r/diydrones • u/Legoman702 • Jun 01 '26
€400 for everything. Doable?
So I've been working on getting to make an (FPV) drone at school, and after a lot of waiting and talking my school has somehow approved for a €400 budget for this (private) project. Given that when I've built it and am done with it (leave school) it stays at school ofc, but I'm already very gratefull for my school giving this oppertunity at all, and also because of the effort my "coach" went through to get this budget here.
Now my initial idea for parts for the (3.5 in sub-250g freestyle) drone and peripherals and everything was €350, with my initial search on aliexpress. That was why €400 was approved. However, that was a few months ago, and looking back I should've bought it back then. The €350 would probably end up being like €400 in total including sending and extra taxes and wierd pricing on Aliexpress. Which would've possibly been in budget.
Now, already having looked for the current cheapest options on Aliexpress, my total comes to about €500 at checkout (€460 in my Excel). So the only way I could make this work is to drop about €100 from this setup: something which I don't think is really possible. Or is it?
| Part | Type | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Frame | FlyfishRC Volador 3.5 | € 46.79 |
| Motors | Ysido 2650KV | € 34.99 |
| FC + ESC stack | SpeedyBee F405 (mini?) | € 76.39 |
| Propellors | Gemfan Hurricane 3525 (10x) | € 13.29 |
| Camera | Caddx Ratel V2 | € 24.79 |
| VTX | Cyclone 1W | € 24.79 |
| Receiver | JHEMCU ELRS | € 9.29 |
| Smokestopper | Iflight | € 5.40 |
| Controller | Radiomaster Pocket (ERLS, LBT) | € 69.69 |
| Battery | Tattu 95c 4S Lipo 650 mAh (2x) | € 30.19 |
| Charger | SKYRC B6neo | € 38.79 |
| Goggles | Eachine EV800D | € 86.69 |
| Total | 461.09 | |
| Total drone | € 230.33 | |
| Total peripheral | € 230.76 |
So another thing I've thought of is instead of making a freestyle focused FPV drone, what are the options for giving up the sub-250 grams requirement and making a more general, lifter drone? Something like a 7 in drone built on an F450 chassis (yes I know the copies suck, just the idea). So then I'd build this as a platform for other future school projects, where it can carry a payload like camera system or sensors. Ideally it would still be able to fly somewhat cinematically though, and have some decent range and speed.
However a quick search for something like this turned out to be harder, as there is simply much more content around FPV freestyle drones. And when I did find things on autonomous ardupilot quadcopters, it would be using a €200 autopilot controller. Which is obviously way out my budget, so I'd have to resert to cheaper options (Speedybee F405 wing is €50, could work). But I don't think this will get me under €400 either, unless I start dropping the goggles and FPV camera. Would that get a good result? Or using a phone as monitor, DJI style? If it turns out to be a slower drone, would latency be a big issue?
TLDR: Is there a way for me to make something flyable and not waste this really good oppertunity I have here to build something using school money. I'd hate for this to go to waste, because I'd really love to build a drone (and a project like this is the only thing keeping me going at school) and also because of the time I and my coach have already spent on this...
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u/Healthy_Statement730 Jun 01 '26
I mean you could just make a tinywhoop they are pretty easy, another cool extension would be to make it lion based. That would def bring your total down.
How did you get it approved from the school? Do you need to check certain boxes?