Just bought a referbished dji f 450 kit. Going to build it up and hopefully have some fun with it.

Anyone got any experience with them to offer to share.

It hasn’t been a whim thing, and I know there are lots of forums out there on them but sometimes when your new to something that amount of info is blinding. Sort of not being able to see the forest for the trees as Huey Lewis sang!

Thanks

I’ve built a bunch of Mikrokopters, and worked on some Droidworx ones. Best as vice I can give with all helicopters is learn to fly first 😉

You can get a bunch of good simulators where you plug in your transmitter (or a dummy USB one) and learn how to fly first before you try the real thing, when helicopter flying goes wrong, it gets very expensive very quickly.

Best advise is get a good rc controller. I built a quad a few years ago using an old 4 channel system I had. During a test flight all four motors went to 100% on and it shot up at about 2000mph, just missing my face. I can only guess it was some interference from somewhere.

Not built my own, got a few off-the-peg ones though.
Have a look at this thread:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/quadrocopter-whos-got-one

Second what bencooper says about learning to fly on something small and cheap! Hubsan is ideal. At least that way when you’ve got several hundred ££ of camera on the bottom of a big one you know what direction to turn it when you’re approaching a tree!

That’s, what software did you use for this??

Out of interest, why ‘quad’copters? wouldn’t a tricopter allow for the same level of control (given the clever mixing available to provide all axis control, the same as with 4 rotors)?

You want an even number of rotors to prevent counterrotation – half rotate clockwise, half rotate anticlockwise.

Right, that makes sense. Thanks. Curiosity sated 🙂

You want an even number of rotors to prevent counterrotation – half rotate clockwise, half rotate anticlockwise.

But you can put the ‘odd’ motor on a pivot, controlled by a servo, to provide a bit of side thrust to counteract the rotation of the other two.

Most, if not all ‘copters are even numbered, quad-, hexa-, octo-.

Second what bencooper says about learning to fly on something small and cheap! Hubsan is ideal. At least that way when you’ve got several hundred ££ of camera on the bottom of a big one you know what direction to turn it when you’re approaching a tree!

Not much good when you lose power over open ocean while filming surfers!
Can get quite expensive, even if you manage to retrieve the ‘copter and camera; one photographer’s lost two, so far.

But you can put the ‘odd’ motor on a pivot, controlled by a servo, to provide a bit of side thrust to counteract the rotation of the other two.

You could, but the real advantage of multi-rotor helicopters is the simplicity – I’ve got a Hexa in the shop, and it has six* moving parts, the six direct-drive props. All control is done electronically – start adding pivots and linkages, and you lose that advantage.

*not counting the gyro-stabilised camera mount, but that’s not flight critical.

Can get quite expensive, even if you manage to retrieve the ‘copter and camera; one photographer’s lost two, so far.

Some of the stories on the Mikrokopter forums are sobering – like the person who used the come-home feature on his €5000 copter, forgetting that he was 200 miles from home, and could only watch it head over the horizon…

Some of the stories on the Mikrokopter forums are sobering – like the person who used the come-home feature on his €5000 copter, forgetting that he was 200 miles from home, and could only watch it head over the horizon…

Surely it recalibrates “home” every time it takes off? Mine does. Start it up fresh and it resets all its gyros, GPS and compass so it knows where it’s starting from…

Depends on the setup – I’ve normally had it set like that, but it can also use fixed waypoints – perhaps that’s what happened.

You could, but the real advantage of multi-rotor helicopters is the simplicity

Agreed, but you gain on flight time, the servo uses less current then the 4th motor. They were more popular a few years, less so now, just google tricopters.

I bought a little hubsan to get the feel for flying one while I was building and waiting on parts for my F330 flame wheel from Hobby king. I now have a TBS discovery frame that I am building up too. I am still learning mind! I just ordered some FPV gear which I’m looking forward to using this summer.

Will you be using a Naza flight controller?

No. A kk2.1 think this is the one. Know it doesn’t have the options of the naza but its ok for my first one.

Agreed, but you gain on flight time, the servo uses less current then the 4th motor. They were more popular a few years, less so now, just google tricopters.

Surely with four motors, for the same load, each motor would draw 3/4 of the current of a three-motor helicopter? In fact it’d be worse for a three-rotor as it’s having to angle the thrust from one motor to stay stable, and it’s carrying a servo and linkages which are extra weight.

I think it might have been a solution that made sense in the past for less efficient motors and speed control systems – in fact that might be the advantage of a three-motor, it doesn’t need the sophisticated fine control of motor speed.

Electric motors are more efficient a higher outputs though, aren’t they – eg running at full power rather than 3/4 power, no?

Depends on the control system, but usually the efficiency doesn’t begin to drop noticeably until you’re below about 40-50%. Of course you could just use smaller motors and run them harder 😉

In reality of course, you don’t often run motors at full power – you need a healthy margin to cope with different payloads and flight conditions.

just a query
can you do …stunts on them big ones ….
got a wee twister quadcopter and its a stunt happy
but tits useless outside not enuff balls

You can, but you usually need to disable some safety features – they usually have tilt limits and the like built in.

You also have to think through whether you want to be doing stunts with something so expensive 😉

Little ones bounce – big ones splat/shatter/kill

Little ones bounce – big ones splat/shatter/kill

This is true. I built a bunch of them a few years ago, but interest has died down a lot since the CAA started regulating and licensing commercial flying of them.

I’ve seen what they can do to tree branches – hate to think what they can do to a person. Carbon fibre blades spinning at 6000rpm, attached to a helicopter that can do 60mph.

Coincidentally, many years ago, I sold my first ever recumbent to an ex-SAS (or similar) bloke, who was a complete nutter. Him and his mate would take big petrol helis to the rugby pitch, stand at opposite ends, and try to hit each other. He had a big chunk missing out of his shoulder where his mate’s heli had clipped him.

RC Helicopter duel? Sounds lethal!

OP: KK2 is a good little board its what I started with on my first quad, easy to tweak PID settings etc when out using it thanks to the screen built into it.