Good to hear it flew. Orientation is difficult. I find fpv so so much easier. It is so easy to over compensate LOS.
As for it dropping, that's a bit weird but a couple of things. 1 the battery could have blocked the rx antennas. You could put them at 90 degrees to the rear arms. Then they are at 90 degrees to each other (best) and as they are between the arms they are protected.
2nd is enable blackbox logging in BF. The FC has 16Mb of data storage fro logging so not masses but it might give you a clue if it happens again. There is an app to analyse the blackbox log files.

Well done for getting it airborne and flying acro/rate mode LOS. It's so much easier rate mode in fpv. I would be tempted to practice a bit in angle or horizon mode so that you understand how much stick movements relate to how quick the quad moves. You could reduce your rates a bit so that it's less sensitive to stick movements.

Put some really strong lights front and back, I usually have a strip of 4 blue on the front and red at the rear, helps getting your orientation if you fly off too far. Even if you just reverse fly back near enough you can get your bearings. Just fly forward and back left and right then when you've got the hang of that try some circles and figure of eights while holding height smoothly. 

Quote from: ched on Wednesday,February 05, 2020, 12:21:52 The flashing is easy but you do need a ftdi adapter (£3-4). I will dig out instructions.

Forgot to add details but here is a post that should give you an idea https://www.multi-rotor.co.uk/index.php?topic=23754.msg215588#msg215588

With reference to leds, you can get flashbang leds?? to go with the fc I believe, so should be well documented on sorting them... or do you guys just have a go to/trusted strip of leds that you put on most of your quads with ease?
Different test today was the wind so that was fun, had my front led bike light on to help with orientation for the moment also [emoji1690]

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On my big F450 (10" props) I used to have strips on each side. They were just cheap 12v strips as the F450 was running 3S. Be aware that Leds do pull current so you don't want to blow the 5v regulator!!!!
I used - front - White, Rear - Red, Right - gReen, and Left - bLue. That was when I was learning LOS. Flying FPV no need for leds at all 

You can get some LED strips that go on the arms with the motor wires passing through them like these or just BetaFlight controllable ones like these. you do have to daisy chain teh control and 5v power wires but BF lets you do clever things like indicate arm state low battery turn indicators etc...

Some of my quads have some controllable leds at rear.
On my Martian3 Matek Led and Buzzer
On X120  I used the led/buzzer from a Lizard 105s

For LOS and orientation I also used to put a florescent strip on the left hand side of my batteries. That way I had an idea which way the quad faced as the strip was fairly easy to spot. I think I used a no 7 that was for a wheely bin from a cheapy shop, cut up it made a few strips.
Orientation is quite difficult on a 5" quad especially when you are learning as a misjudgment usually results in a crash      

OK thanks for all that I'll have a further look, seen a writeup on oscarliang for led programming in bf so I'll have to read that all and understand it.
Can confirm the crashing part had a nice cartwheel earlier [emoji23][emoji23]

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Apparently can only see these on the upload/host website but yeah two of my crashes so far in gif form to make em easy

Practice forward then reverse then right to left and back to center at the same height first if your flying LOS. Then you can start flying about, have you got a small Whoop quad to practice on indoors ?

OK so looking at the different parts to get me up to fpv: goggles, vtx, camera, paired antennas?

So goggles I'm thinking ev800 as they're fairly cheap, people mention them plenty, they can also be a screen/monitor [emoji106]
Antenna I was looking at the pagoda 2, as was suggested it's good in a few places and can get a pair for just over a tenner, a pair is what I require right? Same antenna for vtx and goggles?
Vtx well I've seen the chaos fpv vtx v2 on unmanned tech which is switchable from 25 up to illegal[emoji23], telemetry, and takes sma or mmcx with included pigtail so thought it sounded like it would do the job and is in the UK [emoji106]
Camera still not sure [emoji28] thinking foxeer razer  from unmanned tech also to keep things together etc

Feel free to shoot down my suggestions for being silly as and where [emoji16][emoji106]

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Quote from: relativenewbyseb on Friday,February 14, 2020, 19:06:49 Antenna I was looking at the pagoda 2, as was suggested it's good in a few places and can get a pair for just over a tenner, a pair is what I require right? Same antenna for vtx and goggles?

yes, so long as their polarizations match - ie both right-hand (RHCP) or both left-hand (LHCP) - & the connectors match the VTx & goggles (SMA/RP-SMA) then you'll be fine.  if you have diversity goggles then three antennas might not be a bad idea, but you're probably not gaining (pun intended) much by having two identical omni's.

I just have a load of the ubiquitous cheapo Aomways:



which don't seem completely terrible, at least not for visual range <ahem>.

Quote from: relativenewbyseb on Friday,February 14, 2020, 19:06:49 OK so looking at the different parts to get me up to fpv: goggles, vtx, camera, paired antennas?

So goggles I'm thinking ev800 as they're fairly cheap, people mention them plenty, they can also be a screen/monitor [emoji106]
Antenna I was looking at the pagoda 2, as was suggested it's good in a few places and can get a pair for just over a tenner, a pair is what I require right? Same antenna for vtx and goggles?
Vtx well I've seen the chaos fpv vtx v2 on unmanned tech which is switchable from 25 up to illegal[emoji23], telemetry, and takes sma or mmcx with included pigtail so thought it sounded like it would do the job and is in the UK [emoji106]
Camera still not sure [emoji28] thinking foxeer razer  from unmanned tech also to keep things together etc

Feel free to shoot down my suggestions for being silly as and where [emoji16][emoji106]

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EV880 are ok but try and get the D version if you can as that has diversity receivers. This means, ideally, you have a circular polorised (cp) antenna and a directional (patch) antenna. The goggles they use the best of the signals to give you an image. Get antennas that are all same hand - more people use right but it doesnt matter other than if you buy ready to fly they might come with cp antenna and usually they will be right!!
Pagodas are good a are the Aomways. I wouldn't be too concerned unless you are going for max range. Just get them with appropriate connectors!!!

As not much seems to be coming out of china maybe you could get EMAX TRANSPORTER goggles (£45) they don't convert to a screen and don't have a dvr but the reviews are not bad plus they seem to be in stock.

chaos fpv vtx no idea but wow what a power output!!! beware that will generate huge amounts of heat. the telemetry is the bf osd adjustments of channel, bands and power so that's nice. Maybe worth doing a but of youtubing to see peoples reviews of it. Power isn't everything!!

The foxeer razer is good for the money, it maybe a little dull on colour out of the box but it can be adjusted so should be fine. It seems to come in 4:3 and 16:9 get the one that matches your goggles! I prefer 4:3 because it gives you more vertical field of view. So flips, split s etc you can see more what's going on earlier. Lens wise I would say 1.8mm is very wide and will probably be quite fish eye (straight things look curved) plus you might lose detail as you will be seeing a wider angle with same number of pixels. Maybe go 2.1mm?

In my opinion budget stuff is great to get you started, it won't give you the best images or the longest range but it will allow you to fly and learn. When you learn you start to discover what you like and what you don't. Not quite the same but it took me a long time to be able to see a poor tune on a quad as my flying wasn't really effected by it as I wasn't accurate enough, propwash oscillation I only noticed it as I could hear a sort of flutter/flapping on hard turns. Now I can see it in the goggles.

I suppose what I am saying is buy budget stuff (branded) as it will be great to learn with and it will teach you more than having the best gear at the beginning.

A few years ago I would not say the same, budget stuff was much more difficult to fly. After I built my first budget quad I gave up for about a year as it was just impossible to fly as you had to set PIDs up and as a beginner I had no clue, now BF will allow almost anything to fly pretty well 

Just a pity weather has been so bad 

OK yeah the getting hold of those eachines may be a struggle currently I admit, which leads me to another question which is has anyone ever tried one of the fpv receivers which can output to an android phone for example? I imagine they're pretty crap but just wondering if anyone had had any experience or know someone who has
Range wise I mean I would like fairly decent coverage as plenty of fields etc around me miles from anyone but plenty of trees also
I'm absolutely fine with the staying with budget stuff don't you worry [emoji3][emoji3]
Partly my first question as I thought that might remove the cost of the screen aspect of things

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Quote from: relativenewbyseb on Saturday,February 15, 2020, 19:09:55 OK yeah the getting hold of those eachines may be a struggle currently I admit, which leads me to another question which is has anyone ever tried one of the fpv receivers which can output to an android phone for example? I imagine they're pretty crap but just wondering if anyone had had any experience or know someone who has
Range wise I mean I would like fairly decent coverage as plenty of fields etc around me miles from anyone but plenty of trees also
I'm absolutely fine with the staying with budget stuff don't you worry [emoji3][emoji3]
Partly my first question as I thought that might remove the cost of the screen aspect of things
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While they work fine the problem, I think is too much latency. That is the time the image takes from coming from the camera to being displayed on the screen. So when you see yourself flying towards a tree on your phone you have already hit it     

The EMAX TRANSPORTER goggles (£45) are OK, cheap and available plus you can add a dvr(I a sure I saw that in a video). They are the same ones sold with the BabyHawk starter kit, so you can see a few vids on youtube about them.

Took the opportunity with there finally being a bit of dry weather and sun, still a lot of wind though!
I've added lights on the arms and underbelly which help a lot with orientation for the most part apart from when blinded by the sun[emoji23][emoji23]

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Looks a beautiful location. Lights help a lot LOS. Wind silly here 45mph! No let up forecast this weekend either :-(
Sand makes a fairly soft landing but gets in Motors etc. So check Motors for sand after crashes :-)

Thank you for all the stories that come to experience in this place, which is very Dr.

So emax transporter goggles, antenna and vtx have arrived, just awaiting camera then this should help pass the time in isolation learning to fly with the goggles!
Vtx placement question, where? So I'm led to believe they get hot so in as much space as possible yeah, ie not under the main stack where unfortunately there's a perfect sized gap?
But anything with having to mount them away from other components for signal/lack of signal issues?

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Plug the antenna in then see where the vtx could go. You need the antenna to be able to stick up above battery if it's on top.
I wouldn't stick it under stack, as you say due to heat but I would stick it under the top frame making sure the 'hot bit' are not trapped. The props spinning usually pushes air into the frame.

I just had a Mobula6 arrive so that is going to be my indoor practice for a while at least. I will probably get the Emax TinyHawk Freestyle out in the garden if it's not too windy as only have small garden

Well all went tremendously once the camera arrived, got a good few flights in up and down the valley along our fields and then wind and loss of sight put an end to all that fun...
Been searching for the past 3 days and no luck, know the woods/banks/undergrowth in the rough area like the back of my hand but with no sight of drone
Battery must've come disconnected on hitting either a tree or the ground on landing, or worst case scenario the small band of river that it could've landed in it did...
Went searching straight away for it but no vtx signal or quad signal hence battery must've fallen out

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Got a question here, so say I would like to have lower pitch and roll, and maybe yaw, rates for when a camera is on the quad per se.
Is it possible to raise and lower these rates by a potentiometer on the transmitter, so that you wouldn't have to go into betaflight each time on the laptop. I'm thinking normal(what is currently default) fast rates at one end and then low rates at the other end of the range of the dial??
So essentially when I wanted to fly more smoothly more easily I can just turn them down and then swap back to default otherwise?

I guess that the best solution for this is to probably gain more fine control and finesse with the sticks [emoji28]

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you can set up rate profiles via Betaflight & change between them with a switch on the Tx, but it's a bit of a faff to set up.

you can also set up rates in the traditional way on your Tx & switch between them in flight.

if you really want continuously variable rates - ie not switching between several presets - you can do that too:


edit: just remembered you're not on FrSky, so I don't know whether the last option would be possible on FlySky.  it's not really necessary anyway - one of the first two options should do you fine.

Easiest way is to have 2 rate profiles in BF and switch between them via BF OSD.

here's how to do it in the air on a switch:


& it's become slightly simpler in BF4.1:

Cheers guys I shall have a play around[emoji106]
Got a vifly finder 2 as a buzzer for any lost situation now, however tried wiring it up and connected as it says so bug getting now sounds[emoji848]

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Quote from: relativenewbyseb on Wednesday,April 01, 2020, 16:22:15 Cheers guys I shall have a play around[emoji106]
Got a vifly finder 2 as a buzzer for any lost situation now, however tried wiring it up and connected as it says so bug getting now sounds[emoji848]

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Don't know if it will help but CurryKitten on youtube did lots of lost model finder videos.
Good Luck

Quote from: relativenewbyseb on Wednesday,April 01, 2020, 16:22:15 Cheers guys I shall have a play around[emoji106]
Got a vifly finder 2 as a buzzer for any lost situation now, however tried wiring it up and connected as it says so bug getting now sounds[emoji848]

you will probably have to have the flight battery plugged in (ie not just USB) to get a 5V supply to it - are you getting lights on it?  getting 5V across the pads on a multimeter?

I imagine that it will take a while to charge up the little onboard LiPo the first time you use it too.

It was weird had a small red light on it when plugging main battery in but no sound emitted when I flicked the switch assigned to buzzer...
However it must've been a faulty ground or combination of the 2 as rechecked that solder joint and then started working[emoji106][emoji106]
Oh well all's well that ends well

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Quote from: relativenewbyseb on Wednesday,April 01, 2020, 18:43:38 It was weird had a small red light on it when plugging main battery in but no sound emitted when I flicked the switch assigned to buzzer...
However it must've been a faulty ground or combination of the 2 as rechecked that solder joint and then started working[emoji106][emoji106]
Oh well all's well that ends well

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I would triple check things as the buzzer is quite critical in the case of a missing quad. It is why you bought it!!!! So it needs to be at 100%, if it was intermittent / iffy soldering or something else you really don't want a repeat of it not working as it might fail at the worst time....

So a question, why would in acro mode when I pitch forwards and release the stick the quad slowly returns to centre and sometimes even beyond? I was thinking it was just the wind yesterday and because self level wasn't on it just carried on blowing it further back but with no wind this morning I feel like it's still doing it, also don't feel like it happens with roll [emoji848]
Another one I think I'm gonna have to message about my emax goggles, for some reason the battery level monitor for the goggles gives no actual indication of battery level and three times now they have started getting worse signal then suddenly lost video reception whilst it shows full battery! but I've seen it a few times now and notice it stays showing a no signal screen for a bit but it's still on, then just shuts off to black screen
Very odd

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Quote from: relativenewbyseb on Monday,April 06, 2020, 11:31:36 So a question, why would in acro mode when I pitch forwards and release the stick the quad slowly returns to centre and sometimes even beyond? I was thinking it was just the wind yesterday and because self level wasn't on it just carried on blowing it further back but with no wind this morning I feel like it's still doing it, also don't feel like it happens with roll [emoji848]
Another one I think I'm gonna have to message about my emax goggles, for some reason the battery level monitor for the goggles gives no actual indication of battery level and three times now they have started getting worse signal then suddenly lost video reception whilst it shows full battery! but I've seen it a few times now and notice it stays showing a no signal screen for a bit but it's still on, then just shuts off to black screen
Very odd

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Are you sure you are in acro/rate mode? In rate mode the wind shouldn't have much effect other than blow it off course.
It could be a gyro issue? Try looking at the gyro traces in bf over a few mins, they should be static and not drift. Try a gyro recalibration.