best FPV setup on budget for a FT gremlin?

I have been watching flite test for about four years now and i have always been more into their content on planes. Recently I have started wanting to build a FPV quad copter, and what better quad to start with than the gremlin. Being new to quads I am also new to FPV and I always thought that all of their footage came straight out of their FPV cameras and that they saw that high quality straight out of there goggles. They have started showing more of the footage of what they actually see in the gremlin and in the tiny whoop videos and i was so confused because it looks so horrible and grainy, I don't understand how they can fly like that? I have been commenting back and fourth on youtube with one of their big watchers balu and he says that when you put the goggles on you dont notice the static and break up. I was wondering if this is true, and what a good fpv setup for a lower price is. I think im going use these goggles and just buy a new transmitter and camera because i dont think the one in this bundle is any good https://hobbyking.com/en_us/teleporterv5-fcc-kit.html if the camera and transmitter are good on this please let me know. if someone could respond that would be a big help.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
To be honest mate.. Best and Budget are two words that do not play well with each other in this hobby. Research research research before you buy anything.

I will give you a hint... Watch the you tube reviews and do NOT listen to what they say. Then go to the comment section and get REAL world answers to how the gear is. People who do reviews very seldom are doing it for the general population they are doing them for the company that makes the gear. They get free or discounted gear on the supposition they give it favorable reviews. Start with those teleporters and go from there.

Understand when you go "Budget" or "cheap" you get what you pay for. Cheap means you probably bought from banggood and have less then a 50% chance of it working out of the box. Budget means you got starter gear that will get you by but you will be less then satisfied and end up buying something better later on.

Save yourself the aggravation and extra cost and start with decent gear. Nothing says you have to to buy it all at once. I have decent gear and have bought most of what I got 20 - 50 dollars at a time. Trust me I Guarantee you are not more broke then I am.

That all said I am in the same boat as you when it came to getting a decent set up for the Gremlin that is reliable AND usable. Those AIO cameras in my opinion are garbage. That is one of the reasons I will NEVER by a CMOS camera again. CCD only. Currently I have a runcam swift micro for mine and I have been swapping vtx around. Get one with variable power. As far as antennas go the jury is out. Circular polarized are best but on the Gremlin they seem to be crash fodder(unless the design has some sort of protective cage) instead of props. On the AIO cameras they are not replaceable and more then likely not repairable as when the break they break the pcb they are attached to.

Hyperion AIO before any major damage so BEST case scenerio..


HS1177 CCD camera.


EDIT: Excuse my manors.. Welcome to Flite test mate. I did not realize this was your first post until I looked to make sure mine posted correctly.
 
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gremlins mini quad or micro quad

i was just wondering if the new gremlins were mini quads or are they small enough to be micro quads?


most racing quads are mini quads right?
 
camera quality

so in these videos if you were to up the quality of the camera would the video look better i understand there would still be static but would the environment look better or do you have to upgrade the receiver and the transmitter too?
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
The AIO micro cams are cmos cameras and do not come with the ability to change parameters for important things like Day / night change times. This above all else drives me bonkers going in and out of shadows. I have ocular migraines and the cmos cameras are an extremely harsh change over. You have to run the brightness and contrast high so when you get into shadows it does not go to really dark until the stock settings change then when you pop out of the shadows you are literally blinded until the camera senses the change and adjusts.

The difference is the CCD boards all the settings can be adjusted. I can set that day nigh change over and then adjust contrast so I can fly straight into the sun then dive under a tree without any noticeable changes. Then I can set colors to more closely match reality which again improves the grey scale things like shadows and makes ghost branches MUCH easier to see sooner.

Yes the runcam micro is going to weigh more and yes a better vtx will as well but the Gremlins have more then enough power to handle that. I have flown mine with a full size board camera, a run cam swift mini full size multi power vtx and 800 mah batteries from a 200 size helicopter. I have had it flying very agile and with respectable flight times at 187 g. My last video set up II used with 450 mah batteries dropped it down to 157 g and when I get around to putting the run cam micro on with a dedicated vtx it will drop even more.

If you are talking about resolution the best you are gonna see atm is 640 x 480 resolution the heavier board cameras will run 800 x 600 if you want to pay 500 + dollars for goggles THEN have to buy receivers after the fact. Anything higher then that was shot with an external action camera like a go pro or the run cams. Now understand this.. the video representation from a dvr is not going to be as good as what is actually in your goggles as that tech is really sub par still. Some goggles with built in dvrs have gotten better. I run an external dvr so that is the best I get but NOT the best I see.

Oh and as far as the vtx that will not change quality of the video just vary the range and reliability of the transmission. Good antennas are a huge factor and with the aios again the quality sucks not to mention the seriously high likelihood of snapping them off the firt time you flip over.
 
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Balu

Lurker
Staff member
Admin
Moderator
Hey,

nice to see that you found your way in here :). For me the Gremlins are kind of a mix between mini and micro. They are a little too big to fly them through the house comfortably unlike the Whoops. They can be quite fast, but not as fast as the minis usually get.

I also suggested to check if you can find FPVers closer to you to be able to test different types of goggles. The member map or the regional groups might help with that: http://forum.flitetest.com/forumdisplay.php?120-Find-Your-Fellow-Flite-Test-Fans-by-Region

"Big watcher" ;-)
 
would this be a good first FPV quad

So i found this on the FT stored and i was wondering if this was a good first FPV quad I think all i need is a battery and goggles i have a transmitter so ya https://store.flitetest.com/vortex-150/


i think im going to buy some fat sharks unless anyone can suggest something better in around the same price range
 
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sprzout

Knower of useless information
Mentor
Don't sweat it! There are no stupid questions, only stupid...People? No, that's where I work. LOL j/k

As for learning to fly on a toy grade quad, that's fine! I'll tell you that some people are really against it, but there ARE some benefits to it - namely, that you can learn how to fly when it's coming back at you (left is right, right is left, etc.) when flying line of sight (or LOS, as you may see abbreviated).

I'll chime in with my 2 cents on FPV cameras - the AIO cameras, you get what you pay for. They're cheap, they fill a niche, and then you learn about other options. :) On a micro quad (i.e., the TinyWhoop/Inductrix frames), the all-in-ones aren't a bad option; the quads are light, and while it's possible to kill the cameras, due to the weight and mass, they're pretty hard to damage seriously. Is the quality good? Eh...I've seen better on the larger quads, that's for certain.

As someone mentioned before, the RunCam Swift camera is a great way to go (all of the RunCam cameras are pretty darned good, as a matter of fact!), and would be ideal for the Gremlin. That said, it DOES up the cost of the Gremlin, which, I feel (and take it with a grain of salt, as this is my OPINION) isn't quite what Josh and the rest of the guys have in mind with trying to make RC flight fun and affordable, so that anyone can jump in.

Now, one thing that I see Balu touched on, and I'll bring up, is goggles - or more specifically, FPV headsets. I have seen a few people try to fly FPV looking at a screen attached to their transmitter, and it never seems to work for them for a myriad of reasons - it's too bright outside to see the screen, they start looking up from the screen to see the quad, or worse, they focus solely on their screen without paying any attention to the goings on around them.

(That is what spotters are for, by the way; highly recommended that you fly with one, as they can warn you of other aircraft near you, other objects outside of your field of vision like an incoming plane that's out of control, and they can also tell you where your craft went down if you crash)

So, you have 2 choices when it comes to headsets - either a bigger, box style goggle like the Quanum Cyclops goggles, or the smaller, separate screen goggles like the Fatshark series.

Both have their pluses and minuses. The box style goggles have to be longer, so as to effectively give you a good viewing distance without blurring your vision, but it also means that they're generally bigger and bulkier to wield and wear. Fatshark style goggles, from my experience, tend to be smaller screens, but clearer, and lighter, than the box style headsets; however, the decent pairs are in the $400 range, as opposed to $60 for the Cyclops V2 goggles (which are what I would recommend if you are starting out with FPV, and if you move up to Fatsharks, you have a backup pair of goggles for demos to people and ride-alongs)

Hopefully I didn't throw too much at you with all of this, but if ANY of it helps, I'm glad it does! And again, most of this is my opinion, so take it however you like...I'm sure some will disagree with it; it doesn't bother me. :)
 
so i think im going to take the advice of sprzout and if i decide to build a gremlin im going to get a runcam swift 2 and a pair of quanum cyclops FPV goggles and i have heard that you want to use polarized antennas so im going to get one of those for my goggles and one of those for my quad and the goggles say that they come with a built in receiver and i dont know if i need to put a better receiver on or if you even can upgrade the receiver on these goggles but i also need a recommendation for a good transmitter so if someone could tell me which transmitter they like that would be a big help. :D:D:D

goggles: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/quanum-cyclops-fpv-goggles.html

either this run cam: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/runcam-2-orange.html
or this run cam:https://hobbyking.com/en_us/runcam-swift-2-ntsc-black.html

i think the run cam 2 is better then the runcam swift 2?
 
FPV transmitters and receivers

Can anyone explain to me what makes a good FPV transmitter and receiver because at the moment i dont know how to show for them? :confused:
 
Components

I was wondering if anyone could give me just a general list of everything you need for a FPV setup. So far I understand that i need.

a receiver

a transmitter

goggles/monitor

A camera

a polarized antenna (polarized for best performance)

and i just heard about something called a five volt regulator that i know nothing about

If I am missing anything could you please let me know :confused:
 

ElectriSean

Eternal Student
Mentor
Technically all antennas are polarized, either linear or circular. For FPV, circular is best, assuming a matched set (left or right hand). A voltage regulator is used to change the voltage from whatever your battery is putting out, to a known stable voltage. many cameras and VTx's can happily operate on full battery voltage, so a regulator may not be required. Check the voltage specs on the equipment you want to run to make sure you are able to provide the correct voltage, else you may let the smoke out.