DIY FPV Drones: A complete how-to and build log

Update: Just bought the rest of the bits and bobs I need to assemble the thing.

So far running total:

Pi 3 with V2 camera and 8GB SD card: R950
なぜ32 board with barometer: R420
USB-microUSB adapter: R10
4x Xnova 22mm x 6mm BLDCs with 30A ESC: R3140
Various prop diameters and screw ratios (like 12 sets I think): R350
250mm carbon frame (too lazy to get one cut from aluminium): R430
A really, really big ~4500 mAh 4 cell LiPo: R1800
Xbox One wired controller: R720

Total = R7820

Costs not included:
Solder (going to actually use quite a bit later when doing the power distribution): ~R200?
Hot glue (lots of this later): ~R100?
PLA plastic to 3D print some holders for the Pi and camera: ~R50?
Coffee: ~Rxxx ?

So call it at this stage I think I have all the things I need for R8170. By playing with the different props I'm hoping to find the most efficient setup for thrust when carrying a payload (specifically a fairly bulky Nikon DSLR - also something the Pi can control... :) ). Im almost certainly going to buy a couple more batteries for it and slap it on the chassis too. Right now the motors will produce waaaay more thrust than necessary at the moment (napkin maths says that the drone will have enough thrust to accelerate vertically at 2g with just the one battery back.... I'm having one of those this "thing is going to be insane" and "this is why people keep making laws to stop you people doing these sorts of things" moments).
 
agentrfr said:
Update: Just bought the rest of the bits and bobs I need to assemble the thing.
...
Total = R7820

Costs not included:
Solder (going to actually use quite a bit later when doing the power distribution): ~R200?
Hot glue (lots of this later): ~R100?
PLA plastic to 3D print some holders for the Pi and camera: ~R50?
Coffee: ~R9200.00

...

stop you people doing these sorts of things" moments).
Click to expand...

It s fun and entertaining and not very easy. Everything needs to be balanced. you mostly get written software to control the Copter. Just imagine of you were still to code it...
 
Magnum said:
It s fun and entertaining and not very easy. Everything needs to be balanced. you mostly get written software to control the Copter. Just imagine of you were still to code it...
Click to expand...

We are coding it, more or less from scratch ourselves...

UPDATE:

Some pictures, too busy coding libraries for the Pi. I'll post some more info stuff later when I feel up to it :)

View attachment 369911
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View attachment 369921

By my count we're currently using 9 languages and protocols:

Bash/raspivid for the camera encoding to h264
netcat to do the streams
l2tp/ipsec encryption of said streams
udp contoller data
*secret sauce code*
python for scripting
c# and c++ for serial comms
matlab for xbox controller capture
multiwii serial comms to/from the なぜ board

It's been a fun last couple of days :p
 
Looks awesome! What kind of flight time are you looking at? I am interested in a proper drone/quadcopter that can fly for more than 5 minutes at a time, not so much the FPV part although I don't mind that :)
 
Very cool Agent. Just a question what are you doing with the PI 3 and a camera? I'm assuming its not for FPV as that will be too slow.
 
Here it is flying in the garden this evening :D

[video=youtube_share;ZRccgYZjlHA]https://youtu.be/ZRccgYZjlHA[/video]

furpile said:
Looks awesome! What kind of flight time are you looking at? I am interested in a proper drone/quadcopter that can fly for more than 5 minutes at a time, not so much the FPV part although I don't mind that :)
Click to expand...

Flight time currently without lugging a DSLR camera around on a gimbal is about 25 minutes. With the payload flight time is about 15 minutes :)

TheGuy said:
Very cool Agent. Just a question what are you doing with the PI 3 and a camera? I'm assuming its not for FPV as that will be too slow.
Click to expand...

Nope, Pi3 can do 1080p30 video at about 30mb/s, and 720p60 at about 20mb/s just fine :D . Delay on the 720p60 stream is about 20ms, so just over a single frame :)

Here's a playlist of the FPV feed if anyone is interested. Youtube is downscaling the 720p60 20mb/s video to 30fps ~ 2mb/s .... not quite sure how to make it more like the source video :/
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL67l7ApLaYuQIusWmbvft-RTdybf7Q4eR
 
Last edited:
Looking good.
Whats the plan for this one, I gather its not just a hobby?
 
Beachless said:
Looking good.
Whats the plan for this one, I gather its not just a hobby?
Click to expand...

We're just buggering around for now. I'm a Chem Eng, not an Elec Eng, so for me this is more about learning things in a parallel field.

That being said I don't see why not to make this thing semi-open source, and if people want to use our code some royalties would be really nice.
 
Just finished building mine this weekend.

Bit of a mish mash of ****

RX/TX
Laptop running an app I made to get DualShock 4 input and convert it to a value in the 1000-2000 range.
Sends it over USB to an Arduino UNO that converts it to PPM.
That sends it over a wire to a OrangeRX 433 LRS transmitter.
Which goes to another OrangeRX 433 LRS transmitter converted to a receiver.
That sends PPM to the Naze32 R6.

Video RX/TX
SJCAM5000 TV Out over micro USB to 5.8 transmitter.
FR632 runs off of a spare battery and AV outs to one of those cheap Chinese USB video grabbers.
VirtualDUb runs on the laptop capturing footage from the USB grabber.


Waiting for a decent day to go test this thing.
IMG_20160903_173004.jpg
IMG_20160903_173007.jpg
 
rorz0r said:
This thread could us an update....
Click to expand...

Busy working on some proprietary stuff at the moment, also have a new frame on the way for muuuuch larger payloads (3kg-ish). I'll update when we're in the sky again :)

Noah said:
Just finished building mine this weekend.

Bit of a mish mash of ****

RX/TX
Laptop running an app I made to get DualShock 4 input and convert it to a value in the 1000-2000 range.
Sends it over USB to an Arduino UNO that converts it to PPM.
That sends it over a wire to a OrangeRX 433 LRS transmitter.
Which goes to another OrangeRX 433 LRS transmitter converted to a receiver.
That sends PPM to the Naze32 R6.

Video RX/TX
SJCAM5000 TV Out over micro USB to 5.8 transmitter.
FR632 runs off of a spare battery and AV outs to one of those cheap Chinese USB video grabbers.
VirtualDUb runs on the laptop capturing footage from the USB grabber.


Waiting for a decent day to go test this thing.
Click to expand...

I challenge you to a race sometime in the future :)
 
Got most of the stuff delivered on the weekend - had a few hours to start the process

Phantom 3 for scale :)

WP_20161007_14_30_48_Rich.jpg

I'll post more as the project gets further ahead, promise. Just busy with IRL
 
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