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Drone the ninth - Tips and tricks for building your drone

23.10.2020

Translation: machine translated

Building a racing drone yourself is not easy - I know that from my own experience. That's why I'm sharing my experiences as a beginner with you and answering frequently asked questions.

Without your advice and encouragement, my Racing-Drohe would still not be flying today. That's why I want to give something back and provide tips for imitators and answer questions from users.

Components

An easy question to answer at the start. hello545401 would like a list of my components. Voilà:

RC helicopter accessories

TBS Smoke Stopper

RC helicopter accessories

Lumenier QAV-R FPV Racing Quadcopter (4")

RC drone accessories

DJI FPV Goggles

RC drone accessories

DJI FPV Air Unit

RC drone accessories

DJI FPV Mode 2

RC chargers

Team Orion Advantage ONE 406 AC/DC Charger CH version

RC batteries

Swaytronic Sway-FPV 4S

14.80 V, 1550 mAh

RC helicopter accessories

Ethix Mr Steele Silk Motor V3 2345KV

RC helicopter accessories

Hobbywing XRotor Combo 60A 4in1 Controller/FC

In addition, I bought a beeper that guides me to the crash site in the event of a crash. The beeper is activated via a switch on the remote control. User "Anonymus" has this to say:

Hello Manuel, I can only recommend a buzzer with a built-in battery, which beeps even if the battery is lost in a crash. I have had the best experiences with Vifly Finder 2 and Aurora AR Tracker.

In addition to the beeper, I recommend a smokestopper to everyone when assembling and testing at home. If I had used one during my first attempts, my drone wouldn't have caught fire. A smokestopper is nothing more than a fuse that disappears into thin air in the event of a short circuit.

Batteries run out quickly. Much faster than a consumer drone. After two to three minutes of flight time, it's over. I have 10 batteries, two of which are already scrap. One of them has a broken plug. I flew too long with the other one and the battery seems to be undercharged. Four of my batteries are cheap direct imports from China. All of them are now slightly bloated and seem to have lost power. In the course of my drone project, I bought some batteries from the Swiss manufacturer Swaytronic. They are more expensive than the others, but in my experience they keep the drone in the air longer and more reliably.

Tips for imitators

jju182 would like a summary with tips for copycats. In my imagination, the drone was supposed to be ready to fly within a short time. The reality was different. Hours of troubleshooting, components that don't do what they're supposed to or go up in smoke due to my lack of knowledge. Once the drone was in the air, hardly a day of flying went by without me having to repair something. I was used to flying consumer drones like the Mavic Pro. There's virtually nothing that can break. I was surprised by the wear and tear on the materials. It's definitely a hobby that doesn't end with a one-off investment. New, faster and better things are needed all the time to fulfil the requirements.

How to build a drone

hallo545401 would like building instructions. Unfortunately, I can't give you a one-to-one guide on how to build the drone. Every drone has its own peculiarities. Keep at it and some soldering skills are crucial. YouTube helps with everything else. My first articles on the topic show chronologically how I proceeded and where I stumbled. In most cases, YouTube helped me out of a jam. Joshua Bardwell, a Youtuber I can recommend to anyone, has made tutorials on every FPV topic imaginable. If you want to build a drone with DJI components, I recommend this video:

Build it yourself or buy it ready-made?

T4MX asks me in one of the articles whether I would recommend building a drone yourself or buying a ready-made one. In a nutshell: build it yourself! I recommend that everyone build their own drone. It may be complicated and time-consuming, but it really helps to understand the drone. If something breaks, you immediately know how to disassemble, repair and reassemble the drone. Of course, this may also work with a finished drone, but it is not recommended for the time being.

Digital or analogue

Till helped me to get my drone to fly. He swears by analogue transmission of the image because there is no delay and he finds it easier to fly with - or against - up to eight pilots at the same time. Analogue transmission is also cheaper. Especially those who fly races have very high wear and tear on components. If you had to buy a 170 francs air unit for every major defect, it would quickly become unaffordable.

I decided in favour of a digital system because I believe that it is the future of FPV flying. As a beginner, I don't mind the few milliseconds delay and I have the advantage of a very clear, high-resolution image being transmitted to my goggles. The digital way may be a little more expensive, but I think it's perfect for a beginner like me. By the way: A digital system from Fatshark is also due to be launched on the market soon. It will be slightly smaller, offer less range and be compatible with Fatshark's existing FPV goggles. This shows that digital is the way of the future and, as we all know, competition stimulates business. The delay will certainly no longer be a problem in a few years' time.

First flights: on the drone simulator or directly on the field?

Before my first flight, I spent 10-15 hours practising on the simulator. That was an important step for me towards my first flight. The DJI remote control can be easily connected to a Mac or PC via cable. This is how I got used to my own controller. I recommend that everyone practises with a simulator first. The first real flight will still be difficult. Crashes are inevitable, but probably considerably fewer than without hours of preparation at home on the PC.

The proof of the pudding is not always in the eating, good preparation clearly helps the long-term learning effect in this hobby. Good, practise in the simulator, that's right! I can also highly recommend Joshua Bardwell's build videos and Velocidrone including their launch tutorials are fantastic tools for your hands-on experience. Meral_Harbes

Anyone else

Are there any copycats out there who have taken up FPV flying as a result of my series? I'd be delighted to read about your experiences in the comments or in my inbox. What tips do you have for beginners?

Have you missed any of my articles? Not to worry - they're all available to read and look up.

Drone the eighth - I'm mounting a 360° camera
Drone the seventh - The drone flies, but crashes are part of it
Drone the sixth - Finally
Drone the fifth - I'm finally flying, just not with my drone
Drone the fourth - time to fly
Drone the third - Nothing to take off yet
Drone the second - An excursion into prototyping with a crash landing
Drone the First - Oh you burnt thing

Follow my author profile if you want to keep up to date with what I'm doing with my drone

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Manuel Wenk

Communications Manager

Manuel.Wenk@digitecgalaxus.ch

As a Multimedia Producer, preparing multimedia content and knowing about cutting-edge technology is my business. My main focus at digitec is producing videos. I can’t wait to try out new products such as cameras, drones or smartphones as soon as they’re launched. This is where being at the source comes in rather handy. When I’m not working, I’m probably skiing, biking or hiking – the mountains are my place to be.

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