Cheap and Easy DIY illuminated air gates for micro quads (Part 1 of DIY airgates)

muteFPV

youtube.com/muteFPV
(Part 1: Fast & Cheap DIY airgates)

When trying to improve your skills of flying a micro quad, nothing compares to flying in a more restricted, tight and challenging route. In other words, some kind of a race course.
This is where airgates come in handy. Gates which you can move around and arrange to your liking each and every time you want to fly, creating courses that will improve your flying experience and learning curve, as well as allow you to focus on specific flying skills and practice individual moves.

Ready-made solutions are not that affordable, nor easy to find - especially illuminated options.
The goal here is to have an illuminated solution, lightweight and easy to carry around, sturdy and resistant to crashes, modular, easy to use and most importantly: easy and cheap to make.

With this first part of a DIY airgates series I hope to have nailed all of the above requirements.
It was an Xmas Special, published on my youtube channel in December. I had not realized how much the multirotor community here on FT has grown and I am happy to finally become a member of it as well :)

You can watch the complete QUICK GUIDE: How to make illuminated air gates for micro quads - Part 1: Fast & Cheap illuminated DIY airgates video here:

You can find some LED string options here:
Simple 2xAA battery white LED string: https://goo.gl/E89Xs8
2xAA battery colored LED string #1: https://goo.gl/7RBm6t
2xAA battery colored LED string #2: https://goo.gl/ygpYHB
Button-cell battery colored LED string #1: https://goo.gl/2MxIP9
Button-cell battery colored LED string #2: https://goo.gl/7WGZy0

Hula hoops and clothes-hangers should be better sourced locally, due to shipping costs. Just make sure that the hula hoops are made of translucent plastic, so that the LEDs are able to glow. Also the rubber coating on the hangers ensure that the stands/hooks stay put inside the hula hoop tubes and that the air gate itself does not move much on impact in case of a crash.