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I design and build my own quads, though I'm not a particularly great flier. The thing I love about the hobby is that it combines three key things:

* The control joy/mastery feeling you get from activities like car racing, riding a bike on technical terrain, playing a game, or flying a plane[1].

* A sufficient risk/reward profile; you risk smashing a $100 device, which is expensive enough to be interesting, but low enough not to be paralyzing

* The gearhead thrill of ordering, rebuilding, designing, and discovering new combinations of equipment

In my case, I want to optimize for quietness and unobtrusiveness, which means aiming for lightness, which is its own set of fun design problems - I'm currently down to 25 grams for a brushless FPV setup[2]. Now I'm on to redesigning the RC transmitter[3], since I want one with nice gimbals that takes up as little space in my bag as possible. The set of things you can do is endless.

[1] I hooked up an RC controller and went FPV with my home flightsim setup. It was fun, but there's a reason RC sticks are tiny - you need to move them around a lot more frequently and quickly than in a plane: https://twitter.com/gmurphy/status/832698732361551872

[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/BaSymwPH7XJ/

[3] https://www.instagram.com/p/BdnapxGltfw/




Nice clean build, what frame is that?

Just bought a pair of fly egg 100’s frames (not kits) for a tiny build but I was planning on deleting the “cage”.

The FrSky TX is quite a project too, very interesting. You got a write up or project page somewhere?


It's a 2g frame and camera mount I designed - you can download the plans here (the button next to the QTY selector): https://armattanproductions.com/pages/product_details/12158

The TX is a Jumper T8SG + FrSky M9 gimbals and recased into a 3D printed case I made. Haven't finished it yet (waiting on a third iteration to be printed), so writeup when I'm done :)


Loved the video. Was actually funny as well as being cool.

What's up with the old VHS-style interference? Is it an analog radio link?

EDIT: yep it is, I know the answer now I've read the article.


For the video in [1] are you continually adjusting the throttle to maintain altitude or does that quad have some sort of altitude hold?


Slight and continuous adjustments, though with a proper RC controller you can make faster and more accurate adjustments, so maintaining altitude would be much more accurate than all the wobbling you saw in the video :)




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