Jeff Neese
Well-Known Member
Allow me to introduce myself and tell my story.
I'm 60 years old but still enjoy my toys and hobbies. Most of them are somewhat technical (electrical/mechanical) but I had never flown one of these "drones" that so many people were talking about. I bought a cheap Radio Shack remote control car once and even though I knew Radio Shack would be bottom-feeding, I just wanted to see if it was fun enough to get a better one. It wasn't and I gave it to my nephew. That was my one and only experience with anything remote-controlled. Or so I thought.
Just over three weeks ago, there I was in Radio Shack again, this time the one near me that is closing, and it's their LAST DAY. Everything was priced to move and I dropped by to see if they had any desoldering wick left, or any other little gizmos that I sometimes pick up there. And they did have a shelf full of quadcopters. I wandered over, knowing absolutely nothing about what I was looking at. The one that I liked the look of was the "Dominator 2.0", which the box said was worth $99 and I learned later is always on sale for $79. But today it was 60% so it was 40 bucks. What the hell, it will only cost me a couple of twentys to find out what "flying a drone" was all about. I now know that even at $40 it was overpriced, but that didn't matter. I learned to fly, indoors only.
So here I sit a few weeks later, and I now have three toy quadcopters with another one on the way, about 20 batteries, and a box of spare parts. I did not expect this obsession. It's the perfect combination of mastering a new skill (like juggling only more fun) and the technical aspects which I'm just learning about. I've spent countless hours with my good friend Google, and reading a lot about this new hobby, including here in this forum. I hope to be able to contribute some day but right now I'm still a noob. My drones so far:
The Dominator had a motor failure after about 80 flights. I didn't know that happened when I bought it but learned it was part of the hobby and so my next quad was a Syma X5C-1 and I ordered spare motors right off the bat. Since the Dominator didn't fly any more anyway, naturally I took it apart. Interesting - not much to these things. But a few days later my Syma arrived so I was happy again.
I really improved my skills outside and I would say after 3 weeks I'm a pretty decent flyer. I took the camera off and with 720mAh batteries I'm getting 10-12 minute flight times. I don't fly very aggressively, yet.
In the meantime, I realized I need something to fly indoors so I bought a Hubsan H107L. Boy, that thing really hones your flying skills. Practicing with that indoors made me a much better flyer outdoors, with the Syma. I love both the Syma and the Hubsan.
I have on order a Syma X1 and also a Syma X5C-1 board. I'll put the X5 board on the X1 and I'm counting on being able to fly both with the same controller. Basically I think I'm building a BNF version of the Syma X5C-1, on an MX1 frame. (Am I saying that right? I want to fit in.)
And of course I'm looking beyond that. The JJRC X1 looks nice but there are just so many that people love. The Syma X8 looks like it would be fun - flying that giant orange thing around. I have no idea how many quadcopters I'll have in a year but I expect that my impulse control will not kick in until I have too many. The idea of building my own is very appealing so I've been looking at that road too. Too cool a hobby for me to have missed out all these years, but here I am now.
My intention is to fly and tinker with "toy quadcopters" for a while but that covers a pretty broad spectrum. Flying FPV is definitely one of the things I'm interested in but I want to become an excellent pilot first. Any comments or advice would certainly be welcome.
How typical is my story? Did you get hooked as soon as you flew your first quadcopter?
Jeff
Edit - I forgot to finish the story of my Radio Shack Dominator 2.0. Like I said, one of the motors had quit so I took it apart. I then noticed that the spare Syma X5C-1 motors that I had purchased look exactly the same and I do mean exactly. Same markings and everything. So you know what happened next and yes, it flew. Perfectly.
In the meantime since I had it apart, I cut the back of the case off so I could slide batteries in and out. I removed the hard-wired 380mAh battery and soldered in a micro JST battery cable. After cutting/grinding off the little battery tray on the bottom, I ended up with a surprisingly large "cargo bay" and now I have replaceable batteries and I can slide in 500mAh or larger with room to spare.
Back in the air, I found out this isn't a bad quad at all. The reason it was good to learn on is because the "Ez" setting is VERY tame and this is a very stable flyer. But with some hours of flying now under my belt I switched it to "Expert" and found out this thing is better than I thought. It's faster handles a lot better than I realized. I like my little hacked Radio Shack quadcopter.
I'm 60 years old but still enjoy my toys and hobbies. Most of them are somewhat technical (electrical/mechanical) but I had never flown one of these "drones" that so many people were talking about. I bought a cheap Radio Shack remote control car once and even though I knew Radio Shack would be bottom-feeding, I just wanted to see if it was fun enough to get a better one. It wasn't and I gave it to my nephew. That was my one and only experience with anything remote-controlled. Or so I thought.
Just over three weeks ago, there I was in Radio Shack again, this time the one near me that is closing, and it's their LAST DAY. Everything was priced to move and I dropped by to see if they had any desoldering wick left, or any other little gizmos that I sometimes pick up there. And they did have a shelf full of quadcopters. I wandered over, knowing absolutely nothing about what I was looking at. The one that I liked the look of was the "Dominator 2.0", which the box said was worth $99 and I learned later is always on sale for $79. But today it was 60% so it was 40 bucks. What the hell, it will only cost me a couple of twentys to find out what "flying a drone" was all about. I now know that even at $40 it was overpriced, but that didn't matter. I learned to fly, indoors only.
So here I sit a few weeks later, and I now have three toy quadcopters with another one on the way, about 20 batteries, and a box of spare parts. I did not expect this obsession. It's the perfect combination of mastering a new skill (like juggling only more fun) and the technical aspects which I'm just learning about. I've spent countless hours with my good friend Google, and reading a lot about this new hobby, including here in this forum. I hope to be able to contribute some day but right now I'm still a noob. My drones so far:
The Dominator had a motor failure after about 80 flights. I didn't know that happened when I bought it but learned it was part of the hobby and so my next quad was a Syma X5C-1 and I ordered spare motors right off the bat. Since the Dominator didn't fly any more anyway, naturally I took it apart. Interesting - not much to these things. But a few days later my Syma arrived so I was happy again.
I really improved my skills outside and I would say after 3 weeks I'm a pretty decent flyer. I took the camera off and with 720mAh batteries I'm getting 10-12 minute flight times. I don't fly very aggressively, yet.
In the meantime, I realized I need something to fly indoors so I bought a Hubsan H107L. Boy, that thing really hones your flying skills. Practicing with that indoors made me a much better flyer outdoors, with the Syma. I love both the Syma and the Hubsan.
I have on order a Syma X1 and also a Syma X5C-1 board. I'll put the X5 board on the X1 and I'm counting on being able to fly both with the same controller. Basically I think I'm building a BNF version of the Syma X5C-1, on an MX1 frame. (Am I saying that right? I want to fit in.)
And of course I'm looking beyond that. The JJRC X1 looks nice but there are just so many that people love. The Syma X8 looks like it would be fun - flying that giant orange thing around. I have no idea how many quadcopters I'll have in a year but I expect that my impulse control will not kick in until I have too many. The idea of building my own is very appealing so I've been looking at that road too. Too cool a hobby for me to have missed out all these years, but here I am now.
My intention is to fly and tinker with "toy quadcopters" for a while but that covers a pretty broad spectrum. Flying FPV is definitely one of the things I'm interested in but I want to become an excellent pilot first. Any comments or advice would certainly be welcome.
How typical is my story? Did you get hooked as soon as you flew your first quadcopter?
Jeff
Edit - I forgot to finish the story of my Radio Shack Dominator 2.0. Like I said, one of the motors had quit so I took it apart. I then noticed that the spare Syma X5C-1 motors that I had purchased look exactly the same and I do mean exactly. Same markings and everything. So you know what happened next and yes, it flew. Perfectly.
In the meantime since I had it apart, I cut the back of the case off so I could slide batteries in and out. I removed the hard-wired 380mAh battery and soldered in a micro JST battery cable. After cutting/grinding off the little battery tray on the bottom, I ended up with a surprisingly large "cargo bay" and now I have replaceable batteries and I can slide in 500mAh or larger with room to spare.
Back in the air, I found out this isn't a bad quad at all. The reason it was good to learn on is because the "Ez" setting is VERY tame and this is a very stable flyer. But with some hours of flying now under my belt I switched it to "Expert" and found out this thing is better than I thought. It's faster handles a lot better than I realized. I like my little hacked Radio Shack quadcopter.
Last edited:
