In the world of RC vehicles Google is your friend. There are loads of sites out there that have some very dedicated RC hobbyists that are more than happy to answer questions from basic to quite complex. One of the first that I visited was DIY Drones. They are the place to go for projects that involve autonomous flight and using FPV (first person video). There are loads of other sites and forums.
I read a ton of information on what people were doing and I decided that I wanted to do the following:
- Build a vehicle from the ground up.
- Record and watch FPV from the vehicle.
- Have the ability to do autonomous flight.
Basically I want to build a UAV (i.e., drone) with FPV capabilities. Sounds cool, huh?
Plane, Heli, or Multicopter? The plane looks to be the easiest as there are many available kits and there seems to be the largest community. However, it also seems to be the one that requires the most open space to operate and test. A bigger helicopter was my next thought, but the support community doesn't seem that big and I've read that many inexperienced pilots had crashed many, many times. Also, you basically just build a kit and there is very little customization for someone who is new to the game. Then I stumbled on a forum post about multicopters - and a quad in particular. The poster made the case that multicopters were easy to build, fly, and customize and were relatively durable compared to other serious vehicles. They also give good lifting power. He recommended me to start with a quad because it has the least number of propellers, motors, etc.
So that was it - I decided to build a quadcopter. Now all I have to do is figure out what the hell I need to buy to make this happen. A review of what I ordered will come in the next post, and I'll have a tab linking to everything I've ordered and used.
No comments:
Post a Comment