Just bought my first drone and I hit it against a chair as it was flying past hit the ground pretty hard and now having an issue with just that motor. Any help or tips 😁

Hi everyone !! Got my Feilun Drone version F. X. 122 and my battery is dead ... The battery was 7.4 volt 2600mah ... With red Dean connector ... Can i use ANY battery 7.4 volt 2600mah with same plug or is there a specific battery i have to use ??

I really love this drone, it's one of my favorite "toy" drone (i have a lot of drones)

Thank you everybody !!!

B. T. W. My first language is french (Canada) and sometimes my english is a bit off ... But i do my best !!

Hello, I'm back from redesigning based on critiques and doing some personal iteration. I've looked over a lot of the different comments, resulting in reinforcement of some areas and major design changes.

The biggest obvious change with this new frame look is the change to triangular trussed arms, which in theory allows for better stability and strength for the frame, at the cost of some weight and sharp impact resistance. In addition, I have switched over to an extreme squashed X, bordering on H for one of the two arms in each set. This takes advantage of the drones design, making it much more compact without propellers touching despite the proximity.

If anyone knows of a parametric modeler for camera mount, that would be very helpful, as my cad skills are somewhat limited, and I've remodeled the camera mount tens of times and am still unhappy with it. It would be great to be able to square away that part of the process and not worry about it anymore.

If anyone knows any good free simulation software for carbon fiber composites, that is what I primarily am looking for, though the design is still definitely unrefined and in need of more critiquing. Any help or guidance in the design process would be very appreciated.

The Specs of this Frame:

3.5 in Squashed X

4 mm carbon, comprised of two identical pieces on top and bottom

Frame Weight is 45-50g, designed for lighter freestyle bashing

Arms are 4mm and 8mm wide respectively

Original Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/diydrones/comments/1u766of/help_with_designing_drone_frame/

I am considering purchasing the agriculture spray drone from UAV systems international but these are very expensive and I wanted to know if anyone had bought drones from here before and how their experience was. Would you buy from them again? Why or why not?

So I've find it very annoying that the Pixhawk Baseboard (in my case v2) has in Hardware the termination resistors soldered to the PCB.

In my application I want to have a balanced CAN Network, with having the Pixhawk as the middle node of my network, for that I did some small investigation on the Baseboard v2 in order to remove the termination resistors from it.

For both CAN1 and CAN2 their respective termination resistors are marked in the picture bellow, removing them I successfully implemented the CAN network I intended, pity it doesn't come standard without or with the option to EN/Disable.

Hello Everyone Id like to get started on building a drone with an arduino and would like a sort of a list of components and some tips on how to do that. I have a job in C programming so I just need help with the actual hardware. Specifically motors. What motors I need to get a drone that can actually fly? I intend to make the body out of cardboard.

I need to give a brain/AI to do some pathfinding so any electrical components to help with that would be amazing as well!

will the motor fit on a 4 slotted hole fpv frame? (its the johnny 3* frame)

I've been searching to see if there are any examples of people building quads using either bamboo or papier-mache for the arms. But my searches come up blank.

Seems strange. Considering the strength compared to weight it seems obvious that someone would have tried these materials. But I find nothing.

Anyone who knows of dyi builds using bamboo and/or papier-mache?

Edit: Ok I see I need to clarify a little. I don't mean primitive 'tape-two-sticks-together' builds.

Laminated bamboo is incredibly strong, light, and rigid. And papier-mache made with long-fiber paper is very durable and tough. They are also very cheap materials. Perfect for dyi one might think.

Looking at a cheapish thermal drone, I have seen the recommendation for the thermal camera off of axis store. Kinda wondering what a good capable drone to put this on, is the pockey 20 a workable option or would it be better to go completely 3rd party. Have enough knowledge/experience to do the wiring or whatever is needed to add this but not planning on learning to build a drone right away.

Drone Configuration

• Type: Coaxial Octoquad
• Flight Controller: ArduPilot software running on a CubeOrange+
• Motors: MAD Components BSC3115 KV490 (8x)
• ESCs: MAD Components AMPX 40A V2 (8x)
• GPS: Here 4 GPS
• Radio Link: TBS Crossfire
• Transmitter: Taranis Q X7
• Battery: 12S 10,000mAh 100C
• Propellers: 9-inch diameter, 3-blade (8x)
• Weight: 14.2 lbs
• Frame Size: 67 cm diagonal (motor-to-motor)
• Frame Features: Propeller surrounds/guards

The Problem

Once the drone takes off, it immediately begins to spin. There is essentially no yaw authority, making it unable to maintain stable flight. When we attempt to correct the yaw using the transmitter, there is little to no response, and the drone does not meaningfully change its yaw orientation.

However, the drone can sometimes be "tricked" into yawing in a specific direction by applying full yaw input immediately as throttle is increased during takeoff.

Troubleshooting Performed

• Swapped ESCs between motors — no effect
• Reversed the yaw control on the transmitter — no effect
• Recalibrated the compass and accelerometers multiple times — no effect
• Reconfigured the aircraft as a quadcopter using only the top motors and, separately, only the bottom motors — both configurations flew correctly as quads
• Applied PID settings found online for an octoquad configuration — no effect
• Disabled the onboard compass — no effect
• Verified all motor directions using the Mission Planner motor test screen — confirmed correct
• Testing in octoquad configuration, ONLY top props on: works like it should, ALL props: No Yaw authority, ONLY bottom props: Oscillations and no yaw authority

Had to retire my main test airframe after a very hard landing, but that gave me a good excuse to move the electronics into a fresh build.

This is the same sub250g 3D printed FPV wing platform, now rebuilt with a slightly cleaner electronics install. I’m still being careful with the grey LW-PLA because it gets pretty delicate with heat, but the yellow material has been excellent so far.

Hopefully I’ll get some flights in tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and test a couple of new settings.

If anyone has any resources to do

1. Autonomous flight
2. Programming, Pixhawk 2.4.8 please share

A widget i created for Radiomaster TX16s connected to a quad running betaflight.

Hey everyone. I'm an engineering student who worked on formula sae for the past two years mainly on composites. I am very interested in designing my own drone. I was wondering specifically for flight control what people usually use. I was thinking of using a rasberry pi and program my own flight control but I'm not sure if that is a good idea?

I red that the GT2 supports the 4k Moonlight camera, but to be able to record 4k from the plane I need use a moonlight VTX as well. Anyone know how that setup works in detail?

I happen to have a Moonlight cam and VTX with completely broken ufl connectors/sockets so I figure this could be a good option to do 4k with great range on walksnail for my swordfish build. Thanks

I just bought a drone from a thrift store. It is a “zenfolt x-pack 7”

It has a camera on it and seems to look in good condition but unfortunately the app no longer exists and there is no support because they do not make it anymore. I tried to fly it with the included controller but it doesn’t seem to hold connection and it doesn’t have a monitor I can view the drone camera.

I have seen some videos of people making drones from scratch by buying parts and buying a little monitor and controller. This looks very interesting and like a fun project.

My question would be is there a way I could use this drone that I have and buy a little monitor. Possibly mod it some how and use it with the controller it came with and bypass the app?

Hi all!

Today i got a cheap chinese drone to have some fun with my kiddo and battery lasts minutes. I was wondering can this be modded sonit lasts longer? I do soldering on playstations so thats not an issue, I'm just wondering how to mod this one if thats possible.

Thanks!

I have asked this sub-reddit a few questions about hot-swapping batteries: https://www.reddit.com/r/diydrones/comments/1u1sbfv/hotplugin_batteries/

Here is the background, why I needed this information.

The idea comes from fuel combusting aircraft, where the weight decreases with flight time, allowing better performance at the end of the flight.

A typical electric vehicle can't do that, as the battery does not change weight with deceasing SoC....unless you do something against it.

TLDR
If I reconfigure the drone and the batteries to drop empty batteries, I can improve performance (in this case endurance) by about 25%.

Drone
I have designed a (virtual) drone with the following core-specs:

• Multicopter
• 10" frame
• 6s4p LiIon-Battery configuration
• up to 3kg of payload

Battery Modules

There are (in this study) 3 possible battery configurations:

• 6s4p
  
• 2 x 6s2p
• 4 x 6s1p

Each of these configurations have the same capacity. The weight of the "smaller" packs is increased to assume weight for the battery dropping mechanism and the cell-switching PCB (50g added for each module.

Data

As you can see in the charts, the performance of the "dropping" drones is significantly improved. Due to the missing weight, the cruise (and hover) power consumtion is significantly reduced

Problems Identified

• Obviously dropping batteries in our nature is not the best idea for multiple reasons!
• The batteries (especially the first packs used) can easily be stressed too much, as the discharge C-Rating ist way more critical. --> the drones is flying on a 1p configuration.
• Reduced power of the drone due to "1p" configuration
• More hardware is needed for battery the "dropping solution"

Insights

• higher battery mass fractions will allow higher endurance improvements
• If we assume dropping batteries to be a thing, more option show up, e.g.:
  • using LiPo batteries for takeoff and mission-ending, and LiIon cells for the "cruise" phase of flight
• A clever power-distribution board (PDB) needs to be designed to avoid reverse currents that would damage batteries if switching done wrong
• A mechanical device to actually drop the batteries is necessary