Oaktree's venture into the world of RC Quadcopters

oaktree

Junior Member
Since it was FliteTest on Youtube that got me interested in RC and "forced" me to start this hobby, I figured I would log my progress here on flitetest forum >.<;;


My adventure starts with 2 years of watching FliteTest videos and drooling over the RC vehicles :p

After being really bored one 4 day weekend... I decided to plunge into the world of RC quadcopter....

Here is where I am glad I listened to the podcasts.

I wanted to get into FPV racequads, but I decided not to fly the 250 quad right away (although I bought it at the same time >.<;;)

I bought 3 quads in total at once and after browsing the forum a bit, a Taranis Plus


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A cheap nanoquad from HobbyKing.
I flew this about 5 batteries which equal about 30~40 minutes.
I realized that flying a quad is very very difficult...
Especially when your battery runs out in 5 minutes. After few tries, I finally got it to hover, but then realized I had to constantly correct the throttle because the battery will lose power >.<;;
So i moved on to the next quad.

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This one was a lot easier to control and more stable than the previous one, mainly because it has more battery capacity and was larger. I went through about 5 batteries worth, which is equivalent to about an hour of flying.
I was able to hover, go back and forth, and walk the dog..., but the moment I made the quad face anywhere but the "front", I lost orientation and crashed...
I guess I have a lot more practicing to do >.<;;


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I knew I was moving on too fast, but I just wanted to see how the 250 size quad felt like.
After I set up everything on the taranis, and the quad, I decided to maiden it today.

I was still terrible, and went too high while practicing to hover... It hit a branch, and I cut the throttle...
Fortunately, the quad landed on its feet, and only the landing pegs fell off the arms. I lost one of the feet in the grass but no major damage to the quad as shown below ^.^

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I got too scared to fly it again... and decided to go back to the smaller quad until I get better at flying things... >.<;;



Well that's it for now... Maybe I will get better...


If anyone has any advice for a beginner at RC in general like me, please let me know ^.^


-Oaktree-
 

Greg2B

Senior Member
I would say stick to your middle size quad for a while until you have the basics down. FliteTest has a video on learning to fly quad and different techniques you should be able to do before you want to move. If I can find the link I will add it or someone else will find it first.

You will probably want to give your 250 another go pretty soon but help to at least be able to hover and do simple circuits with smaller quad that cause less damage can cash before doing it with the larger quad. They will get a bit boring after a while though. Also learning to fly in manual mode without stabilization is something I wish I had done more of in the beginning. Not sure if your middle quad can do that but I would look into that since it's the seems to be he natural progression if you want to get really good.

I'm still pretty new and just at the point of practicing flying fpv manually. The flight test video wasn't out when I started either so I did a bit different route. My progression was hubsans(3) for LOS > turnigy quad with a KK Board(to get the real quad feel) > Hubsan fpv (first fpv) > > SSH QUad(which I used parts from previous quads and made it a fpv quad, my first build)> NanoQX (to get the feel of real quad on manual that I wouldn't break in 2 seconds like the Turnigy quad) > Blackout 250(real fpv race quad) > More quads.

Breaking that down make it seem like I really dragged it out. I think the way your going is probably better and will save you a bunch of money just have to practice until you feel comfortable to move up with your bigger quad. Then I would just practice with it since its what you will be using the most in the future probably.

Hope that helps and I'm sure some of the more experienced people will chime in.
 

Darkback2

New member
Jumping in like that is awesome, but you can quickly become overwhelmed. I started out sort of the opposite of you, with an AR-drone. It was sort of like a dream come true until I tried to really fly it, and then it felt like a toy. I then moved on to a DJI phantom and fell in love with the hobby. I have flown that for well over a year and felt really comfortable because it gave me so much assistance flying. It was like learning to ride a bike with training wheels on. I even added FPV to it. I joined a couple friends who fly FPV and went flying with them a few times and sort of figured out how bad I was, and how much the training wheels where holding me back. Then back in November I got a Hubsan FPV and practiced flying in the house. I got 7 batteries for it, two originally and a 5 pack a few weeks later. Best thing ever in terms of learning how to fly. I could fly for a few hours inside the house on rainy days. I set up a race course figure 8 loop through the house with gaps and obstacles. Earlier this year I cleared out some space in my woods and set up a micro FPV course through there also. This really made me love flying and gave me a whole lot of confidence.

Recently I built a scratch built mini quad. I am still working out the kinks, but I am glad I spent so much time flying with the other ones before jumping into this one.

My advice to you would be to buy a lot more batteries for your nano quad and fly the heck out of it. When you aren't flying that fly your mid sized quad outside as often as you can. I try to think like I am the quad and give it the inputs based on that. Thinking that way seams to help though I do sometimes get disoriented.

Really for me it is a matter of my remembering to be humble. I know that I can't just pick up a controller and fly like some of the guys on this forum. I will need years to remold my brain and train my muscles to be able to fly intuitively.

Hope this helps, and I am glad you found this hobby.

DB
 

oaktree

Junior Member
Thank you guys for the advice ^.^

I practiced more with the Q micro, and I got pretty comfortable with it. :)


I tried the HK 250 quad again.
It uses CC3D and openpilot, and I had to reconfigure the board, because there was a system configuration critical error.

And when I went out to fly it again, it seemed that the "front" of the quad has been reversed. >.<;;

Which was fine, since I just have to reorient myself, but what was weirder was that the quad seemed to be fighting against my control.

at first, it would not really move other than hover. Then later it would drift to one corner, and when I give an input to compensate, it would hover in place at best, even when I give full stick movement to the opposite direction of the drift.

I got very confused, and gave up for now, and practiced more with the micro.

I guess I need to dig through Openpilot again to figure out what is going on.

>.<;;
 

Darkback2

New member
These things can be really frustrating and confusing especially when you are first starting out. You don't know enough to know what you don't know, and one change in one setting can get you all sorts of messed up and make things completely unusable. The funniest part here is that I constantly need to remind myself that I am making a thing that can fly. Once I realize just how magical that part is the rest sort of relaxes and falls away.

If possible record a video demonstrating what your quad is doing, have someone else hold the camera and try to document the behaviors. Then post a series of screen shots of your software. I am sure someone on this forum has experience enough to tell you how to change your setup in order to make things work properly.

Best of luck!

DB