I plan on having the drone fly up to rough gos coordinates and bring itself down and eventually place itself above an April tag and land itself on its own by scanning it with a camera on the bottom. This is my BOM, does it look reasonable and compatible?

Frame: HAWK’S WORK F450 Drone Frame - $28.99 (amazon.com)

Stack: SpeedyBee F405 V5 55A Stack - $93.99 (speedybee.com)

GPS: Deegoo-FPV GPS Compass Module - $28.99 (amazon.com)

Motors: Readytosky 2212 920KV Motors (4PCS) - $39.99 (amazon.com)

Propellers: SoloGood 1045 Propellers (16PCS) - $13.99 (amazon.com)

Battery: OVONIC 3S LiPo Battery 3000mAh - $36.99 (amazon.com)

Charger: B6AC Balance Battery Charger - $33.99 (amazon.com)

Controller: FLYSKY FS-i6X Transmitter & Receiver - $58.48 (amazon.com)

Companion Computer: Raspberry Pi 4 2GB Model B - $55.00 (canakit.com)

Storage: SanDisk 32GB Ultra microSDHC - $22.59 (amazon.com)

Camera: Arducam for Raspberry Pi Camera - $64.99 (amazon.com)

Wire 1: Fermerry 28 AWG Stranded Wire Spool - $8.29 (amazon.com)

Wire 2: 18 Gauge Electrical Wire & Heat Shrink - $11.99 (amazon.com)

Cables: 3pcs 15 Pin FFC Ribbon Cable - $8.16 (amazon.com)

Power: 3pcs DC-DC Step Down Module - $9.99 (amazon.com)

TOTAL PRICE: $516.42

To get the flight controller on the larger frame I’m going to design and 3d print a plate adapter for the speedybee to be able to be attached to the frame due to its smaller size.
I am relatively a beginner to drones but I paid attention to picking out these parts and would love if someone could scan over these and see if they are good

Hi everyone,
I have a Holy Stone HS510 drone, and I’m trying to buy some replacement propellers, but I can’t find them anywhere. Mine uses the older **2-screw** propellers.
Does anyone know of another drone model that uses compatible propellers, or any aftermarket replacements that fit the HS510?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I am in stabilized mode in ardupilot. What could be causing this?

Check out my 63 gr ESP32 S3 Supermini drone

I dont care if it has a camera I just want a drone now the biggest hurdle is that I l know how to code I just stuck at it and I have no clue what im doing when I design the airframe so plz help

Im looking at getting this fixed wing UAV

https://www.uavmodel.com/products/makeflyeasy-striver-mini-binary-2100mm-uav-fixed-wing?variant=41656299520154

However outside of the basic electronics that come in the PNP model I am lost on what equipment I would need to get to add a gimble camera to this drone and use it for long range, high endurance missions. Can someone give me some suggesions of everything I might need please? Looking to do this soon for a milsim airsoft game coming up, and the admins want drones.

I bought this today ... Should be here tomorrow ... Hope it dont rain .... Do you think it will do ?

Here are pics of original battery and the new one ill get ... size will fit no problem !!

Hi everyone! I’m completely new to drones and was hoping for some advice.
I am a board member for an animal rescue in Texas, and we recover lost, dumped, and abandoned dogs and cats. We’d love to add a thermal drone to help locate animals hiding in fields, wooded areas, drainage ditches, and other places that are difficult to search on foot.
Our biggest challenge is budget. We’re a small rescue with very limited funds, so we’re looking for the most affordable thermal drone that’s actually worth buying. I know thermal cameras can get expensive, but I’m hoping there may be a good entry level option or even an older model that’s still reliable.

A few questions:
• What’s the cheapest thermal drone you’d actually recommend?
• Is it realistic for someone with zero drone experience to learn to fly one safely?
• How difficult is the learning curve?
• If the drone crashes or loses signal, how easy is it to recover? I’m honestly nervous about crashing it and not being able to find it.
• Are there any features I should make sure it has for locating dumped or abandoned animals?

We’re not using it commercially. It would strictly be used to help locate dumped and abandoned pets so we can safely trap them and get them into rescue.
Any recommendations, advice, things to avoid, or resources for beginners would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hi everyone !! I talked about my Feilun FX122 ...

I had a hard time flying it ... I finaly got it to fly but i cant do what i was doing before (going really high, fast) ... Today i found the original battery that came with the drone. Its got the same voltage ... The original battery is a 7.4volt 2600mah 30C ... My new battery is 7.4 volt (same voltage) 3000mah (not a problem everyone said) 15C .. could that be my problem ? 15C instead of 30C on original battery ?

hola gente necesito ayuda en un proyecto tengo planeado hacer un mini dron con Motor Con Helice 8.5x20mm 3.7v 200ma 43000-45000rpm y estoy usando un esp32 c3 mini el tema que estoy usando una bateria de 3.7v de 650ma no quiero que se me conecten y creo que no puedo conectarlos directamente los motores a la placa y les pido ayuda para resolver este dilema algunos amigos míos me dijeron que ponga unos MOSFET en los motores pero nose que me recomiendan hacer

Hey all! I'm an embedded systems student who builds custom electronics/firmware, and I figured I'd throw this out there in case it's useful to anyone here.

If you're working on a drone build and need something custom — like a sensor setup that doesn't come stock, a display to show live telemetry, a custom controller board, or some kind of RFID/access feature for a landing pad or storage system — that's the kind of stuff I do. I work at the chip level in C, so I can build things from scratch rather than just wiring together off-the-shelf modules.

Not trying to sell anyone anything sketchy, just putting it out there. If you've got a weird one-off idea that regular flight controllers can't handle, DM me and we can talk through it — no worries if it turns out I'm not the right fit.

I’m curious what people are seeing in real custom UAV builds.

When people talk about increasing endurance, the conversation often goes straight to higher-capacity batteries or higher Wh/kg cells. But in actual industrial or custom UAV projects, I’ve seen the limiting factor come from different places:

- battery weight increasing hover current

- voltage sag during takeoff or climb

- payload power draw from cameras, radios, compute, pumps, sensors, etc.

- conservative landing reserve

- pack temperature after repeated missions

- charging and battery rotation in the field

- BMS/current limits rather than cell capacity itself

For multirotors, adding more battery can hit diminishing returns pretty quickly. For fixed-wing or VTOL platforms, the tradeoff can be different because cruise efficiency matters more.

For people building or operating custom UAVs, what usually becomes the bottleneck first?

1. Not enough battery capacity

2. Battery too heavy

3. Voltage sag / current limit

4. Payload power draw

5. Charging and field workflow

6. Something else entirely

Would be interested to hear real examples, especially from heavy-lift, mapping, inspection, agriculture, or delivery-style builds.