#Beginner drone questions

103 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

vagrant sable
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hey all,

I am a beginner drone pilot. I haven't messed around with them too much before, but I am interested in building my own drone. I've 3d printed a chassis and i'm working on the systems knowledge to fill in the blanks.

I have some of my hardware picked out, but the waters have been slightly muddied for me by the extended capabilities offered by the dji o3/o4, and i just want to make sure i have the systems delineations worked out right in my head.

My confusion stems from dji's claim of compatibility between the O4 air unit and that dji controller that is claimed on their website. I think i've settled on the speedybee F405 AIO, mainly because I am a massive fan of the stm32, which i use heavily in my other work. I've looked at a few build guides, but I am unclear on what exactly the division of labor is between different components on an fpv drone, because i think the dji air units might blur the line a little.

I understand that I need a vtx unit paired with a camera on the drone, and that it must be compatible with my flight controller. It seems that the DJI air units like the O3/O4 also boast compatability with one of their controllers. My question is, what does that mean? Does that mean that the O3/O4 is somehow only usable with the dji controller? I suspect that isn't the case, and that what the dji O series actually offers is the ability to send back controller input from what I think y'all call the air unit backwards to the flight controller, in lieu also attaching a discrete receiver.

Does this mean that if I do not want to use a dji controller, I can still use an o3/o4 air unit, and simply connect a discrete receiver to the flight controller board and use whatever controller I want?

Thank you for the help!

wind shoal
vagrant sable
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I know

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I still want to do it

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I'm a machinist, and once I get tired of 3d printing, i'll just machine a real one out of delrin or something

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but this is where I want to start

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even if I have to sacrifice expensive electronics

wind shoal
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Your bank account not mine i guess

vagrant sable
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the dji pricing on everything is rough except for the air units honestly, which isn't that bad

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seems like the o4 is cheaper than the o3?

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I want to use another controller though because I have a stronger interest in fixed wing actually, so I want to use a nice, generic, traditional r/c controller, but definitely easier to test out a quad in my lawn

wind shoal
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May i suggest Elrs

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!elrs

thick emberBOT
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Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour, ExpressLRS?
ExpressLRS is the latest and greatest in control link protocols.
It is Open Source made by people from the community, for the community.
It has the longest range, the lowest latency, is easy to use and on top of that is also the cheapest option available.
It is absolutely a win/win! See https://www.expresslrs.org/ for more information.

vagrant sable
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yes -- all the controllers i've been eyeing support ELRS. I didn't get want to get ahead of myself and make my question confusing, but I think what I am actually trying to ask, is if I can use a dji o3/o4 air unit, without the remote control pass back link (if that exists? I'm still not sure. do the o3/o4 replace a discrete receiver unit?), and instead connect a generic ELRS receiver to my flight controller and supports it, and use a generic controller?

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i am trying to use the answer to inform my choice between the dji goggles 3, the 3n, the walksnails, and the weird box ones with the L

raven topaz
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DJI VTX has a wire to act as a radio receiver too, but you don't need to hook that up to the flight controller. You can totally just use the DJI units as a VTX and nothing else. And then hook up whatever RX you want to your drone

vagrant sable
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awesome, ty. exactly what I needed to know

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just not quite sure how the hardware is laid out

wind shoal
raven topaz
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Usually the FC and VTXs you buy will have a wiring guide like this

how-to-build-fpv-drone-2023-wiring-diagram-analog-1822179620.jpg
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It's pretty similar for most setups

vagrant sable
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the division of labor between the components. I thought I had a sense of it, but I was thrown off when I saw the dji O units boasted controller support, since I thought that was the role of a reciever unit

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my guess was that they just offered it as an extra, but I wanted to make sure that was right

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(so you didn't have to have two antennas)

raven topaz
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Yeah the DJI O units can act as a receiver, but most other systems use a separate receiver

vagrant sable
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that shifts my question to a much harder one

wind shoal
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I believe you need a dji remote for that to work anyways

vagrant sable
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which goggles 😁

raven topaz
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How much money do you want to spend 😅

vagrant sable
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yes, what a question

raven topaz
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Oh wait if you're going with DJI you gotta use DJI FPV goggles

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So that simplifies things quite a bit

vagrant sable
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as little as possible but i'm willing to be talked up to as much as possible

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no, not neccesarily

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i'd actually prefer to avoid them

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i'm just trying to understand the landscape

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i'm not opposed to their goggles if they're great though

raven topaz
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Oh okay that makes sense 👍

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So Walksnail and HDZero are the two other competing digital video systems. Both are a huge upgrade from analog

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Analog is the cheapest and the lowest latency though

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*can be the cheapest

vagrant sable
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Their air unit looked pretty good, so I'd consider their air unit and goggles along with a generic rc controller (because i'd like to use it for other r/c projects too)

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the goggles are quite expensive, but they're all quite expensive really. their not that much more

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i've deciced on digital

raven topaz
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Cool cool

vagrant sable
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i'm not going to be racing

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but i'd still like to whiz around upside down occasionlly, so something vuaguely appropriate for freestyle

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digital seems more than up to it these days

raven topaz
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Yeah for sure

vagrant sable
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dji makes big range claims on those goggles

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some of the ones I checked out were down to 4km

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i think the dji goggle 3's boast 10+?

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I was checking out the 3n? I think budget ones. those would be very tempting but it seems like support for their o-series isn't quite there yet

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and are they single screen instead of one per eye?

raven topaz
vagrant sable
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just looking for something very extensible, because I'd like to build something really big, like 2kg+ one day and do some longer range flying around here along the beach

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ah you beat me to it

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I do

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😁

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the FAA let me convert my ppl to a part 107 license so hopefully I'm good to go

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but I want to cut my teeth on some smaller stuff first

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i am a computer programmer so I am very interested in trying to extend betaflight with some wacky stuff, but it seems like pretty much every flight controller supports betaflight, so i don't think that's an issue for my component selection

raven topaz
raven topaz
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Betaflight is incredibly ubiquitous for FPV systems

vagrant sable
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ugh so the 3n does support the o4

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i thought that wasn't out yet for some reason

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that does make the n3 seems like a resonable choice

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i came here to hopefully be talked into the more expensive option though

raven topaz
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So I don't have personal experience with the N3, but it looks like it's a box-style goggle compared to the pair of OLED panels in the Goggles 3

mild robin
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but I would advise using something other than the DJI controllers

raven topaz
raven topaz
vagrant sable
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yeah the n3 seems cool but I'm not sure I want the one screen thing. i've only used the quest2 as far as goggle type devices go, but I feel like going to monoscreen would be a but of a step down, which is what was making me consider walksnail/dji

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yeah I don't want to benq

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I have other remote control interests

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so I was hoping I could use the dji air units and goggles, and a third part controller, even if it meant i had to use an extra reciever, which does seem to be the case

raven topaz
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Yup! Absolutely

vagrant sable
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unfortunate, because that's the most expensive option 😁

raven topaz
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Yeah 😅

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Nice video systems, especially the goggles, get expensive 😭

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If you're not opposed to buying used, you may be able to find something either here in #1093898157202612324 or on eBay

vagrant sable
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not necessarily!

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thank you so much for the info; that was exactly what i needed to know

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i am going to meditate over my options for a moment

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can't say how happy i am to see the stm32 getting so much use

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my absolute favorite chip

raven topaz
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Yeah I've used it a bit for classes, it was really fun to program for. It's always fun to see it out in the wild

vagrant sable
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yeah the stm32f104 is a baller workhorse

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for slightly larger projects, the esp's are so far beyond arduino it isn't even funny

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I had to resort to my first stm32 after arduino failed me trying to read the data bus off those cheap digital calipers when I was trying to build DRO's for my milling machine

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they're crazy fast for some reason at like 1.4v straight out of a button cell

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arduino just wasn't fast enough

raven topaz
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Well the Arduinos are mostly a learning platform, right? Like I'm sure people can get them to do some crazy stuff but still 😅

vagrant sable
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they definitely saw heavy use for awhile

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like maybe 10-15 years ago or so

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they were only ever okay really even at the time

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not bad, but just alright

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so many good options today though

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I think they serve as an alright learning platform now, but once you know what you're doing these days I think those other options tempt you away pretty fast

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hobbyists are absoluely feasting now with the stm32/esp8266/esp32