 
You may be able to adjust a couple of the basic settings by the transmitter such as trim and speed, but you cannot connect it to a PC and the hardware such as the speed controller are not programmable
 
How to limit drone maximum speed so can not go so fast? Set limit in aplication or buy weaker motors and 3s batterys?

Can you give me setup components so I can buy?
I will use camera Run Cam Split Mini for same time watching and recording.
 
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There are lots of build guides and videos out there, but without having more constraints on what you're wanting it's hard to just throw together a list that is going to fit the desired features and price.

My suggestion is if you aren't interested in surveying/GPS control then go with BetaFlight, if you are interested in those things then you might want to consider a flight controller that supports ardupilot or the pixhawk.

For limiting maximum speed it really depends on a ton of factors. Starting off on 3S battery and 1800kv motors with bi-blades myself I can say this is a more tame setup (than my current 2300kv on 4S battery with tri-blades), that said it doesn't make it easier to fly necessarily since things aren't as locked in (controls aren't as responsive and quad is spending more time stopping itself from wobbling and less time doing what I want it to do). I also started off with a Naze32 board which by modern standards was very sub-par and a 3d printed frame... so yah not an ideal first build but I did manage to make it fly.

The speed of the quad is a product of the weight of the quad and the thrust produced by the props/motors/escs/battery.

The props have a pitch (how tilted are they how much do they push on the air for each rotation) and diameter... The bigger and higher pitch a prop the more torque it takes to push it through the air, to produce torque the BLDC motors run higher current into the coils to create a magnetic field that pushes the permanent magnet on the rotor (higher current is stronger field but also more heat at some point this melts the coils in the motor or at least the enamel coating on them).

The motors are rated in "kv", if a motor is 1800kv, it goes 1800RPM for each 1V you apply to it, so apply 2V and it goes 3600RPM. The batteries are labelled by how many cells in series and how much capacity, a 4S is 4*4.2V(max voltage per cell) = 16.8V when fully charged, with 1800kv motor and 4S the max motor speed is 30,240 RPM, if instead you used 3S (12.5V) max RPM would be 22,500.


All said I think 5045 props, 2300kv or 2600kv (22|05 diameter|height or bigger spec on motor) and 30A or better ESCs (that support 2-6S ideally and run BL_Heli32... with LEDs :) or 4 in 1 ), some sort of carbon frame to screw it all to and at least an F4 maybe an F7 flight controller and a PDB is a really solid setup.

If it is a first quad I would suggest you get a micro-brushless like the mobula7 or something similar (I fly a kingkong 90GT when I break my bigger one, or fly a brushed whoop inside when it's too crappy out).

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Oh also you can limit the max rotation speed, or the max fixed angle if you fly in angle mode (acro mode is so much more fun), and can dampen the throttle in betaflight configuration, so if you have "too much power" you can always chill it back there some, but mostly it's about learning to fly and tame that beast yourself :D
 
Hey Wafflejock, you teach a class in this? This is a whole lot of tech info for a new guy to fathom and understand. I've been doing this for a few Star Dates and am as confused as a novice would be. Can you simplify it into layman's terms?
 
Hey Wafflejock, you teach a class in this? This is a whole lot of tech info for a new guy to fathom and understand. I've been doing this for a few Star Dates and am as confused as a novice would be. Can you simplify it into layman's terms?
I should just write this stuff up somewhere I can link to and make a more digestable and complete write up really. For the moment Oscar Liang has a fantastic set of posts/articles on every aspect of quadcopters so I'd mostly be summarizing and regurgitating things from there and whatever I've learned from rotor riot (YouTube in general), experience, and people here.
 
This is pretty close to my personal ideal parts setup right now for kind of acrobatic flying I'm into:


but it varies so much, hard to know what people are really wanting to do with the things or what kind of budget is totally insane vs completely reasonable to them.


^^ good summary and questions for beginners I think.
 
Didn't really spend much of his 9 minutes on FPV and it's options. More an intro to drone selection with basic options to be sought after. Ho Hum!
 
Yah I'll agree slow paced and wish they got more into the meat of it but the idea here I think is to take it slow and have a series to build up beginners coming in now based on what's available. I also don't entirely agree on simulator first think toy grade or brushless micro is a good way to get in without completely blowing the bank. I'm hoping/guessing as they work through the series will have more options, but still think the questions about budget and motive are important starting points.
 
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