Building my first hexacopter

Hi everyone,

I'm new to these sort of projects, and I'm trying to prepare all the components I need to build a hexacopter. I'm looking to buy the jD-Simplex Hexa (RTF) from jDrones, with the upgraded motors, ESCs, and the 12x45 props. I'm also planning on purchasing the radio set with it. However, I'm in a dilemma about the battery I should get and what the flight time will be. I've read almost everything I can about how to select a battery and how to calculate the flight time.

With the upgraded motors and ESCs, I'm thinking I need a 8000 mAh 3S1P 30C battery, because  8 Ah * 30C = 240 A, and the ESCs run on 30 A (so 30*6=180). Can someone clarify this selection for me?

Also, if I calculated correctly, this copter at 75% throttle will have about 4.5 minutes of flight (with the 8000 mAh battery). Does anyone that has experience with this drone have a longer flight time than that?

Thanks so much,

Kate

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Replies

  • for 1245 props, you can use 4s battery to increase endurance

    • Sounds awesome, I'll look into it. Thanks, Ye!

  • This reply was deleted.
    • Good to know. I'm getting a lot more encouragement towards buying a quad than a hexa. Thanks!

  • Hi,

    Are you completely new to multi-rotor craft? Have you flown any kind of rc helicopter before? If you are new, just a word to the wise. Build something smaller and cheaper to cut your teeth on. It's amazing how easy it is to crash on your first flight, all it takes is a bit of mis tuning, mis configuration, a small mistake somewhere, an unexpected component failure, inexperience with helicopter/multi-rotor flight.. and your $900+ hexa would turn into a very expensive bonfire on the ground. I absolutely don't want to discourage you, but do consider a smaller much cheaper build to make your first experiences on. You can get a multi-rotor in the air for less than $100 (excluding flight controller/GPS and remote) and make some great learning experiences without the pain of seeing that beauty come crashing down.

    All this assumes you are truly new to the hobby and I don't mean to patronise. Anyway, enjoy and good luck, you're in for what can be a very fun and rewarding learning experience.

    • Felixrising,

      I appreciate your concern as I am new to copters in general. However, I'm an intern at the company I work for and this is my summer project, and my mentors prefer a hexa right now. I'm probably going to ask them to buy me a small quad with a lot of durability first to practice with before trying to fly the hexa. Although, I am hearing a lot about how quads are generally more efficient than hexas, so I might try talking them into that instead.

      Thanks for the advice!

    • This reply was deleted.
      • Will,

        Getting the jDrones hex RTF is pretty much my plan, thanks for letting me know that it's a pretty solid path for my first time. I looked into the Pixhawk but it doesn't seem to have much programming flexibility? I liked the APM because I can go in there and change the code if I want. (btw, I'm not happy about Stargate being gone either).

        Thanks!!

  • That's a great news :) more girls here, try FPV is just amazing :).

    I have to put a profile photo :)

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