SilentNation
New Member
I have the Holy Stone HS190, Mini 2, Mavic Pro, DJI FPV, and iFlight Nazgul5. Looking forward to getting the Mavic Air 2S as well once it gets released. What about you?
How many drones have you owned?
- Thread starter SilentNation
- Start date
wafflejock
Well-Known Member
Toy grade I had like 3 or 4 holystone and airhogs stuff from big box stores.
Then 3d printed a frame and built based on one I found on thingiverse/youtube. Was a 5" with hefty 2200mah 3S battery (now use 1300-1500 4S on my 5" builds). Pretty sure that first one also used CC3D and libre pilot basically outdated stuff for quads nowadays. It flew like a fat boat in the sky but got to the point of flying fpv with some cheap goggles with that first 3D printed frame janky ass thing. Luckily printing new arms was easy.
After that bought a plastic frame then broke it and bought a CF iflight frame, in between replaced motors fc and escs numerous times so hard to say how many quads that first quad was but I still have the same receiver on there I think and is now a good analog quad.
Somewhere in between upgrading that I got a few tiny ones, have a betafpv tiny whoop and a emax tiny hawk 2.
Next build was tarot 680 pro based one cause I got parts crazy cheap. Put gps on that one and have only taken it off a handful of times though it's always an adventure. 13" CF props and 5S 5Ah battery on that one so have to treat it as industrial thing more than hobby fun.
After that got new iflight nazgul frame and JBF7 and iflight successx 4 in one esc, srxlv2 receiver, vifly finder v2 buzzer, iflight motors, ovionic batteries, dji air unit for cam and vtx, jumper T16 transmitter.
So depending on how you count it I guess like 10-12 total in parts and quads.
Then 3d printed a frame and built based on one I found on thingiverse/youtube. Was a 5" with hefty 2200mah 3S battery (now use 1300-1500 4S on my 5" builds). Pretty sure that first one also used CC3D and libre pilot basically outdated stuff for quads nowadays. It flew like a fat boat in the sky but got to the point of flying fpv with some cheap goggles with that first 3D printed frame janky ass thing. Luckily printing new arms was easy.
After that bought a plastic frame then broke it and bought a CF iflight frame, in between replaced motors fc and escs numerous times so hard to say how many quads that first quad was but I still have the same receiver on there I think and is now a good analog quad.
Somewhere in between upgrading that I got a few tiny ones, have a betafpv tiny whoop and a emax tiny hawk 2.
Next build was tarot 680 pro based one cause I got parts crazy cheap. Put gps on that one and have only taken it off a handful of times though it's always an adventure. 13" CF props and 5S 5Ah battery on that one so have to treat it as industrial thing more than hobby fun.
After that got new iflight nazgul frame and JBF7 and iflight successx 4 in one esc, srxlv2 receiver, vifly finder v2 buzzer, iflight motors, ovionic batteries, dji air unit for cam and vtx, jumper T16 transmitter.
So depending on how you count it I guess like 10-12 total in parts and quads.
SilentNation
New Member
That's a LOT! Must have cost you a pretty penny. What do you use for a camera or do you just fly for the heck of it?
wafflejock
Well-Known Member
Yah just fly for fun really, I usually pick one or two flights out of a day of flying (maybe 5 or 6 flights if lucky) and just upload to YouTube to share with friends and newbies alike 
. Also fun looking back over time to see how horrible I was and some progression. Originally got into this because flying things is fun and into computer science and IoT things peak my interest so thought these could have some industrial use in the near future (still think so but maybe less enthusiastic about the industrial stuff and more into the hobby itself now).
My analog 5" has a runcam split 2 on it, the hexacopter has a runcam 4k dual lense one on there (honestly haven't used that enough don't think I've uploaded any clips from it yet since it nearly kills me and scares me every time I take that thing up in the air). The newer 5" I built is DJI Air unit and therefore DJI cam but not rocking a insta360 or gopro or anything on any of them, the image quality is admittedly better from any of those action cams compared with these tiny sensors but I didn't have the money at first to run the risk and now I'm just used to flying 5" quads without the extra weight on there so might be kind of a transition to get used to the extra inertia.
I spent about $3-400 on a full 5" build twice initially. Adding in replacement parts there were a few sets of ESCs are $40 a pop so lets say 5 of those that's $200 (for 40ish for 4 in one or 4 individual), probably 4 sets of motors roughly $60 a set so $240 total, props who knows but lets say I broke 32 (probably conservative) say $40. Cameras wise I've had to replace lens on the runcam a few times and destroyed the PCB on one of them so that's probably like $160. Goggles wise I have HDOs and DJI digital gear, HDOs were like $600, the DJI gear was like $800 but came with two air units+cam so although $$$$ didn't feel as bad as $800 for goggles plus needing to buy extra stuff was all lumped together at least.
If I were to grand total everything it's gotta be nearing $3K which yah sounds totally crazy to me too
but if you compare against say my esk8 hobby it just sounds like another hobby cost. Also this is money spent over the course of like 3 years so looking at 1K per year then it's not as bad (like an okay vacation worth of cash).
. Also fun looking back over time to see how horrible I was and some progression. Originally got into this because flying things is fun and into computer science and IoT things peak my interest so thought these could have some industrial use in the near future (still think so but maybe less enthusiastic about the industrial stuff and more into the hobby itself now).My analog 5" has a runcam split 2 on it, the hexacopter has a runcam 4k dual lense one on there (honestly haven't used that enough don't think I've uploaded any clips from it yet since it nearly kills me and scares me every time I take that thing up in the air). The newer 5" I built is DJI Air unit and therefore DJI cam but not rocking a insta360 or gopro or anything on any of them, the image quality is admittedly better from any of those action cams compared with these tiny sensors but I didn't have the money at first to run the risk and now I'm just used to flying 5" quads without the extra weight on there so might be kind of a transition to get used to the extra inertia.
I spent about $3-400 on a full 5" build twice initially. Adding in replacement parts there were a few sets of ESCs are $40 a pop so lets say 5 of those that's $200 (for 40ish for 4 in one or 4 individual), probably 4 sets of motors roughly $60 a set so $240 total, props who knows but lets say I broke 32 (probably conservative) say $40. Cameras wise I've had to replace lens on the runcam a few times and destroyed the PCB on one of them so that's probably like $160. Goggles wise I have HDOs and DJI digital gear, HDOs were like $600, the DJI gear was like $800 but came with two air units+cam so although $$$$ didn't feel as bad as $800 for goggles plus needing to buy extra stuff was all lumped together at least.
If I were to grand total everything it's gotta be nearing $3K which yah sounds totally crazy to me too
but if you compare against say my esk8 hobby it just sounds like another hobby cost. Also this is money spent over the course of like 3 years so looking at 1K per year then it's not as bad (like an okay vacation worth of cash).
Dugdog47
Well-Known Member
3 years ago I quit smoking and started building kwads to keep busy lol. A lot of cussing at first but it was well worth it. Now a days I have at least 8 fpv kwads that are flying, 5 or so that need work and 3 or 4 future projects that I have some parts for.
I never thought I would be this much in love with building these things but it's a seriously addictive hobby.
No time to build our fly at the moment though I'm in the process of moving but as soon as I get settled I'm gonna fly it like I stole it lol.
I never thought I would be this much in love with building these things but it's a seriously addictive hobby.
No time to build our fly at the moment though I'm in the process of moving but as soon as I get settled I'm gonna fly it like I stole it lol.