The Craftmans Shop > Radio Control Models
Build a drone video series
ieezitin:
Jay
great job on the video show on building the drone, about how much did this build cost you and whats a ballpark price for a radio transciever cost.
Anthony.
Biggles:
great work Jay enjoyed the videos very much. :clap:
AdeV:
--- Quote from: JayMcClellan on July 02, 2017, 10:25:36 AM --- Ade, I'm glad you enjoyed the videos. My impression of the cheap gimbal is that it is really quite decent in terms of stability, and fairly well made for the price. I think the main thing you get with higher-end gimbals, other than presumed better quality and perhaps a third axis, is a more compact design. This one does the job but it sprouts wires all over and looks aerodynamic as a rocking chair. That doesn't matter much for slow flight though.
--- End quote ---
Other than a couple of points where it looks like you tilted too far for the camera, I'd say it was amazingly stable for the price; and as you say, for a quadcopter type vehicle, high speed isn't essential... I really liked the FPV facility too; where I am, near the docks, I reckon there's some great footage to be had, flying around the bridges and whatnot. I'll maybe have to add floats to mine, in case of a water landing!
The main difference between what I want to do with mine and most drones (including yours), I want the "stable level flight" thing to be 100% automatic; I will send digital commands such as "ascend", "descend", bank or rotate left/right; and let the flight computer work out everything else. I don't know if such a flight computer exists.... so I may be trying to get my head around some maths when it comes down to it... I've already butchered an old RC set to fit an Arduino (which will read the stick inputs & translate these into the relevant commands, which will be sent over a digital stream. If I can incorporate GPS and collision avoidance as well, then it shouldn't be too much of a step to add "return home" functionality, e.g. if it loses signal from the transmitter, or if the batteries are getting a bit low. Fun stuff!
JayMcClellan:
--- Quote from: ieezitin on July 02, 2017, 11:05:59 AM ---Jay
great job on the video show on building the drone, about how much did this build cost you and whats a ballpark price for a radio transciever cost.
Anthony.
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I tried to build this with relatively inexpensive components, to make it affordable to more people and also so it's more practical for me to replicate. I didn't add up all the parts cost and some of the things I found at sale prices, but I think it's in the ballpark of $400 including the radio (FlySky FS-T6 currently sells for $52 on Amazon). You can buy a pretty nice drone for $400, so you're not likely to save a lot of money building it yourself and it takes a lot of time but it's worthwhile if you enjoy the design and build process as I do. It's also worthwhile for the ability to customize aspects of the design that may not be practical with commercial drones. It becomes more economical when you start having crashes (which will happen) and figure in repair cost, which can be much lower with a homebuilt drone so the long-term cost may be lower depending on how you fly.
JayMcClellan:
--- Quote from: AdeV on July 02, 2017, 12:55:16 PM ---I'll maybe have to add floats to mine, in case of a water landing
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You might consider a product called GetterBack, http://www.amazon.com/GetterBack-Recovery-System-Velcro-Yellow/dp/B00GIYIU8Q, which lets you recover a sunken drone from the water. Floats might be better in some cases, but I think it's more likely to be a "water crash" than a "water landing" in which case there's a good chance it would end up upside-down anyway. The Getterback is probably lighter and certainly smaller than floats, and is popular with drone flyers. I haven't used it yet but I have one on order.
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