you see those motors on the phantoms? those are brushless motors. it can be dangerous if you happened to lose control, especially to beginners.

is your friend into RC? suggesting a dji product to a beginner is like suggesting a ford mustang to someone who never drove a kancil.

DJI support sucks big time and the replacement parts are freaking expensive. buy DJI if your aim is to take aerial picture and not to fly. as i said, a phantom or something similar won't really teach you anything, it flies for you.

keep note in this hobby, you will crash, even as an expert. it's mandatory to crash . crashing a DJI product will burn a bigger hole in your pocket than crashing something like syma or hubsan.

the phantom is designed for "drone enthusiast" not for RC hobbyist.

while my phantom 2 takes nice aerial videos, i find flying it to be really boring. i like flying my old honeybee better

throw away the gimbal and camera. stick your own preferred gimbal and camera = problem solved.

eachine has been coming out with a lot cheap racers recently. some are pretty decent for the price. after tuning or course.

This post has been edited by zeroglyph: Jan 13 2017, 04:20 PM

the phantom and its camera are 2 different entities. yes, you can remove the camera of the p3:


but the gimbal board is what gives you the telemetry. so removing the camera, you'll lose:
- telemetry
- ground station mode
- fpv range because the extender only works with the camera board, unless you hack it
- and of course, fpv video

you can put in a programmable gimbal and connect it to the F1 port of the flight controller to control it.

This post has been edited by zeroglyph: Jan 14 2017, 02:53 PM

not really. the gps module is not in the camera. a wifi enabled camera of your choice(eg gopro or something 4k ) + a 3rd party gimbal will allow it to take better videos(or you can use video tx as well instead of wifi). you'll still have fpv, RTH and GPS hold. plus, you are not in the mercy of DJI apps . you said it yourself, sometimes you lose video, right?

face it while the phantom has a great flight controller, the video + fpv solution is really fragile(and flawed in case of the p2v+). if you crash and break the gimbal, say bye2 to everything anyway. . the DJI apps update has caused failures in their own products also. just check out the dji forum. lots of hate.

This post has been edited by zeroglyph: Jan 14 2017, 04:46 PM

good for you. dont update it unless you're sure it's stable.

if you go for tilt rotor, just make a note that tilt rotors dont hover when level. they are design to keep moving. i've seen a lot of new youtube pilots reviewing the eachine falcon and complaining that it doesnt hover. duh?!

personally, i dont like walkera. their product shelf life is very short and replacement parts are expensive. but that's just me.

you mean the wizard x220? doesn't look like it has space for a dampening plate. without that, putting a runcam on it would give you a lot of jello effect.

with the batt occupying the top like that, you can't really put any action cam. runcam is already small in profile.

might to check out different frame if your goal is to have good HD video.

for the package, i don't see why it won't work. i use an fs-i6(w/ 10 ch mod) and vr-d2 myself. both are worth the money.

but if you're a 1st time flyer, i would suggest don't start with brushless. more damage when you crash. can be quite dangerous to you and your surrounding when you panicked.

but if you have experience flying, should be fine.

from the looks of it, it's just the quad. so you'll need the camera, video tx and video RX(lcd/goggle). of course, you'll need to diy the vtx and camera onto the quad. usually, it's not an issue. just make sure you the power and polarity right. also, make sure the cam, vtx & vrx are compatible to each other.

GPS depends on the flight controller. it says cc3d, so no GPS flight. you can still get gps telemetry IINM.
transmitter/remote depends on what receiver you put in.

even the cheap ones will do.

as long as you don't have to think where to move the stick, it should be fine. as in, you can go back to tail-in hover without thinking what to do in a panic state.

yeah, i've been having problems with battery shipment as well. wonder what is happening. no issues, last year.

for 3s or 4s, that depends on the entire equipment. you need to know the voltage rating. for example, the quad's ESCs and motors might support 4s, but the vtx might not.

yes, you can use any lipo batt with the same dimension. just fix the proper connector and make sure it's not too heavy and alter the CG too much.

flight time? a 250 racer with 1500mAh batt, is still around 6-8mins of flight (batt at 11.1v during flight).

not sure what you are flying, but if it's a phantom, then it's like the manual mode.

most photo drones can hover without stick input because it has a barometer, which allows for altitude hold. these usually have spring on the throttle stick. again, like a phantom.

race drones don't have spring throttle. so the stick won't stay in the middle. depending on thrust and weight ratio, you will have to move throttle to maintain altitude. but you can still have altitude and gps hold given you have the proper flight controller.

This post has been edited by zeroglyph: Feb 23 2017, 03:43 PM

no it won't. the throttle is not spring loaded. it stay at what position you leave it in.

here's a good video about stick movement

haha yeah. i always have these thoughts in mind:

drone enthusiast: people who flies AP drone ONLY and has no idea on the actual RC properties/parameters/safety precautions. these are the people that can cause danger and might be braking certain law.
RC hobbyist: people who are into RC and can pretty much fly anything. these are the type that takes the steps to know the when/how/what/where to fly.

that's totally my perception

also, a multirotor of any kind, is much easier than flying a heli

did you buy with battery? do let me know whether it arrived timely. at least i know banggood is having issues shipping batteries here these days, so am really curious if other sellers would have the same problem. i lost a qx90c in the mail and ended with a refund. of course a refund means you still loose money as the bank charges for conversion rates

anyone interested in getting a turnigy-i6 w/ tgy receiver? i got a new one for sale. got it off an rtf package. i already have an fs-i6. guaranteed cheaper than market.
for reference:
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-tgy-i6-...ver-mode-2.html

This post has been edited by zeroglyph: Mar 6 2017, 11:39 AM

can you use Naza-M FC's firmware in the phantom 2 FC ?

this has been bugging me quite a while since the Naza-M firmware has better options with TX/RX configurations.