My wonderful wife bought me a UDI U818A for Christmas. My goal is to build my own, but the task seemed daunting having never experienced one. She managed to choose one of the better models to begin with. The thing can take punishment, decent base, has mount holes for camera (mine didn't come with one, nor do I want the one provided), and it appears fairly hackable. Not only that but it is cheap here in China; $30.
So my journey of improving it begins and learning what I need to build my own will follow.
Well sorry for no updates folks, but my brother had parked the thing on top of a very tall tree in the creepy neighbor's yard back in June if I remember right.
If the neighbor was home I am sure he got a freight when my brother and I carrying ladder and very long tree limb cutter came marching to his house pounding on the door that night. Since he didn't die of a heart attack or call the cops when we were swinging about on the top of his deck on a ladder or walking on the roof, I will assume he wasn't.
So that explains the lack of activity. I wanted to stick with the same one as I had done a bit of work and research on it, so until I can gather the money and time there will continue to be a lack of activity.
Here is a tip though. Get rid of that protective top cover. Seriously. It is plenty strong without it, and all it does is give a tree the death grip hold on it. A few propellers broken or your quad permanently decorating a neighborhood tree?
Once I become a better pilot I think the most obvious step will be removing the top plastic guard plate. I estimate it would remove at least 1/4th the weight from the vehicle.
I plan to run a lift test in coming weeks with the hopes of seeing just how much weight can be added now. This would be in preparation for buying an extended battery. The only fault I see thus far is limited battery run time.
I have a small bluetooth camera, I think I am going to try and add that for the time being to try it out with eyes.
My end goal is an autonomous drone but I want to keep direct manual piloting viable. I certainly wish to implement my own controller, possibly I will need to reverse engineer the control protocol? I doubt it comes to that, this is popular and cheap enough that likely someone has already done it for me.
Once I become a better pilot I think the most obvious step will be removing the top plastic guard plate. I estimate it would remove at least 1/4th the weight from the vehicle.
I plan to run a lift test in coming weeks with the hopes of seeing just how much weight can be added now. This would be in preparation for buying an extended battery. The only fault I see thus far is limited battery run time.
I have a small bluetooth camera, I think I am going to try and add that for the time being to try it out with eyes.
My end goal is an autonomous drone but I want to keep direct manual piloting viable. I certainly wish to implement my own controller, possibly I will need to reverse engineer the control protocol? I doubt it comes to that, this is popular and cheap enough that likely someone has already done it for me.