Hi, I am a First Year college student taking part in a survey drone making competition. I am responsible for researching and providing options for the real time data transmission and all other communications. I need a transmitter and receiver compatible with pixhawk flight controller which can switch between 2.5 ghz and 5.8 ghz bands and with a range of over 1 km. What things and protocols should I read about and what are the available options in the market? The data transmitted will also contain Lidar data if that's possible. I have never made a drone before and got the role based on other technical research I had done earlier. Reading some things online has made me more confused than ever. Any help is much appreciated.

Anyone know anything about this cheap drone? Do they fly decently at least? I had ordered one before there was a natural disaster in my town Roswell New Mexico, it flooded really bad here and I lost everything that I own and have been un able to work. I was going to try to sell it once it gets delivered, if it gets delivered I should say.

I am looking for something new for freestyle and cruising. I would like frame to have the battery on top because unfortunately when landing it is easy to damage the battery which is under the drone. (I know, I'm a poor pilot)

Other requirements are an ELRS and an analogue vtx (preferably high power)

I would appreciate any suggestions, weight up to 250g is not a requirement.

Welcome to the weekly r/multicopter discussion thread. Feel free to ask your questions that are too trivial for their own thread, make a suggestion on what you'd like to see here, or just say hi and talk about what you've been doing in the world of multicopters recently.

Don't forget to read the wiki, where you'll find details of suppliers, guides and other useful links.

If you want to chat, then the Discord server is located here (an invite link is here if you haven't already joined)

Old question threads can be found by searching this link.

I just bought an AvionRC Ikon 3 BNF, which has a JHEMCU 25-600mw VTX and a Rush Cherry RHCP antenna. I'm using the BetaFPV VR03 goggles and the video signal live is terrible, even on raceband 8 at 600mw. Not all the time, but it's basically unflyable and it can happen when the drone is right in front of me! I say live because the DVR recording from the goggles is clean, so I can't even show the problem.

The goggles came with the Cetus X kit and they're fine with that drone flying in the same place (around my garden) and I also have an Air65, which is mostly fine in the house.

The VTX table is correct in Betaflight and the goggles scan and pick up the strongest signal, which matches the VTX table frequency for R8 5917mhz.

Could it be that the Ikon's Rush antenna is RHCP and the goggle's stock whip antenna is LHCP or do whip antennas not have polarisation?

Any suggestions welcome, as I can't think what else it could be. Let me know if you need anymore info.

Looking for advice/opinions on a budget "Aerial Antenna" barebones build. Have plenty of experience building and flying fpv quads from whoops to freestyle 5" to long range 7” rigs.

My goal is to be able to either loiter or fly a waypoint hold mission at “400ft AGL” while carrying a Meshtastic radio for as long as practical. I already have a few fixed wing setups and want to try a more compact quad version.

1. Target Hover Endurance of 25-30min using a 4s 21700 P42A Pack (something I already have)
2. Simple inexpensive frame anywhere from 3" to 7"
3. Motor/Prop combo for long endurance hovering and a payload around 25-75g for radio equipment.
4. FC/Stack compatible with iNAV (preferred) or Arducopter (willing to learn)
5. no FPV or camera needed, GPS only, maybe LiDAR sensor
6. ELRS control link for telemetry, probably not using a GC but would consider it.

I tried the DJI route and my Mini 4 Pro couldn't handle a 25g payload safely with the Plus batteries, don't really want any "off the shelf" china specials as those give me anxiety...

Hi all, I am building a quad for a senior project in college and am trying to wire the FCU (SpeedyBee) to a receiver. The instructions call out an SRXL2 to be wired, but I have an AR7610 lying around that I was wondering if I could use to save us $30 in our budget. Are they compatible? If not, how do I go about knowing which receivers are compatible with FCUs? Never build a quad before, just helis and fixed wing.

Hey all, I've recently just bought some new antennas (foxeer lollipop 4 lhcp) for my o3 air unit as I destroyed the stock one. I don't need the 2.4ghz from the airunit as my radio is a zorro. My question is whether I still need 2.4ghz so the Rf isn't "reflected" back to the vtx (dunno the appropriate term sorry). Ive just been doing a little research into Rf and antennas and am unsure if since the air unit is dual band whether I need to account for that so I don't fry my vtx. The plan is run a foxeer lollipop 4s from each of the ufl connectors so 2 in total. Happy to provide clarification if my question makes 0 sense.

Pixhawk PX4 or Radiolink Crossflight. Which is better, especially in terms of drone stabilisation? Also tell your reviews on both if you have worked on them?

View Poll

Hey all, I've got an o3 air unit, goggles integra and rm zorro. After a bit of a crash, my dual band dji antenna came off (connectors stayed on but wires ripped out) so I recrimped them on and had terrible penetration, range and vtx was getting super hot. So assuming I did something stupid and wrong so I'm looking for a new antenna/antennas. After I "fixed" it, and maybe before (as this was like my 4th time out flying and haven't tested range yet) I would get 50mbps within 10 to 20m but any further and it drops and behind any structure at all i basically get full video loss.

Since I don't use dji controller, I'm assuming I only need 5.8ghz for video and wondering if 2 longer antennas might help with the range. I would like to be able to fly more than I've previously been able to which is about 300m. I live in Aus too if I need to do like ham hack or something. Very new to fpv and lack some fundamental knowledge is a lot of areas. Basically I don't really know what I'm doing and need some advice and would greatly appreciate it. Also happy to answer any questions about this unclear from the above or that I didn't include.

Hi there. Betaflight shows me slightly different values when I move the radio sticks:

A(Roll) 1028-1500-1980
E(Pitch) 987-1500-2005
R(Yaw) 987-1497-2011
T(thrust) 995-2011

Is it ok to leave this with these slight discrepancies or it's best to strive for same round values?

I have a TX16s Mk2 with latest EdgeTX. How would I change this in the model Input-Mixer-Output screens?

Thanks

My self made racing drone keeps burning esc mid flight for no reason. The mosets just randomly catch fire and start smoking. I had those cheap nameless escs at firts and after they died i got readytosky 30amp simonk escs as they were not too expensive but more than the old ones. But they also caught fire even more violently and burn after a few flight tests mid flight😭. So i was planning to gather more budget and buy a better esc that will not give up on me. Cam someone suggest me on which esc to buy as an indian online which costs about 1k rupees or a 4 in 1 esc if yhat better. Also what care should i take to ptevent these esc deaths?

Hello everyone, I was following the link to tune PID for rate mode on my ESP32 drone:

https://www.technik-consulting.eu/en/optimizing/drone_PID-optimizing.html

Setting I and D for pitch and roll are 0, yaw has P = 3 and I = 0.02 (Joop Brokking), I increased P until slight oscillation, but when I tilt the drone to the left/right a big degree (20 to 30) the drone doesn't respond anymore and just like that it will keep that roll position to infinity (unless the throttle is increased significantly, it will make a big circle to come back but immediate throttle drop is compulsory. Against small changes it can work. Can anyone please help me if you know what is happening? Thank you

Welcome to the weekly r/multicopter discussion thread. Feel free to ask your questions that are too trivial for their own thread, make a suggestion on what you'd like to see here, or just say hi and talk about what you've been doing in the world of multicopters recently.

Don't forget to read the wiki, where you'll find details of suppliers, guides and other useful links.

If you want to chat, then the Discord server is located here (an invite link is here if you haven't already joined)

Old question threads can be found by searching this link.

I have a few of these escs lying around and was wondering if they could be used to build a 5 inch drone to save some money. (I am completely new to this btw)

So, I have broken my battery balancer connector. After some research, I found out that replacing it is not difficult and I should be able to do it quite easily. However, after looking closely at the battery, I noticed that one of the pins is really bent.

My question is: Should I bother repairing this, and is it even possible to fix it?

https://preview.redd.it/plfq21ddwbvd1.jpg?width=1182&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e08c1bfbcc24226d1958a0be137b6c1a196a378

https://preview.redd.it/r3z7mnfbwbvd1.jpg?width=1204&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e87a15d795d99a362364e420ccc808c1ce02b26d