I have started in a cost effective way!
I present a used Turnigy Micro Quad, with an upturned plastic container with cutouts to fit over the KK2 board, receiver and HK wing cam HD (720p). It's squishy in there but it will do.
The whole lot is sprayed black, mainly to hide the 'used' look and the recycled plastic container from what they really are.
I did all this without ever flying it, because I didn't have my Spektrum DX6i yet. In the meantime I have got it, following a frustrating adjustment at the weekend, all I managed to do was ascertain that one of the ESCs doesn't work and that even these little ones can be dangerous beasts. I accidentally launched it with the remaining 3 motors at full stick into my face. Luckily my hand got in the way and all I got out of it was a broken prop and a small cut on the hand.
The saga continues.
Comments
OK, I'm going to put this comment on here to follow on from Antonie's comment about the HD Wing Cam.
Now I've moved onto GPS flight, I can definitely say that the GPS UBLOX LEA-6M is taking a long time to get a lock and drops out a fair bit, So I'm more and more convinced that the camera is not good.
Couple this with the fact that it's really not 720p. It's definitely interpolated from some lower resolution. I spent a lot of time focusing the lens and have definitely found the sweet spot, but the videos are still crappy. Couple this with it constantly turning itself off and the battery issue I had (died more or less a week after I got it) leads me to strongly recommend not buying the camera. I think I'll move to the hobbyking keychain because even though it's 480p, the quality is definitely better.
Finally managed my first outdoor flight. Camera was a bit of a let down because it ran out of juice only a few minutes into recording. I had charged it for an hour only so my own fault. But I missed the spectacular flight over the neighbours rooftops where I lost orientation (small quad size) and only just managed to recover it. Totally wild flight but lots of fun.
Thanks for the advice. Can't say I am surprised, it's very rudimentary.
Must say, 40$ is very cheap for the camera, but the constant battery drain is annoying. Doesn't hold a charge overnight :-( and it doesn't last the 3 hours claimed either, more like 25mins. More than my quad batteries will last anyway so not that worried at the moment.
I was able to finally adjust it and get flying in the lounge room for the first time. Learning very fast. Had some initial teething problems with the connections to the motors breaking at the solder. Clearly a problem affecting a used / 2nd hand device.
Next step, keep learning to fly and start taking videos....
Step after that is, probably build a H-quad (search on flitetest.com) which is a nice platform for arducopter and FPV that has more payload space than a standard quad. Or jump across to something like a Bixler for FPV and winged flight practice.
Hi Aran,
You need to be carefull of that wing cam when you move onto gps guided flight. It is extremely noisy and actually "jams" the GPS signal at close proximity. I use mine now on the edge of the main wing of my 2m bird - in manual flight. I'm not sure what the effect might be on the IMU sensors or the receiver. There is a thread with a good video of the effect of this cam on a APM GPS.
Good luck