drone pilots / FPV quad and plane

[hoosierdoc]

A nurse friend bought the Phantom 2 and her husband/family is going nuts over it. They fly around their farm neighborhood, takes incredible footage. If got out of range once and automatically came back home.

 

[Lebowski]

A nurse friend bought the Phantom 2 and her husband/family is going nuts over it. They fly around their farm neighborhood, takes incredible footage. If got out of range once and automatically came back home.

They're a great complete package. Lot of people love them. Unfortunately all the bad press quadcopters and what not get are 90% due to Phantom owners who just sort of go crazy with them. (Flying them near airports, around emergency helicopters, into tall buildings, into the historic geysers at famous national parks, etc, etc)

I wish I had some of the functions the Phantoms have. The return to home and GPS functions are great. The flight controller they have are pretty awesome too from what I hear. Next thing I update on mine is the flight controller so I can have more features (like return to home, altitude hold, gps, etc).

Soon I'll be building a little FPV mini quad. Something small and fast. I want to zip around some fields at high speeds and try my luck at weaving in/out of trees and stuff.

 

[hoosierdoc]

Can you swap out for a night-vision camera on that?

 

[Lebowski]

Can you swap out for a night-vision camera on that?

Hmm, probably. The FPV camera is a little Sony CCD camera that does surprisingly well at night. It's not 'night vision', but I got it wired up and walked down the road with the camera and transmitter and battery and the footage on the monitor back home was quite good even in low light. Could be adjusted some too with a little program board that came with it.

 

[mammynun]

Can you swap out for a night-vision camera on that?

I suspect that any NV camera that a consumer RC vehicle could lift would also require an IR illuminator? I don't have any special knowledge about the lift capacity of quads, but I do know my PVS-14 weighs a LOT more than my GoPro! I have a Sony miniDV camcorder with "Nightshot" and it benefits greatly from supplemental IR illumination; it's also heavier than a PVS-14. IMO, thermal would be the way to go if you have something that will lift it for any length of time.

 

[rex soldier]

I just did a 1 mile flight last night with no IR on a day and night sony camera. Worked better than I thought I would have with no natural light out .

There was a thread in another fourm where i guy had some crazy IR lights on the front of it, but I have no idea if it would work.

I do know with a full moon out and a clear sky i should be able to see very good almost as good as day time.

 

[rex soldier]

Soon I'll be building a little FPV mini quad. Something small and fast. I want to zip around some fields at high speeds and try my luck at weaving in/out of trees and stuff.

Blackout ?

 

[Lebowski]

Blackout ?

Not for sure... the frames are quite pricey, but I may get a Blackout knockoff. We'll see. This month I need to get my car running properly and spend less on hobbies unfortunately

 

[planedriver]

I and a few of the other farmers in this area have been looking for a drone to buy for less than $15K that we can use to scout crops. Some of us, myself included are pilots and found we can't fly the ones that were demoed. Our specs are 1 mile range fly and video, recording, IR camera option, loiter mode, return to home, 30 minutes minimum fly time.

We looked at a really expensive "mini schnook" that could payload and apply 25 gal of spray. Way too much for any of us to crash but a cool idea. (the thing was bigger than the cockpit of my real airplane!)

Any Ideas or suggestions would be appreciated... Not trying to hijack the thread here. If I need to move I'll gladly do so.

 

[rex soldier]

I and a few of the other farmers in is area have been looking for a drone to buy for less than $15K that we can use to scout crops. Some of us, myself included are pilots and found we can't fly the ones that were demoed. Our specs are 1 mile range fly and video, recording, IR camera option, loiter mode, return to home, 30 minutes minimum fly time.

We looked at a really expensive "mini schnook" that could payload and apply 25 gal of spray. Way too much for any of us to crash but a cool idea. (the thing was bigger than the cockpit of my real airplane!)

Any Ideas or suggestions would be appreciated... Not trying to hijack the thread here. If I need to move I'll gladly do so.

Should be able to do all that under 2k, except IR part and well you can I just don't know what quality you want.

I should also add you would have to build the whole thing from scratch and have to have a background in radios and electronics.

 

[planedriver]

Should be able to do all that under 2k, except IR part and well you can I just don't know what quality you want.

I should also add you would have to build the whole thing from scratch and have to have a background in radios and electronics.

Would love to get into something for under 2k but don't really wanna do the diy thing. If somebody is interested in doing a build we would probably go for it. Crop monitoring is a necessary PITA.

 

[rex soldier]

Would love to get into something for under 2k but don't really wanna do the diy thing. If somebody is interested in doing a build we would probably go for it. Crop monitoring is a necessary PITA.

What do you need It too do? Just fly over and take HD pics of crops? If thats the case ditch the auto pilot crap and fly a s15e with a gopro on the bottom snaping pics.

 

[mammynun]

I and a few of the other farmers in this area have been looking for a drone to buy for less than $15K that we can use to scout crops. Some of us, myself included are pilots and found we can't fly the ones that were demoed. Our specs are 1 mile range fly and video, recording, IR camera option, loiter mode, return to home, 30 minutes minimum fly time.

We looked at a really expensive "mini schnook" that could payload and apply 25 gal of spray. Way too much for any of us to crash but a cool idea. (the thing was bigger than the cockpit of my real airplane!)

Any Ideas or suggestions would be appreciated... Not trying to hijack the thread here. If I need to move I'll gladly do so.

I'd start with a DJI Phantom Vision 2+. It meets most of your requirements and can be programed with waypoints that I would think would be very useful in your application. It will basically fly itself, it's pre built, ready to fly out of the box. They're about $1400 on amazon. Once you use it for a while you'll be able to determine what you like and dislike about it... it may be just what you want, or it will give you an idea of what's truly important.
Phantom 2 Vision+ | DJI

 

[planedriver]

The idea is to check for weed and insect control issues where we can't really drive to. The IR is important to decipher weed problems and hd video in real time would be important to loiter and take a closer look. There a few builders out there but they are extremely proud of their product$. Don't know what to do but will have until spring at decide.

 

[mammynun]

Well, the DJI doesn't do IR, but they make a version for the GoPro and there are hacks/lenses for the GoPro but I bet they're not what you need... but that's a guess. I bet if you went to one of the FPV forums they could quickly hook you up, but as Rex said you may have to do a bit of soldering. Your specs don't seem unreasonable to me.

 

[planedriver]

Well, the DJI doesn't do IR, but they make a version for the GoPro and there are hacks/lenses for the GoPro but I bet they're not what you need... but that's a guess. I bet if you went to one of the FPV forums they could quickly hook you up, but as Rex said you may have to do a bit of soldering. Your specs don't seem unreasonable to me.

Appreciate all the help..

+rep

 

[Lebowski]

Gimbal works great! I still need to wire it up so I can control the pitch of it while in flight so I can do some good up/down panning but damn, it was smooth out of the box and without any adjustments.

Too bad it has been raining all day down here in the southern end of the state. Tomorrow looks like rain too. Maybe Monday I'll have the voyage

 

[Trigger Time]

So I need just a complete turnkey setup I can buy and start using. Must have video, controls, ability to watch It live on a screen. Fire rockets is optional

affordable would be nice. Someone mentioned a phantom 2 ?? What's that? I'd really like to get Into one for my preps and fun.

 

[rex soldier]

[video=youtube;DlpYXmkRjwk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlpYXmkRjwk[/video]

 

[rex soldier]

So I need just a complete turnkey setup I can buy and start using. Must have video, controls, ability to watch It live on a screen. Fire rockets is optional

affordable would be nice. Someone mentioned a phantom 2 ?? What's that? I'd really like to get Into one for my preps and fun.

This is how i got started in quads. For under 500 bucks you can get one that can fly for 20 mins and can be controlled with smart phone or tablet, which will give you a range of 50 - 60 yards while sending you live video feed. Works great in high grass or shallow woods.
AR drone 2.0 power $369
DJI Phantom FC40 $500