When it comes to client perceptions of the equipment you use when you are operating drones commercially, bigger usually results in more impression made I have an Inspire and a Phantom 3 Pro, both of which I operate commercially. The Phantom gets some interest when it's deployed but the Inspire is the crowd puller. I think it's less to do with the size and more to do with the fact that the Inspire just looks more aggressive. The landing gear rising and lowering never fails to impress either! I've hired in a DJI S9000 with specialist video gear before for a couple of big jobs and the clients eyes light up like a kid in a sweet shop when they see that being flown. I started out on a £30 drone, which I would call a toy. Even though I was using it to learn the basics of drone flight before I moved on to bigger platforms, I would call it that because it had no practical application. It was made purely to enjoy. I don't mind people thinking I play with toys when I'm flying for training and to maintain my required currency flight hours. I do enjoy it but it is work too.
When you're flying for profit there's a completely different judgement call though: at that point the quadcopter is a tool that you work with, not just something you fly because you enjoy doing it. Investment in something like an Inspire or a Phantom Pro is an investment in a better tool to do a better job, not just an expensive hobby . I'd love to get into aerial videography properly but the gulf between the cost of a quad which has smooth flight (pref. with GPS hold) with stabilised video and the amount I can justify spending on a hobby is just too big. (In my OP I did mention a couple of quads I was trying to choose between, but I decided that the money is far better spent on my motorcycle license.)
Have you considering building your own drone? I built one using the DJI Naza flight controller with GPS module and also a couple using the APM flight controller with telemetry and GPS modules. Total cost for these was around the £300 mark all in, apart from the camera gear and gimbal. I got the Naza second hand and paid a good price for it. The frame I bought new as I did the motors, props and ESCs. If you can solder reasonably well you can build a drone really easily. The Naza FC is better than the APM in that it works out of the box much better than the APM FC does, as the APM takes some tinkering to get the drone to fly well. This is the drone I built with the Naza: https://www.facebook.com/stuart.boardman.98/videos/10153002031961813/?l=7783794732906581356
I have, actually... Definitely something to think about. I've just been looking at replacement frame options for my X - that might be an interesting avenue to explore... I'll take a look at your post properly later .
No worries, I bought the first two drones I owned in ready to fly kits, then I wanted to try putting one together myself. It can be a bit daunting on your first flight with a self build but it's really rewarding too, seeing it fly. If you do decide to go for it, share how you get on, I'm always interested in drone experiences
I think I lost some of my best footage in crashes . I pinged off a lamp post at one point (*ping* was literally the noise it made) and I think the battery dislodged. I crashed into a dry ski slope and again the quad was powered off when I got to it. And the third time the battery died because I spent ages trying to find the damn thing when I crashed into long grass on a rugby pitch... All in good fun tho . Sorry was in a bit of a rush when I replied earlier! Yeah, building my own is something I actually started looking at a good few years ago. This was back when building your own was the only reasonably "cheap" way to get into quads, long before you could pick up a full-fledged (if mini) multirotor off the shelf for £30! Good to see the price of components has come down massively in that time. Transmitters & radio gear used to be one of the most expensive parts, but these days you can get a 9ch TX, module, and RX for under £60. Something tells me I will probably be spending a bit of time looking through HobbyKing tomorrow!
I cant fly LOS to save my life. I can manage forward backwards and the odd flip and roll.. thats it. I lose orientation far to easily! FPV is a different game though. Once you get the hang of throttle control its actually very easy to do as left is left and right is right no matter which way you are pointing! Well the main rig is all fixed and hover tested so a relatively inexpensive crash considering.
These £30 quads kept being mentioned, is there slightly more expensive version with real-time video feed? FPV definitely makes flying easier. I usually fly by LOS with the Phantom 2. But when I get disorientated, a quick glance down at the video feed always solves it.
I've never actually owned a FPV quad, so take my recommendation with a pinch of salt, but if I were to buy one today it'd probably be the Emax Babyhawk, or for something a bit more mental (and almost twice the price) you could go for a Furibee Fuuton
Thanks for the recommendations. They are slightly over my budget. Is there any sub-£100 ready-to-fly drones that can do live video feed? For £30 you can get a 6 axis gyrostablised drone, but want live video feed bumps up the price by 5 fold?!
The H107D was going to be my answer https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hubsan-H107D-Quadcopter-Screen-Camera/dp/B00S0OKZKS/. You can get it from Banggood and the like, but it isn't really that much cheaper.
Thanks so much both! rep+ Those drones look perfect, just a bit of fun flying into another room to buzz about. No need to spend much for the latest and greatest camera tech. Also maintain my flying skill level for when I do want to invest in a portable photography drone platform. (most probably Mavic)
Parts! I was going to just swap the innards of my X4 to a spare body shell, but after flipping through hobby king for a while I decided I wanted more of a challenge. Once I get the X4 transplanted to this frame I'll look at moding it for FPV - have to be careful with weight though, don't want to go too much over the original 50g weight. Supposedly this camera/TX combo is only 4.5g, but it all depends on how much the current camera weighs.
That looks an exciting adventure in quad building, Byron. I've had a success today with batteries. The Eachines E010 Mini that I bought a couple of months ago has been sitting idle with battery problems. The lipo that came with the quad ran for a few mins, but wouldn't charge, and so I complained and was sent a 2nd lipo and a different (wrong fitting...) USB charge cable I met a friend at a party last week and mentioned it to him, he's an electronics engineer so took a look at them and the USB charge cable. Both lipo cells charged fine on his bench and ran the quad, but the 2nd charge cable was a 'mare. Apparently it was wired direct to 5v USB with a blown 2ohm resistor tp lower the voltage, but no other control. The other cable was fine but charges slooooowly. So, flying today with sloooooooow charging. Help is on the way. I ordered an Adafruit Micro USB lipo charger from Pimoroni. It charges and has indicator lights - result! My friend, before I mentioned my purchase, said that he is going to mod the crappy charge cable with a 40p chip (same as in the Adafruit!) that will control the charge rate. So, 2 batteries and chargers, time to learn to fly a wobbly little quad. I can see this being addictive and needing bigger and more quads soon
And so it begins! Got my little 90gt built as well.. Was a difficult build as I had to make 2 plates to mount stuff on. This frame wasnt designed for these components so was a challenge to fit. AUW without batteries is 55g. The stack is now straight as well also picked up these little badboys for it... 650mah 75c 2 cell batteries. this thing should rock!
Problem the first: There's no way those motors are coming out of those mounts unless I desolder them. I didn't really want to have to do that . Problem the second: Those grommets are supposed to hold the motor steady in the frame. To say that "they wobble a bit" would be the understatement of the century. And the lesson here is to always read the reviews: exactly this problem has been noted by reviews of this frame. None of the model shops around here stock quad parts, so I'm pretty much dead in the water today. Bugger.
In this hobby nothing works off the shelf. lol Next lesson is buy a hotglue gun..... fixes a multitude of issues! lol Also its worth investing in a good soldering iron. I got myself a rework station off ebay and its been an absolute godsend.
Got one of them . Didn't really want to hotglue the grommets in place because they probably won't stand up to a crash. This little thing doesn't have much momentum because it's so light but hotsnot can be easily knocked loose. There are probably alternative ways to secure the motors in the frame, I just didn't have time yesterday to measure stuff out. Got one of them, too! I was just hoping to avoid having to use it on small fiddly pads...
Good stuff! not alot in this hobby can be done without those two things. Zipties is also another consumable that needs to be in every racers bag! Had another great hour today flying. I went out during the week on my own to get back in the saddle after my crap flying last weekend and I am glad I did. Ended up knocking the focus out on my new runcam 3 but it was worth it. Runcam repaired and I headed out today with a couple of guys and had a blast. Lots of close calls and crashes trying to split S a tree branch but this one I physically flinched at..... (still from the video) You can hear in the audio that we actually clipped each other.
