Hey there everyone, I've wanted to fly around an FPV drone around my house like a dumbass for years now, but never got to it because of the prices.. That price thing holds to this day, but now I'm gonna take that dream more seriously.
I hope this thread will be updated with milestones relevant to my FPV journey and with opinions, tips and general comments regarding it.
For now, I've bought a 10 dollars CCC drone from Aliexpress, which surprisingly actually lifts off and has a working camera, but the camera is not real FPV, just an IoT WiFi cam basically, and it's a bit big, not stable enough and the camera has a small FOV meaning I can't really fly it comfortably around the house with just the camera view.
For the next drone I'd love to either build one, (given I have a 3D printer, basic tools and at least a teeny tiny amount of knowledge on electronics), or buy one of the RTF FPV kits like the BetaFPV Cetus Pro one that comes along with goggles and stuff. Both of these options are a bit on the relatively expensive side, they're little flying toys and yet the kits cost around 200 bucks, and the full DIY guides I've found use components that sum up to either slightly below, or around that price with no real benefit other than bragging rights - I'll have to either find a stable job so buying that won't feel terrible, or do more research / have someone help me with getting and putting together all the parts for preferably around or slightly more than 100 bucks.
Anyway, if anyone is or knows an FPV nerd, I'd really appreciate your help, same goes for component deals and other hobbyist knowledge. For now I'll probably take a couple pictures with the fake FPV one and post them later.
I hope this thread will be updated with milestones relevant to my FPV journey and with opinions, tips and general comments regarding it.
For now, I've bought a 10 dollars CCC drone from Aliexpress, which surprisingly actually lifts off and has a working camera, but the camera is not real FPV, just an IoT WiFi cam basically, and it's a bit big, not stable enough and the camera has a small FOV meaning I can't really fly it comfortably around the house with just the camera view.
For the next drone I'd love to either build one, (given I have a 3D printer, basic tools and at least a teeny tiny amount of knowledge on electronics), or buy one of the RTF FPV kits like the BetaFPV Cetus Pro one that comes along with goggles and stuff. Both of these options are a bit on the relatively expensive side, they're little flying toys and yet the kits cost around 200 bucks, and the full DIY guides I've found use components that sum up to either slightly below, or around that price with no real benefit other than bragging rights - I'll have to either find a stable job so buying that won't feel terrible, or do more research / have someone help me with getting and putting together all the parts for preferably around or slightly more than 100 bucks.
Anyway, if anyone is or knows an FPV nerd, I'd really appreciate your help, same goes for component deals and other hobbyist knowledge. For now I'll probably take a couple pictures with the fake FPV one and post them later.
Here's the Aliexpress fake FPV camera footage (supposedly 4K, and the delay and FOV make it impossible to fly without looking at it physically)
Bottom camera
Front camera
aiaiai i'm your little butterfly
Bottom camera
Front camera
aiaiai i'm your little butterfly
It didn't break, but it is just a toy. You can only get so far with 55 polish coins, shipping included.
The OLX one is an actual kit, bought used for 600 PLN. I'm gonna update when the kit comes, because while a bit expensive for my taste, it's actually an amazing deal compared to the original prices and includes basically everything and more than I need to start flying (drone, goggles, antennas, controller, batteries, spare parts).
Before that I also bought a pair of goggles from an acquaintance that I remembered is a former FPV nerd, so I'll try both pairs and probably sell the one I like less.
The OLX one is an actual kit, bought used for 600 PLN. I'm gonna update when the kit comes, because while a bit expensive for my taste, it's actually an amazing deal compared to the original prices and includes basically everything and more than I need to start flying (drone, goggles, antennas, controller, batteries, spare parts).
Before that I also bought a pair of goggles from an acquaintance that I remembered is a former FPV nerd, so I'll try both pairs and probably sell the one I like less.
Time for an update, excuse the lack of footage but I'll add it sometime later.
The kit I bought was a great deal - the drone, while visibly used, flies perfectly, and with 8 S1 batteries I have all the time in the world to practice.
The controller came without a data cable so I'll have to either do a "cut-up old USB cable with pins soldered on" thingmajig or mod it sometime so I can train acro mode on FPV simulators - I don't want to stay in angle mode forever and the longer I use it the harder the switch will be so I think I'll start with the cable thing.
Both pairs of goggles work but i think i like the EV800 ones more - the magnification fits my resting eye position better and has an internal battery so I don't have to plug in a weird tape-fixed 2-pack of lipos.
Anyway, the FPV is amazing. Most people would probably say it looks like a Lethal Company monitor but it's bright, doesn't straight up die when exposed to strong sunlight and best of all looks and feels great - the quality is (relatively) high and latency is basically nonexistent making it an actual out of body experience.
For the "me flying the drone instead of slobbering over FPV tech" part, for now I'm flying line-of-sight angle and slooowly switching to FPV. It feels way harder to keep my height stable through the camera, but that's an issue on my part as explained above. Probably my learning path will look like angle LOS -> angle FPV -> acro FPV (I'm skipping acro line-of-sight for now because it requires lots of turning and my dumb brain can't really comprehend adjusting the angle when the drone changes its yaw without me following its behind through walls like a third-person camera).
Hopefully I'll post some photos/videos soon but it's gonna be hard to record stuff given I'm learning to fly inside my house and that I can only record to an SD card (I'm too lazy, I think).
The kit I bought was a great deal - the drone, while visibly used, flies perfectly, and with 8 S1 batteries I have all the time in the world to practice.
The controller came without a data cable so I'll have to either do a "cut-up old USB cable with pins soldered on" thingmajig or mod it sometime so I can train acro mode on FPV simulators - I don't want to stay in angle mode forever and the longer I use it the harder the switch will be so I think I'll start with the cable thing.
Both pairs of goggles work but i think i like the EV800 ones more - the magnification fits my resting eye position better and has an internal battery so I don't have to plug in a weird tape-fixed 2-pack of lipos.
Anyway, the FPV is amazing. Most people would probably say it looks like a Lethal Company monitor but it's bright, doesn't straight up die when exposed to strong sunlight and best of all looks and feels great - the quality is (relatively) high and latency is basically nonexistent making it an actual out of body experience.
For the "me flying the drone instead of slobbering over FPV tech" part, for now I'm flying line-of-sight angle and slooowly switching to FPV. It feels way harder to keep my height stable through the camera, but that's an issue on my part as explained above. Probably my learning path will look like angle LOS -> angle FPV -> acro FPV (I'm skipping acro line-of-sight for now because it requires lots of turning and my dumb brain can't really comprehend adjusting the angle when the drone changes its yaw without me following its behind through walls like a third-person camera).
Hopefully I'll post some photos/videos soon but it's gonna be hard to record stuff given I'm learning to fly inside my house and that I can only record to an SD card (I'm too lazy, I think).
My simulator cable came in the paczkomat today so I instantly started up Drone Racing League. The worst part was finding and adjusting a drone so it feels roughly like the TH2.
After getting through controller calibration and drone setup I instantly went for acro-mode freestyle on the House map. My brain took some time to intuitively adjust for it being a drone's camera I'm in and not a Counter Strike surf server - that aside, while still fumbling precision at higher speeds and having some trouble breaking after a dash without bouncing around in the air trying to balance, acro already feels like second nature after around an hour of flying.
Decided to test how acro feels on the real thing and boy was I surprised that the muscle memory translates perfectly and it's even easier flying the TH2 inside my real house than the larger simulator House, it feels less frictionless I guess. On that note, it feels way better than angle mode - I can still do basically the same practice flights I was doing around my house before but now I feel more in control with the added bonus of the fans not spinning up like a blender when I land anywhere slightly unlevel or upside down.
I'm gonna continue flying in the sim and real life in my spare time to learn better precision, but it would be nice to get some rechargeable AA batteries because the controller runs on 4 of them and unfortunately still has to use them when plugged into the PC.
Hopefully I'll be posting videos of me flying under tables and beds fairly soon. Wish me luck, everyone.
After getting through controller calibration and drone setup I instantly went for acro-mode freestyle on the House map. My brain took some time to intuitively adjust for it being a drone's camera I'm in and not a Counter Strike surf server - that aside, while still fumbling precision at higher speeds and having some trouble breaking after a dash without bouncing around in the air trying to balance, acro already feels like second nature after around an hour of flying.
Decided to test how acro feels on the real thing and boy was I surprised that the muscle memory translates perfectly and it's even easier flying the TH2 inside my real house than the larger simulator House, it feels less frictionless I guess. On that note, it feels way better than angle mode - I can still do basically the same practice flights I was doing around my house before but now I feel more in control with the added bonus of the fans not spinning up like a blender when I land anywhere slightly unlevel or upside down.
I'm gonna continue flying in the sim and real life in my spare time to learn better precision, but it would be nice to get some rechargeable AA batteries because the controller runs on 4 of them and unfortunately still has to use them when plugged into the PC.
Hopefully I'll be posting videos of me flying under tables and beds fairly soon. Wish me luck, everyone.
Sorry for no content yet again, but in the meantime I'm getting better and better.
I can now speed up a bit, basically hover motionless in place after stopping from a dash and slowly but surely fly through two 22cm metal frames holding up a coffee table.
I'm not gonna lie, I am pretty much obsessed - absorbing FPV nerdiness like a sponge along with flying either every or every other day on all the batteries. The first person view part feels exactly, if not better, than I anticipated, and the additional dopamine from actually piloting a teeny tiny aircraft is currently frying my brain.
Jokes aside, it feels like a healthy hobby. A couple days ago I flew outside through the balcony for the first time, a couple of meters and back but that's that. To continue doing so, a day or two ago I brought the little quad to uni, because there's a fair bit of flat land with short grass, and it was really sunny. Works like a charm even in low to moderate wind. Unfortunately the wind picked up to a speed where I felt my clothes moving and the drone was basically stuck on permanent tilt even when using full power to rotate the other way.
My next plans are to continue flying inside my house, and to bring it outside I'll have a checklist I need to cover like checking video signal range to see if I can fly around the house from my room (5.8GHz doesn't really like thick walls) and also switching to 2S batteries (which I've got two of) to see if I can fight the weather.
Toodaloo everyone, til next time!
I can now speed up a bit, basically hover motionless in place after stopping from a dash and slowly but surely fly through two 22cm metal frames holding up a coffee table.
I'm not gonna lie, I am pretty much obsessed - absorbing FPV nerdiness like a sponge along with flying either every or every other day on all the batteries. The first person view part feels exactly, if not better, than I anticipated, and the additional dopamine from actually piloting a teeny tiny aircraft is currently frying my brain.
Jokes aside, it feels like a healthy hobby. A couple days ago I flew outside through the balcony for the first time, a couple of meters and back but that's that. To continue doing so, a day or two ago I brought the little quad to uni, because there's a fair bit of flat land with short grass, and it was really sunny. Works like a charm even in low to moderate wind. Unfortunately the wind picked up to a speed where I felt my clothes moving and the drone was basically stuck on permanent tilt even when using full power to rotate the other way.
My next plans are to continue flying inside my house, and to bring it outside I'll have a checklist I need to cover like checking video signal range to see if I can fly around the house from my room (5.8GHz doesn't really like thick walls) and also switching to 2S batteries (which I've got two of) to see if I can fight the weather.
Toodaloo everyone, til next time!