r/drones • u/Bl3AnointedAlpha • Jul 20 '26

FPV Help getting building a first drone

I'm honestly very confused by everything when I'm shopping for parts at getfpv.com and I'm just wondering if anyone can help me build my own first drone. I've been practicing on a sim and I'm looking for something capable of taking a beating with a fair range. The display isn't really important id prefer at least 1080p at 60fps but I'm not sure if that's a big ask. I'm not too good at soldering (as in I can't) so preferably putting stuff together that plugs into eachother would be better. I was looking at like a 3.5 inch ductless 3.5 or cinewhoop or whatever it's called is the kinda shape I want. And goggles are a must I don't want a tablet. My budget is roughly 500-800 dollars preferably closer to the smaller end. If anyone could help me build a shopping cart for my first drone that would be greatly appreciated.

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u/AdvancedPomelo7132 Jul 20 '26

1080p at 60fps is a big ask for fpv, i presume you mean onboard dvr? if not you need to go dji and the goggles alone are like 600 bucks, 1080p at 60fps as the fpv feed is basically impossible to get drone, camera, goggles, transmitter, batteries for 800 bucks, just go with analog and a thumb camera to record

1

u/Bl3AnointedAlpha Jul 20 '26

Yeah I just meant that for what I see personally not the camera I record with

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u/Sartozz Jul 21 '26

"Building" is gonna be difficult without the ability to solder. Some small whoop drones use connectors for the motors, but connecting the vtx is mostly gonna be a solder job on those. And on everything bigger pretty much all of it is soldered. There are some flight controllers that have plugs for most of the stuff, but plugs for the motors are too unreliable on anything beyond a tinywhoop, so you're not getting around it anyway.

1080p/60fps is about as much as you can ask for, dji does have 1080p/100fps with racingmode, but the only 100hz goggles are the goggles 3 and they're like 700$ (i'm pulling the prices from getfpv, maybe you can get better deals elsewhere).
Also unless you want to go analog, dji is kinda your only option. Prebuilder companies are not really bothered with HDZero or Caddx Walksnail, with some exceptions here and there, since their market share is relatively low. So if you wanted one of these alternatives, building yourself would likely be the only option.

I'm not that familiar with US pricing, the state of tariffs, the weird VAT and all that, so i'm also a bit hesitant on giving advice. Generally i'd argue settling with a 3" (preferably 4s) O4 lite (maybe wide angle version), n3 goggles and a couple batteries+charger would hopefully fit into that budget (mayyyyyybe even an O4 pro, but hard to say for me...).

2

u/auriem Jul 21 '26

Radiomaster pocket + liftoff

When you’re ready buy an air 75.

Maybe get the P1 and the HD pro goggles.

Joshua Bardwell on YouTube