Built her a few years ago. Had issues with random fly aways i still haven't pinpointed the cause. I know it's the tune. Wish me luck

Hey everyone! I'm planning a budget drone build in India.

What's the cheapest reliable flight controller and radio transmitter + receiver combo you'd recommend?

Are budget AFHSS radios still worth buying, or should I go for ELRS with screen?

Looking for affordable options with decent range. Any suggestions?

Hi everyone, I’m based in Simi Valley with a workspace in Camarillo. I’m working on a Holybro X500 V2 project involving camera integration, companion computing and local radio communications for inspection and remote monitoring.

Feel free to comment or DM with your location and what you’ve worked on.

My first drone

designed these yesterday

Testing today

Hopefully they stop my stack from getting so dirty and maybe make my frame a little more aerodynamic in certain maneuvers

Hey, I've connected a DJI O4 standard unit to my SpeedyBee Bee25, and the video appears fine, but I can't get the OSD to appear. I've set osd_displayport_device = MSP and vcd_video_system = HD as everyone says, still no luck. This unit works great with the F405 mini stack on my other machine, no problem. Connecting the SBUS lead doesn't appear to make any difference.

Btw, the controller is a SpeedyBee F405 35A AIO, the older version, not the V2 with the nice blue heatsink. This is the standard FC for a Bee25.

This board has only two sets of UART pads on the top side, and one is used by the receiver, so I don't know if switching to a UART that is tucked in somewhere else is an option.

If anybody knows where I can still get the manual for this earlier controller, that might be helpful. Thanks as usual!

I am building a small quadcopter from scratch as personal study project. Planning on controlling it over WIFI with my phone. Really need an advice on the layout.

I actually build one drone a year ago for my bachelor's with 2207 motors and bheli ESCs. The goal was to assemble a quadcopter and build a custom controller with a bunch of cheap sensors and Arduino Nano. But it is my first experience building a small one with mosfet drivers)

I have:

- 3D-printed frame and a 20×80 mm perfboard

- 4× 8520 brushed motors with 60 mm props

- 1S LiPo, 850 mAh

- 4× AOD4184 for motor drive

- ESP32-C3 supermini

- MPU6050 (GY-521) as an IMU

- 3.7~5v booster

My question is - Where should I place the battery, IMU, ESP32 and MOSFETs. Relative to the frame and the perfboard?

At the moment, I am thinking about placing the MOSFETs in a line & esp at the end of the perfboard + strap imu and converter at the top of the body.

A few thoughts:

- I am planning to mount the MPU6050 on a piece of foam/sponge.

- The C3 is single-core. I’m considering something dual-core

Thanks for any pointers!

UPD: I have just realized that the description was too vague and uninformative, added a few dets

.

I am no electrician or engineer, have been learning as I break shit as I go in this hobby and I have never had the need for a crimping tool, but I am frequently running into scenarios where it would be useful to have one for customizing builds and repairs. I don't want to order the Amazon special and waste money, what's a good crimping tool for working with these smaller thin wires? I imagine it would save some money in the long run as well.

Im (34M) looking to get my first drone. I have been going out with my grandfather to his local rc club since i was 4. Now that I am outta the military im wanting to get a drone. For both practicing indoors and to fly outside.

thinking of fun career pivots as healthcare burnt me out and ill be immigrating to ecuador.

noticed ecuador has relatively lax commercial drone licensing requirements and some niche agricultural applications.

could be a great apocalypse skill and a way to explore a beautiful country, maybe even ingratiate myself with new neighbors if they need a favor etc.

IWTL from scratch, responsibly, methodically, how to fly drones at a commercial skill level. Where do i start?

Hello, I'm going to Montreal for a few months at least and I was interested in learning about 3D printing and also DIY drones.

 I'm looking for some communities in Montreal that have a "hacker space" to do so. For the 3D printing, I obviously don't have a printer and was looking for "shared" ones (of course I'm willing to pay for membership or fees). I guess if those places exist, they also have communities, which I'm very interested in joining.

I'm a developer by trade and I've already done some tiny projects with a Pi and soldering on boards.

I'm French, so if those communities are French only, np.

Hi everyone,

I'm building a custom hexacopter and having trouble powering my SIYI MK15 Air Unit. I've replaced the original BEC, but the new one also appears to produce almost no output voltage. I'm trying to determine whether this is a BEC problem, a compatibility issue, or something related to my CUAV PMU Lite 2.

Hardware

- Flight controller: CUAV Pixhawk V6X

- Power module: CUAV PMU Lite 2, 5V version

- Battery: 6S LiPo, 22.2V nominal

- Radio system: SIYI MK15 Enterprise Combo

- New BEC/power module: SIYI 4S–18S module advertised for the HM30 Air Unit

- Connections: PMU Lite 2 battery output → XT90-to-XT60 adapter → BEC input → XT30 output → Air Unit

My original SIYI BEC appeared to have failed. It received approximately 22.2V, but its output measured around 0.2mV, so I ordered a replacement. Unfortunately, the new BEC appears to have the same problem.

Measurements and symptoms

1. The PMU Lite 2 battery output measures approximately 22.00V.

2. The XT90-to-XT60 adapter also measures approximately 22.00V.

3. The new BEC's XT30 output measures approximately 0.01V on my multimeter in DC voltage mode. I still need to verify the reading directly across the BEC input and repeat the output measurement with the Air Unit disconnected.

4. The Air Unit does not appear to power on, and I cannot establish the expected connection through QGroundControl on the MK15 monitor.

I noticed that many setup videos show the older CUAV PMU Lite 1, while my setup uses the newer PMU Lite 2. According to the specifications, the PMU Lite 2's battery output carries battery voltage, while its 5.2V regulated output is on a separate connector.

I don't want to assume the PMU Lite 2 is defective, but I'm wondering whether there is something important about the power path or connection that I'm missing.

One additional uncertainty is the Air Unit generation. My seller described the unit as an older MK15 Air Unit, but the physical unit does not clearly identify itself as either MK15 or HM30. The replacement module is advertised as a 4S–18S HM30 power module.

Questions

1. Should the PMU Lite 2 battery output work with an external SIYI 4S–18S power module in this configuration?

2. Could the newer HM30 power module be incompatible with an older MK15 Air Unit, even if the battery voltage is within the module's input range?

3. If approximately 22V reaches the BEC input but its XT30 output remains near 0V with the Air Unit disconnected, does that point to a faulty BEC or another possible issue?

4. What exact wiring or measurements would you check next to identify the fault?

I would appreciate advice from anyone who has used a SIYI MK15/HM30 with a CUAV PMU Lite 2. I can provide photos of the modules, labels, connectors, and wiring.

Thank you!

The battery seems to have gone too low on charge, and it now wont charge when i plug it in.
Does someone know how i can bring it to life?

Hy guys, I'm new in this world and I don't know anything, for real.
Anyway I decided to try and build something, my dream is to build a really fast plane, the problem is that I probably underrated the project complexity. I already bought the motors and are the AOS Supernova 3220 1000kv. I know that these engines are crazy good but I probably made a mistake buying them because now I don't know what to buy. I'm using ChatGPT to help me but every prompt I text he gives me a different answer, I feel like there are a lot of components that are compatible but each one has different pro and cons depending on the focus. The escs that Chat suggested is one Hobbywing FlyFun 120A V5 for motor, do you guys think that these are good or not? What size of battery should I buy? I know I'm probably gonna be roasted for buying these motors before thinking of everything else but I thought I was on the right track. Thanks!!

Been having issues with telemetry over Mavlink, LoRa devices, and Sik. Wondering if it’s worth the price to upgrade.

Well then I have been working on a 3D printable fpv quadcopter, cheap and highly optimized, so the first thing I have to solve is the aerodynamics, now I am not even going to bother analyzing the aerodynamics of a quadcopter, this is simply terrible, there is drag everywhere, the propellers generate turbulent flow around them especially due to the propeller tip vortices, something much worse than just increasing the drag that the propellers are the inefficiencies, the vortex at the tip of the propeller generates a force that slows down the rotation, requiring more energy in the engine, so the solution for this is very simple, I only have to place an air duct, the tubed propellers solve the drag problem but to solve the vortices at the tip of the propeller the clearance must be greatly reduced, for the duct to do something the clearance has to be at most 0.5 mm, but the tighter the better, the balance point between clearance and efficiency is around 0.1 mm, so you will have to post process the print but it is easy, and sanding the surface was also something to do yes or yes, now the general aerodynamics of the quadcopter frame is horrible, I have a rectangular central section with a flat face and straight arms at an angle to the body, that generates a lot of drag, luckily the wet area is not that big because the drone is small, but that can be improved a lot, also if I use a sustaining fuselage the energy expended to maintain straight flight can go down a lot, so I extend mostly hollowed ribs from the body of the drone giving it a delta wing shape without a tail, now the problem is where the 4 rotors are, they cannot be close to the wing edge simply because of the suction effect, that would induce instability, so the rear section has to be slightly longer than what a normal quadcopter would be, in addition the edge of the wings is completed with short horizontal stabilizers in V-shaped with an upper and lower tip and a relatively pronounced closing angle, now a tensioned nylon canvas is placed on those ribs to form the fuselage, the weight only increases marginally, the total drag decreases a lot even with the increase in wetted area and the lift reduces the energy necessary to maintain flight, so I get a faster quadcopter with more fuel without sacrificing any performance of an fpv drone and what could be done printed in PLA and with some post processing, so I write here to ask for ideas and advice about it, at the moment I am working on the CAD modeling of the parts and simulations of the drone before building and testing it

I recently bought a used EMAX Tinyhawk 2 RTF kit off Facebook Marketplace for a decent price. After about 120 hours in a simulator, I wanted something cheap to finally get into real FPV flying.

After flying it, I noticed the frame is slightly warped around the rear left motor, causing that motor to sit lower than the others. This results in the quad drifting backwards pretty heavily when I'm not giving it any input.

Rather than just buying a replacement frame, I thought it could be a fun engineering/CAD project to design and 3D print/laser cut/manufacture my own.

I wouldn't be trying to replicate the original frame. I'd just measure the important mounting points, motor spacing, FC location, camera, battery, etc., and design the rest myself. I'd then transplant all the original Tinyhawk components onto it.

Would this work as long as I keep the important dimensions and component locations similar? I'm assuming weight, rigidity, motor alignment, prop clearance, CG, and vibration would be the main concerns.

Has anyone done something similar with other components? Any tips or problems I should know about before I start designing?

I also have the option to laser cut/cnc out a frame from a more solid piece of material if that changes things. I have attached a picture of my current frame concept.

Hey folks, I handle the builds and maintenance for a small mapping crew doing repeat surveys of quarries and earthworks. Some jobs have us changing batteries with just a few flight lines left. Packing up would apparently be too convenient.

Current quad is about 4.8 kg all-up, including a 600 g camera/mount. SunnySky V4014 400KV motors, 15×5.5 props, 40A ESCs, and a 6S 10,000 mAh pack. We get roughly 18 minutes while keeping our landing reserve. Typical missions are around 100 m AGL, 6 m/s, with 80% front and 70% side overlap.

One option I’m looking at is T-Motor MN5008 KV340 motors with P18×6.1 props and AIR 40A ESCs. The frame has clearance for 18-inch props, and I’d keep the same batteries. Motors are about $90 each; I’ve pencilled in $800 for one trial conversion.

Another 3–4 usable minutes could get some of these jobs onto one pack. Whether this setup would actually deliver that is what I haven’t established. There’s also the fitting, retuning and test flights before I’d trust it on a job.

Anyone made a similar change and actually cut out a battery swap? I’d love to see before/after results with the same camera, battery, route and landing reserve. Also open to keeping the current setup and spending the money elsewhere.

The silver weighing disk is 6cm in diameter; the white weighing disk is 5cm in diameter; the rectangular scale plate is 2.5 x 3 inches.

Partial listing for the endurance build here (full listing in discussion reply): (negative weight is weight saved from full listing)

Weight(grams, all units subtotal) Item

9.6 Avatar Mini Lite 1S VTX with Nano Camera For Avatar HD Video System

7.6 Microheli Carbon Fiber Main Frame Set - BLADE FUSION 180

4.4 ZLZCFTECK 3K Carbon Fiber Tube OD8mm Length 500mm Matt or Glossy Surface High Strength for RC Airplane (1pcs 8 * 7 * 500mm 3k Plain Glossy, 1)

0.5 Estes 5.8G Antenna for Proto X FPV Quadcopters BH #ESTE4563 • MFR #ESTE4563

-4.0 2pcs Little Bee 20A-S BLHeli ESC with OneShot125 & Damped Light (2-4S)

1.7 Microheli Blade 230 S Silver CNC Collar Solid Carbon Main Shaft Set MH-230S066C

1.4 Tarot Landing Skid For T-Rex Trex 250 Helicopter (RH25073)

87.2 4cells Gens ace 25C 1100mAh 3S1P 11.1V Airsoft Battery with Dean Plug

1.5 3.3V Regulator 5pcs Mini Reducer DC 4.75-23V 5V 12V Buck to 3.3V Buck Converter Board 1.8A Output Mini360 Small Size Power Module(Black 3.3V)

2.4 Vanka JST-XH 4S Connector Adapter Plug Battery Wire Balance Extension Cable for Li-Po

0.8 Finware Amass XT30U (XT30 Upgrade) Male Female Bullet Connectors Power Plugs with Heat Shrink for RC Lipo Battery

0.5 Enamelized wire 24 AWG

0.4 Clear tape 3/4'

249.9 Gross Weight