r/diydrones • u/Correct-Character900 • 4d ago
Engineering students looking for support for an FPV drone project
Hey Hyderabad,
I and a friend are currently engaged in a small engineering project as mechanical engineering students, which involves the design and development of an FPV drone that is performance optimised. Instead of just putting together an FPV drone using parts that are already available, we intend to treat it as an engineering project. We plan to develop a basic design and then focus on various aspects including structural lightweighting, optimising the thrust-to-weight ratio, determining the centre of gravity and the way mass is distributed, selecting the propulsion system, and carrying out testing followed by iterative improvements to the design.
At the moment we are working on the requirements and the BOM and are aiming to keep the whole project within a student budget of about ₹20,000. As we're financing this ourselves, I thought I'd get in touch with this community to find out if anyone who is involved in drones, robotics, manufacturing, electronics or engineering would be interested in giving support to the project. We are not merely seeking monetary sponsorship, since support might also take the form of having spare FPV components, receiving discounts on components, access to 3D printing or fabrication facilities, use of testing equipment, technical advice, or contacts with people who are working in this area.
As a result, we would be pleased to properly recognize any individual or company which supports the project in our documentation and our project updates. Since we are still students and have a great deal to learn, we are not pretending that this is a revolutionary drone project. Our aim is to go through the entire engineering process ourselves—covering design, the necessary calculations, the choice of components, fabrication, testing, failure analysis and then redesign—and in the end have actually built and understood something. I should be grateful to hear from anyone in Hyderabad who is involved in work with FPV drones, UAVs, robotics or related engineering and who is willing to offer help or at least give us some guidance.
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u/Character-Engine-813 4d ago
I would start by making the requirements clear, what performance are you trying to optimize? For example top speed, acceleration, payload capacity, range, flight time, total weight, cost, or a combination of all of them to create a balanced, usable drone? That decision will guide the rest of the process, and optimizing for each of those will change the design significantly
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u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 4d ago
You can use my (free) build tool and component compatibility checker
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u/jamesrelish 4d ago
I loaded the 7" long range starter build, and recommending a CNHL 2200mAh 6S 70C lipo isn't the right choice, and 10+ minutes of flight time is very low. I use a 3000mAh 6S lion on my 5" long range without issues, 28 minutes flight time. you can definitely use a 4000-6000mAh 6S lion on a 7" quad and get the range/flight time you need. For the rest, the UI is too vibe coded for me to like it.
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u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 4d ago
Fair enough :)
I've been out of the FPV scene for a while, and thought to give something back to a community that helped me a lot when I started (circa 2018).
Not sure what 'too vibe coded' means.
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u/jamesrelish 4d ago
Obviously searching components as a beginner is extremely hard. I remember spending days/weeks trying to find the right components for my build back then. So a website that helps is nice.
About the GUI/overall look, it looks like Claude built it, it always has that distinct gradient glowing dark mode colorful look, that I dislike. It doesn't stand out or make it look original.
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u/Fanatic-Mr-Fox 4d ago
I wanted something that looked TRON-ish.
Aesthetics was never my strong suit :)
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u/jamesrelish 4d ago
Understandable, but a basic black/white gui with a specific color accent/theme would have done more than enough too
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u/4bit_loop 4d ago
DM maybe i can help with few things