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[Mohonky]

Man I love this thing. I take it to the park and people gather around. I iwsh the battery would last longer. I purchased more from Amazon.

It's time for a Drone OT for questions and videos

Promise its coming tomorrow, give me another 20hrs.

Format will go along the lines of;

Intro
Frame Types
Flight Controllers
Flight Modes
Components
Radios / Receivers
Learning to Fly - beginners guide
Accessories - things worth picking up that'll make life easier
Chargers and Batteries - this can be a topic in and of itself but I'll give a basic overview of battery because its a topic that often causes a LOT of confusion.

 

[ParityBit]

So I am giving mine a try and as soon as I give it throttle it starts veering to the side making it very hard to control. Should it basically just go up if I am only giving it some juice to lift off?

I also have no real idea if I calibrated it, and correctly like the directions mention.

 

[hyp3rlink]

Picked a cheap one (~$120) up from Frys but it kept going forward as soon as it lifted from ground. Tried calibrating the gyros a few time but didn't help.

 

[Ovid]

I dunno, with all the shit drone owners are doing nowadays, I feel like really heavy regulation will come down...I'm considering buying an el cheapo toy drone to practice on and at least a prosumer one at the same time...

Maybe a Parrot AR and a DJI Inspire 1. If the Blackmagic Design Micro Cinema or Studio have a compatible gimbal for the Phantom 2 or 3, maybe that instead of inspire.

Basically, want one without any worry of future licensing / background checks, flight impeding restrictions or anything like that so considering taking a gamble buying a pair soon...

The Inspire 1 is so sweet.

I want one soooooooo bad.

 

[Teknopathetic]

"So I am giving mine a try and as soon as I give it throttle it starts veering to the side making it very hard to control. Should it basically just go up if I am only giving it some juice to lift off?

I also have no real idea if I calibrated it, and correctly like the directions mention."


After calibrating if it still veers a bit, add a bit of trim in the opposite direction that it's moving. I believe on the hubsan it has little buttons on the sides of the control sticks for adjusting trim.

 

[Flo_Evans]

Also check and make sure there is no hair wrapped around motors. On a small drone with cheap brushed motors a little hair can really slow them down.

 

[hipbabboom]

"are the batteries suppose to last 10 min or less? The battery on this thing is bad. Are all drones like this?"


Yep, battery life is not long. Buy multiples, charge them all up, and swap as needed.

Do you know if there's any active projects to put fuel cells on quadrocopter drones? I heard of stuff from Aeropak but it seems to be more commercially focused. While I see consumer grade fuel cells that claim to have up to 30 AA batteries worth of charge in a 0.25 Kg cell and can deliver 2A at 5V, there doesn't seem to be much noise on the marriage of the two technologies.

 

[Mohonky]

Do you know if there's any active projects to put fuel cells on quadrocopter drones? I heard of stuff from Aeropak but it seems to be more commercially focused. While I see consumer grade fuel cells that claim to have up to 30 AA batteries worth of charge in a 0.25 Kg cell and can deliver 2A at 5V, there doesn't seem to be much noise on the marriage of the two technologies.

In what respect? Powering the flight controller is one thing, powering the motors is another. Those motors are power hungry little beasts. Naturally you could incearse battery capacity, but that in turn increases airframe weight and you'll need more powerful motors and bigger props to compensate, which in turn increases your power requirements.




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Anyway working on an OT now guys, give me a few hours, its not just writing the thread but doing some research also because I need to do some of my own education on some flight controllers I'm not entirely familiar with / have not personally used so there is lots to cover.

 

[Teknopathetic]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=173742741 -- The aforementioned OT.

 

[DreadfulOmen]

I would definitely start with a cheap toy one first. I don't fly a lot of quads, but I do fly 6ch helicopters, and it can get costly if you are still learning and crashing. There are a bunch of cheap (under $30 4channel) quads that will be fun and help you with learning orientation, but the only problem is they ship from china which can take awhile.

There a shop in the US (massiverc) that might have faster shipping but the prices might be higher. Also read up on rcgroups, there's a lot of good info there in the quad section.

 

[Joe]

whoops!

 

[catapult37]

I ended up designing and building one this past year with a bunch of 3D printed parts after owning a couple of other quadcopters in the past couple of years. What I would recommend if you are a first time owner would be to buy a cheaper model (likely sans camera) so you can begin to get a feel for how they fly.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IZC6C8E/?tag=neogaf0e-20

That's one I use when teaching kids how to fly. It's a pretty decent model, has relatively good durability, and it also can take a bit of a beating. It also is a good option to give you the ins and outs of quadcopter control.

I've never 3d printed anything, but I have access to one for free. Any tips or links on how I could print / build something would be great!

 

[Downhome]

I ended up designing and building one this past year with a bunch of 3D printed parts after owning a couple of other quadcopters in the past couple of years. What I would recommend if you are a first time owner would be to buy a cheaper model (likely sans camera) so you can begin to get a feel for how they fly.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IZC6C8E/?tag=neogaf0e-20

That's one I use when teaching kids how to fly. It's a pretty decent model, has relatively good durability, and it also can take a bit of a beating. It also is a good option to give you the ins and outs of quadcopter control.

Thanks Ryan. I bought this one the night before last on Amazon and I just got it. I have no experience using a quadcopter at all but I've been wanting to get one for years now. Boy, I sure do suck so far, haha. The first thing I did was accidentally hit the button to make it ascend and I went to grab it with my right hand and it ALMOST sliced my finger open. It broke the skin but no blood, but that taught me a super quick lesson.

 

[The_Dama]

Phantom 3 Standard are now $500. Worth it?