Rise of budget home build long range open source micro UAV

3689707263?profile=originalHey i'm back, some good news!  After many years of community development, searching and building most efficient UAV for eco mission with less money to spent finally months of testing and much witnessed by our FPV and UAV community a new era of super portable size autonomous drone was born.  Its last flight was covering at 72.6km in 90 minutes in stormy wet weather. The mini Wing Wing Z-84 (845mm) that was marketed as park flyer and surfing toy around beaches have found its new purpose.  Flown multiples of flights, distances, various weather condition and also spawn many variant for various mission this tiny Z-84  UAV proven that smaller fixed wing perform better, lighter and far more efficient both cost and mission task for less than USD$300 budget.  It has indirectly promoted and inspired home based drone builder community to jump into micro autonomous flight bandwagon and learn few things about robotic flights.  So far  community participation into building small sized UAV have been very positive and many people have already successfully flown their wings. 

3689707157?profile=originalThe use of autonomous flight controller such as APM/PX4 has risen.   Most people interested building this wonderful arm sized wing not because its cheap and tiny but also more simple to build as UAV than traditional FPV setup.   Plus the use of unconventional battery such as mythical Li-on battery have now widely use among commoner, breaking myth about its capability among fixed wing flyer thus the demand of Li-on battery on fixed wing now rises too.  This proven once again that small and cheap things matters.  It seems that more and more manufacturer started build delta wings to cater this latest trends among forumers online especially budget builders and budget aerial mapping capabilities.

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For those interested to build their own mini size UAV (Z-84) you can start reading some blog setup here.
Build links: http://www.supermotoxl.com/fpvuav-models-builds-and-flight-reviews/589-uav-wing-wing-z-84-845mm

Also you can join community of open builder for discussion, sharing and guides. 
Forum groups: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2725674-Wing-Wing-Z-84-%28845mm%29-72-6km-long-range-90-minutes-stormy-rain-flight

Other than for leisure flight, more people start to build it for portable long range aerial surveillance, forest conservation monitoring, ecology task, humanitarian works, wild life protection, off-shore piracy patrol and other mission that was once dominated by bigger and expensive UAV now been replace with more affordable and portable long range drone.  Ok thats all for my latest news this month.  We are right now working on our latest super light new fixed UAV project and classes for our young generation of UAV enthusiast.  So stay tuned for my latest updates and don't forget to join our communities of UAV builder at our forum.  Cheers.

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Comments

  • Thanks guys, yeah Pixracer will be my next goal for ultra micro fix wing project soon. :)

  • Nice bird David

  • If you like to run the latest version of the firmware, I strongly recommend you to get a Pixracer. It is amazing!

  • Oh btw i run on old mission planner on Windows that last works on V3.4.code.

  • Thanks Hein, I did try upload latest Arduplane code but came out an error due to incompatible  with Mini Pro.  However to my surprise some other people in Rcgroups.com forum did manage to run beyond V3.4 arduplane code on Mini Pro.  I don't dare to upgrade my firmware/code because mines perfectly flown stable with 3.4.

  • 100KM

    I've been following your videos for a while, great job. Can the APM Mini Pro run the latest Arduplane code?

  • Thanks, still have more project to go and waiting for flight permit for more longer distance flight.  Everyone in the community trying their best to build efficient and cheaper UAV and longer range capability.   We're going under 250gram soon as since electronics become more smaller and integrated plus compact power supply.

  • Just checked out the blog post, great write up. Thanks for posting

  • Moderator

    Nice job!

This reply was deleted.