School me on custom quads.

[alpinehyperlite]

I am thinking i might rather build my own quad for flying my go pro around and doing some fpv flying over purchasing one rtf. Thoughts? Price differences? Which would be better? If custom is better and price is not too bad, where to start?

 

[hamz9561]

One of the biggest advantages of the custom multi-rotor is that you get to choose the electronics. I know that some people dislike some flight controllers, RXs and ESCs. This way you can use what you like. Another advantage is that you can use an extended frame that a lot of the guys here like for video.

 

[alpinehyperlite]

But is the price point comparable between purchasing vs building? You can get a ready to fly rig with GPS and a large enough lift capacity to carry a decent camera such as a go-pro for under $500.

Once you get the GPS modules, radio/reciever, all electronics and air frame are you really going to be ahead by that much?

 

[hamz9561]

It's about the same price-wise. It's like building any other kit in that you choose which components you use.

 

[HPIguy]

In addition to what hamz said, Alpine, the biggest advantage to a kit, is that I trust my building skills (and yours as well) more than the 7yos that build the RTF quads in some sweat shop in China. Once you start putting FPV gear and a GoPro onboard, it's pretty easy to have $1,000 - $1,500 hanging in the air, and I simply don't trust any RTF quad with that much of my hard earned money. As far as GPS goes, its hit and miss if you read a lot of FPV / flight forums. It's just as likely to fly your quad and gear back to China as it is to safely fly it back home unassisted. I had two instances of my DJI Naza (Nada IMO) going nuts, once falling out of the sky completely at about 250 feet up. I will never fly another DJI flight controller, I only fly Openpilot FCs at this point, and I have never, ever had one do anything out of the ordinary. They are built to a higher standard, plain and simple.I use Google earth and get a feel for my flight path from an aerial view beforehand, and have a handheld spectrum analyzer that I scan the area (for all the frequencies I plan to use during my flight) I plan to fly beforehand also. If I come across as a quad snob, then so be it, I'm just relating my own real world experiences, and trying to save you some heartache as a friend.

There was a post on a FPV forum once that read something like the following;

Take $2,000 and put it into a jar. Place said jar somewhere you walk by it many, many times every day. Do this for an entire month. At the end of that month, grab the jar and get in your car. Drive to the highest point you have nearby (preferably a bridge) and throw the jar off. Do not look where it went, or concern yourself with it, simply get back in your car and drive home. If you can sleep well that night, then you're ready for FPV.

I got into FPV last year after taking a class in RF theory, and that helped immensely. You will need to know about things like radio wave penetration, multipathing, secondary harmonics, signal to noise ratio, db gain and such if you plan to fly very far away from your ground station. I'm still very much a noob, but I've never lost any gear due to a lot of homework and research on my part, and taking baby steps with my flying. And I'm happy to help if I can, just gimme a shout.

 

[override]

Just a simple thought on your questions about cost....My buddy started out with a blade 350qx and sold it to me after doing his first built quad, not long after I had it I realized that while these companies making these quads are good and have nice features the proprietary nonsense can get pretty pricey, pretty quick. After flying and recording video (gopro) with my blade I must say that all the return to home, GPS, compass, safe flying features these quads come with can be nice but well in the end not really worth it IMO. Unless your looking to go all out and start an aerial photography business then why get all those gadgets? If you get just even a KK2 board, it is equipped with self level, which if tuned properly actually works really well. Learn your orientation and take it easy on the sticks and you now have a drone that can do anything you want, is easy and cheap to fix and has the electronics that you deem necessary. In the end you can build yourself a quad or tri or whatever suits your taste and do FPV or aerial recording fairly cheap. Take my Tri for example, I have about $300 into that build and with the way it is designed the most I will be replacing in light crashes is zip-ties. I have already broken a few in my maiden flight today, and let me say it's really nice to just grab a 5 cent zip-tie out of your bag and put it on then having to pack up and head home because a landing gear or arm broke.

My blade on the other hand I had spent atleast $30 a pop, three different times having to replace a cracked frame. The DJI's are becoming more known to have glitches and falling out of the sky reports. The bebop parrot drone seems to be doing well but again it is proprietary so when something breaks your not spending whatever designated costs these companies put on the replacement parts. Now the DJI stuff may be due to user error but heck why chance it? Build yourself a drone and build it the way you want it. You will be pleasantly surprised and come out a little cheaper in the end, depending on how you build it...NOT to mention it is fun getting to build stuff!!!

As far as radio equipment goes, if you get a quad that comes with a say spektrum brand then you will be getting the cheap of the cheap transmitter. If you get a quad such as the DJI and maybe even say the Parrot or the Walkera then you are still getting a proprietary TX or a bottom of the line TX. Spend your money well and research brands, go with something that has features and enough channels to support what you want to do and you will have a TX that will last you for years to come. It's a one time expense and then use it with whatever you decide to build. Consider looking at Walkera's line of Devention transmitters, well except the Devo7, stay away from that one. I have the Devo12s and the best thing about these TX's is that you can upload deviation firmware on them and have protocols for many different RX's

 

[Rolex]

nice to just grab a 5 cent zip-tie out of your bag and put it on

You're paying way too much for zip ties.

 

[override]

lmao @Rolex, heck Idk how much they cost each...lets see a pack of 100 @ $1.50. $1.50\100=.015 cents each

 

[Greywolf74]

Rolex secretly pays extra for pre-waxed zip ties...

you making me want to build a decacopter!