600$ FPV drone

[knotty plinth]

$600 just for the drone itself, or $600 for all the equipment necessary and the drone?

[thick parrot]

For everything, battery, drone, headset, controller etc

[steep glade]

possible

[knotty plinth]

That's definitely doable

[thick parrot]

Also, I need it to be very long range, cause I live in dense forest mountains, so it needs good signal

(also, I am fine going a bit over budget, 600€ is more of a ballpark price)

And also I live in France EU

[keen timber]

drone-fpv-racer is a french website I often use and you will probably use it a lot too for most of your drone equipment.

[thick parrot]

Ok, thanks, do you have recommendations for a specific drone/controller/headset ?

[peak wren]

Controller-radiomaster tx16s mkii MAX. The rest will kind of be up to your preferences.

[keen timber]

The cheapest yet worth buying goggles are the Eachine EV800D. (About €100)

For a radio, anything from Radiomaster (ELRS) is good. The radio you choose is up to your needs and budget.

• Radiomaster Pocket (~ €60)
• Radiomaster Zorro (~ €150)
• Radiomaster Boxer (~ €160)
• Radiomaster TX12 (~ €110)
• Radiomaster TX16S (~ €240)

I believe none of these radios come with batteries, so you will have to buy them seperately (which is about €20-€30)

[thick parrot]

Ok, also, is it the controller or the goggles that determine the range of the drone ?

[peak wren]

Both, if you lose transmitter range you have a drone you can't control. If you lose video you're flying blind. Usually transmitter range is better than video range.

[thick parrot]

Ok, so the controller and headset work independently?

[peak wren]

Yes

[thick parrot]

Ok, also, are the DJI o3 equiped drones actually better than the ones with another board ?

[peak wren]

Ehhh, idk if you can say any drone is better than another. Dji 03 offers some nice features, but is also missing alot. It transmits 1080p video back to goggles for you to watch while you fly it, and it can record 4k footage to the SD card in the 03 at the same time.

[thick parrot]

Ok, what are the features it lacks ?

[keen timber]

it has a little bit more latency (which no one really seems to bother anyways) and is a lot more expensive than analog. Also means you will have to buy DJI goggles which aren't cheap too.

[thick parrot]

Ok, it isn't that much better than

[peak wren]

HD OSD support, unless you root the goggles

[keen timber]

video quality is great, analog is "ehh" but for me personally more than good enough

[peak wren]

Dji 03 is unflyable after dark.

[thick parrot]

Why ?

[peak wren]

You can't see, like anything after dark. The 16$ ant nano analog cam from caddx outperforms the 03 in the dark lol.

[keen timber]

its like using your phone camera at night, just pitch black lol

[peak wren]

But during the day, it's pretty darn pretty.

[peak wren]

Even in parking lots with adequate lighting... You seee nooooottthhhinnggg

[thick parrot]

Would the quality of analog through the goggles be something like that ?

[peak wren]

I'm working right now so I can't do this but in about 4 or 5 hours I can post some videos of walksnail, dji, and analog fpv so you can see the difference. Probably not that good :/ but it's something you get used to.

My videos, not edited or anything

[thick parrot]

Ok, thanks a lot, would it be videos of like, what you see with the goggles ?

[peak wren]

I'll put a description with each saying the method of recording.

[thick parrot]

Ok thanks, and I have one last question, do you have an idea, of what would be the price of long range goggles and controllers for one of those radios ? (Photo down below) it's to go with a fly whoo explorer td4

[red gust]

No

Analog is like a 90‘s vhs tape

The best you will get is 720p on really expensive goggles

If you want something long range and cheaper you gotta go with analog because dji and its 03 system will have you spend into the thousands

[peak wren]

Pnp, means you add your own receiver for control of the drone. Most of the people here use elrs 2.4 because it has good range and it's open source so the price stays under control

[thick parrot]

Ok

[thick parrot]

Thanks, yeah the quality is noticably worse, but not unusable

[keen timber]

To look a small details, its not ideal at all

But it definitely is flyable

[peak wren]

I'll be home in 20 and I'll dig up sobe goggle footage. In the meantime here's my YouTube:

https://youtube.com/@maxxtraxxfpv?si=DlwzdebnHaC0xSV2

I have a mix of videos shot on different video systems, mostly walksnail and dji. If you take a pic with the title in it I can let you know the specs of what's flying it 🙂

[thick parrot]

Ok, thanks, I am going to check that out

[peak wren]

Also, there are different laws in different parts of the world regarding drones over 250g. In the US they're planning to require overpriced modules on any unmanned aircraft over 250g starting in the spring. I'm not sure where you live, but some research on the laws about it in your area may be a good idea.

[thick parrot]

Yeah, I looked that up, and in France if I buy something like the avata Wich is under 250g, there is no problems

[peak wren]

Orrrrr a crux35 for considerably less 😈😈😈

[thick parrot]

Idk, is it an analog or a DJI equiped drone, because my logic was that if I buy the avada, I will save money long term by not having to buy another headset and radio since I will probably stay on the digitals if I start with a digital

[peak wren]

It can be any of them, I believe Happymodel only ships it with the choice of analog, walksnail, or hdzero. Whenever I buy a drone I just get the analog pnp version if it's available, that way I save a couple bucks and I can add the receiver and video system of my choice. And also you can save yourself the trouble of ruining a digital vtx trying to learn a new drone and crashing. If i crashed a drone with a $230 vtx system and the vtx was damaged I would lose it. Crash an analog drone and break a camera - $25-$30 break an analog vtx - $17-$60. The avada is definitely a good stepping stone but it's got so many safety features and locked flying zones that it will eventually hold you back. If you sort my videos by upload date, you'll see my first drone, the dji FPV 🤢🤮. It was fun at first, but then it stopped being fun. It also cost me $1500 once all the bells and whistles were attained. For $1500 I could have had a small army of drones instead lol. Ooooo and then there's the batteries for dji drones.... @thick parrot

$279 for a charger and 2 batteries is a little ridiculous.

[thick parrot]

Yeah, a little

[peak wren]

It's totally up to you though. We'll help you get up and running with whatever you choose 🙂

[thick parrot]

But like, the crux35, do you know how much flight time it has on a single charge ? And the range too

And is it has idiot proof has the avata ? (In the sense of if it crashed in a tree at full throttle it will be fine and start flying again)

[peak wren]

The flight time depends on the batteries you choose for it. I just got home and can grab pics of what I fly in it. Range isn't the best out there because it comes with an spi receiver baked into the flight controller, but I've never had a failsafe with it. I'll have to look through some footage to confirm this, but I believe it gets around 10 minutes of flight time.

7min ripping it hard.

[peak wren]

Maybe someday, but for now drones like this don't exist :/ that being said, the crux is a tough lil fella. I was playing with it one of the first times I flew it and accidentally disarmed at about 100 feet high. unless you put some work into the settings, once you disarm a drone in the air there's no re-arming it. The drone just dropped out of the sky from 100 feet into grass, no damage.

[thick parrot]

Ok, and is there a way to get more range out of it ?since I will fly a lot in the forest near my house

[thick parrot]

Ok, well it's good to know

[peak wren]

Of course! See if they have a pnp version with the video system you want and add your own receiver. If they don't make a pnp version, the longer range will be a little tougher but it can be done. My go to receiver for whoops/small drones is the radiomaster rp2 with ceramic antenna, it's supposed to get around 2km. My go to for longer range is the radiomaster rp3-it has dual dipole antennas. There are better receivers out now, some even have true diversity which helps with range and signal penetration, I just haven't tried them yet.

[thick parrot]

Ok, and the dual dipole antenna can get up to what in terms of range ?

[peak wren]

I've only done range testing of that receiver on a plane. I haven't added GPS to any of my drones, so I don't try to find out when they failsafe because the drone will just drop out of the sky if it looses connection to the transmitter with no GPS to return to home. I can look at some footage of the plane with it and let you know.

[thick parrot]

Also, what are the difference between the different radios in the #1144565832828072080 ? And also, is there better gloggles for the crux ? That would hopefully be more compact than a full toaster

[thick parrot]

What is failsafe ? And can you add a gps to the crux so it gets back to home when the battery is too low ?

[knotty plinth]

Looks, feel and output power for the most part

[thick parrot]

Is the output power basically range ?

[knotty plinth]

Kinda, yeah

[peak wren]

Failsafe is a mode the drone enters when it loses connection to the transmitter, the only failsafe option I've tried is "drop" which does exactly what it sounds like lol. There is an option to land, but I have not tried it personally. You can add a GPS, I would have to look to see if the flight controller has enough uart ports to run it though. The settings in betaflight that I know of for GPS rescue are, return to home(on a switch) and return to home in failsafe mode, but if you're flying in a forest and it takes the shortest path back to the home point... Guess what happens? The low battery return to home is something you would just have to estimate and flip the rth switch and hope it gets home. INAV may have something like that, but I haven't tried inav on a drone yet.

[knotty plinth]

Your battery will go low when you punch throttle. You don't want the quad to immediately try to level itself and fly back to you when you're pulling out of a dive

[thick parrot]

Ok

[thick parrot]

Ok

Also, I am watching on the side multiple videos for diy drones, and I was wondering if it would be better maybe to go diy rather than an already built one

[keen timber]

If you have the budget, absolutely

[peak wren]

Are you good at soldering tiny baby electronics?

[knotty plinth]

It's a good option if you know a bit about electronics and soldering

[thick parrot]

How tiny are we talking ?

Has long has it doesn't involve a hot air gun it should be fine, since I don't have one

[knotty plinth]

Finger with regular pad for reference

[peak wren]

This is the rp2 receiver for example

[thick parrot]

Thats just regular wires

[keen timber]

Its small

Don’t underestimate it

[thick parrot]

I don't, I just already soldered other wires that size for custom length wires

[knotty plinth]

Very small

[thick parrot]

Yeah, those are a bit smaller

[peak wren]

They are also prone to overheating and being ruined very easily. You're likely to fry a few parts on your first build.

[thick parrot]

I might need to buy smaller tips for my soldering iron

[knotty plinth]

What iron do you have?

[peak wren]

What're thoooosssseeee?! Well what's the one with the red piece?

[thick parrot]

I don't recall the name, and I am not at home, but right now I have a fairly basic one, I only needed to solder cables together, so it isn't really great

[keen timber]

Yeah overheating

Forgot that

[knotty plinth]

BetaFPV ELRS Lite with a flat antenna

[keen timber]

Almost overheated my own equipment

[peak wren]

Does it beat out the ceramic antenna elrs?

[knotty plinth]

No

But it's fine for backyard flying

Or bench testing which is what I have it for now

[peak wren]

Nice nice, I'll give one a shot for the indoor whoopies 🙂

[knotty plinth]

It's really small, but still not the smallest thing I ever soldered for a quad

[peak wren]

I had a box of parts I ruined trying to learn to solder while soldering 😂😭. Used to look at it alot and sigh, I gave it to a friend who wanted to try and fix it though.

[knotty plinth]

That thing with absolutely teeny pads is a Bluetooth module that Airbot sent for development

[peak wren]

I was about to ask what it was lol.

[knotty plinth]

There are two types of practice boards:

1. Intentional $2 ones
2. And unintended $50+ ones

[peak wren]

I'd recommend trying some of these, don't be like me and ruin a whole box of fpv parts 🙂 @thick parrot

[peak wren]

Oo didn't see you wrote this already, vitroid probably knows better practice boards lol

[keen timber]

I have this one

Helps a lot

[knotty plinth]

$16 is for how many of those?

[keen timber]

Did all my soldering on there before trying on a real board

Luckily got the hang of it pretty quickly

[keen timber]

4

I got myself 1 and its more than enough, half my board is still free

[knotty plinth]

$4 per one is kinda bad

https://www.getfpv.com/diatone-mamba-practice-soldering-board-v2.html

Here, $2.2

[keen timber]

Yep its expensive

A rip off in my opinion

[peak wren]

Amazon being Amazon 🤗

[thick parrot]

If I go diy, will the drone be a lot better, or just marginally better ?

[keen timber]

As you can select better hardware (while paying more), it will probably be better

[peak wren]

Like DIY vs pre-built? There's not much difference in performance if you use the same parts, but you can get better parts.

[thick parrot]

Yeah, but for the same budget

[peak wren]

Possibly? I've never done a cost analysis on that kind of thing.

[keen timber]

Maybe

But the time you spend on it to build and research everything is a lot too

[thick parrot]

Ok

[peak wren]

That, and you become emotionally attached to the lil shit along the way, because you spend so much time on it lol.

That may be just me idk

[keen timber]

Nope not at all

[peak wren]

Okay cool 🙂

[keen timber]

I take great care of things I built myself as Im emotionally attached to it

So having a part broken is pretty sad

[peak wren]

Having a broken thing is worse 😭😭

Also this is a clip of analog dvr shot with the caddx ratel 2.

[knotty plinth]

It goes away... I used to be really scared if I crashed and carefully went to check everything over... Now I'm just upset that I have to walk lol

[keen timber]

Ive seen it in #💥crashes-or-broken-things some time ago

[keen timber]

The older my stuff is or the more I use it the less I care about it, just how it is

[peak wren]

I wanted to show @thick parrot because he was curious of the performance of analog vs digital. Sorry for the reposty

[knotty plinth]

I broke my 5" build on its first day out lol

[peak wren]

https://tenor.com/view/moment-of-silence-pay-respect-rip-rest-in-peace-bow-gif-15963301

[thick parrot]

Was that analog or digital?

[knotty plinth]

It's in one piece yet again for quite a while now

[keen timber]

Broke an arm?

[knotty plinth]

And I have two or three more to fly if I ever break it again

[knotty plinth]

Yeah

[peak wren]

Digital is: walksnail, dji, and hdzero. Analog is older but dirt cheap in comparison, and in my opinion a great place to start.

[peak wren]

What's your full kwad count?

[thick parrot]

Yeah, but the video you posted 10min ago, of the broken drone, was it digital or analog ?

[peak wren]

This is analog, in a plane.

[knotty plinth]

• 1x 2-2.5" 2s toothpick (going out to someone soon)
• 1x 6s 3" meme build
• 4x 6s 5" freestyle builds (going back down to 3 soon when I sell one)
• And a bunch of parts for a 4s 3", 6s 7" and a small wing that all require some other part of a build

[keen timber]

Could you show me the 3” meme build?

[peak wren]

Niiiice 🙂

[knotty plinth]

With the battery it looks funnier

This is an older pic when it was still with frsky

[keen timber]

30% drone
70% grass

[knotty plinth]

Here are the various 5" builds

[peak wren]

Pretty Lil family ya got @knotty plinth 🙂

[keen timber]

A happy family ahaha

Except for your wallet

[keen timber]

All look very clean

[knotty plinth]

The yellow one is fully intended to be used for BF testing and verification.

The green one was built and recorded for a tutorial, I'll sell it when I finish it.

The many colored one is my main freestyle rig now

And the blue one used to be my first 6s quad, it's now a 20x20 test rig or a lighter flier if need be

[knotty plinth]

All but two were practically free if I exclude shipping and import costs

[peak wren]

How much are you looking to sell the green fella for 🙂

[keen timber]

I love the green and colored one, others are great looking too

[peak wren]

Or ladyyyyy, sorry to assume your drones gender.

[knotty plinth]

Lol

[keen timber]

Also nature looks wonderful on those pictures (even when barely shown in the background)

Here its all concrete

[knotty plinth]

It's probably gonna be around $300 or so, maybe more cuz the drone market here is kinda meh

[peak wren]

Also this, what country?

[knotty plinth]

Czechia

I kinda cheated with the blue one cuz I took it with me to a vacation lol, this would be the view there otherwise

The rest is just from my house

[peak wren]

Very purrrtyyyyy 🙂

[knotty plinth]

https://www.vitroidfpv.com/articles/misc-my-current-setup

I have a full writeup here, I'll need to update it with the newest yellow build but it should otherwise be everything

[peak wren]

Much cool 🙂 you're too good to us @knotty plinth 😎