Before you buy, please read this

[Bartman]

If you're reading this then you probably have some awareness that multi-rotor helicopters have seen a huge surge in popularity in the last year or two. You may even be contemplating making a purchase so you can have a go at it yourself. I'm writing to tell you, for all the great success you may see going on around you, multi-rotor helicopters don't assemble themselves and there are a lot of challenges that come up well after you click the first two parts together.
So what's the point of this? I've witnessed a lot of excitement here with the release of new products and half the time it's well deserved and half the time it isn't. There's an exuberance that comes over the site and I'm happy for everyone that jumps in early when things work out but it's hard to watch when the exuberance quickly dies and people are out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. I apologize if anyone has been burned by something they've learned about here at multirotorforums.com or if the information they found here didn't work out so well for them.
So what's the point of this? Before you buy, before you send a dime, keep in mind that these things don't assemble themselves. Even an RTF (Ready to Fly) will become a do-it-yourself project the second you crash and the forums won't always be the best resource to get the answers you need. You might just write a check to make the repairs which is fine but the guy that sold you the RTF has to be there when you crash to do the repairs or you're just wasting money making the purchase there in the first place.
SO what's the point of this? Before you buy, do your homework and find out about the person, or shop, or manufacturer that you're buying from. These things don't assemble themselves and it's important to buy from someone that will support you independent of these forums. By all means do use the forums to ask around as it's a small community still and many of us know the good from the bad. Many of us know who has burned who or who has taken calls at 3 am and have been helpful.
You are about to spend a lot of money and it shouldn't be money lost. For all the advances made by companies like DJI, XAircraft, Gaui, HoverFly, MK, etc. there is still a fair amount of good decision making to be done in the process of making any of them fly.
The point is, know who you're dealing with and make sure the money you're spending is going towards your success and not just a box of parts.
Thanks for reading
Bart

 

[jffry7]

I wish I had read something like this 4months ago when I started with multi's :dejection: Hope the new guys will take time to read...

 

[ctbon]

Even an RTF (Ready to Fly) will become a do-it-yourself project the second you crash and the forums won't always be the best resource to get the answers you need.

The best reason to not buy RTF right there...that and the $$$$ you'll save. The most valuable time you can spend with your multi-rotor is learning how to put the thing together. It will save you so much frustration in the long run. This forum has been a fantastic resource with building and troubleshooting. Absolutely invaluable.

I will be sticking with what I know and probably won't veer away from Mikrokopter in the near future. Better the devil you know...

 

[MombasaFlash]

Warnings like this are all well and good but newbies are not going to understand much from the forums before they buy because they will have nothing to relate to. Even basic terminology means nothing until one has become immersed in it all first. It is all just part of price of experience.

 

[Droider]

Well here we try and help everyone... yes I totally agree on the price of experience, thats why this forum was set up by Bart because of the smoke and mirrors of MK and other FC systems.

MRF has become a great place as CTbon says for everything MR and is an invaluable resource of knowledge and people willing to share there experiences to just try and prevent others the expense of that experience...

Its been a hectic few days on here but the comments Ctbon just posted means I can go to sleep knowing that what Bart created has helped him and I know many others.

Thanks Ctbon you just made my day

Dave

 

[Al M]

Choices choices

Lots of eye candy out there and the possibilities are endless.... I have narrowed by platform down to the XA 650V8, however I'm torn on whether to stick with the XA controller or a DJI or even a 3rd brand.... Expandability is a must and I believe both the XA and DJI systems offer great options in that area

Any thoughts on each system and are components from each interchangeable with the other?

Thanks much
Al

 

[jhardway]

Al

I can tell you about the route I took, I took the Xaircraft approach, however I found out what I wanted to do with it probably was not the best suited for. The knowledge I gained is huge. Since I bought my v8, I suffered a few crashes and they where done while I was in some way using XA electronics, motors, or ESC's. I still think for the money they make a very cool product but at the same time I get what you paid for.

The kicker to me is the XA has now released a new FC and I am out unless I want to wait a month, and pay $200 to ship wait to see if it's all good or not. On the xa electronic side I was unhappy and I believe they are some problems, On mine I had 4 crashes from 12ft and below over grass so I can say they were not so bad and that is what is great about the frame, It was cheep and easy to repair. I can tell you though two of my crashes had something to do with the FC and the AHRS's compass just going haywire. In the long run I wish XA would just replace my FC but I doubt that will happen. Moving on

So where am I today. Since purchasing my xa in Sept, I have taken everything off it except for the frame and the camera mount which I purchased separately. If you look at my signature it will fill you in on my system.

I can now say so far so good, I actually have been working on some different things but today as I wanted to fly my quad, the winds were blowing 15-20+kts, funny I did not hesitate to take it up and so I did. It had its work cut out but it over all it was no big deal.

Here are a few photos I took last week while flying. Best of luck

View attachment 1890View attachment 1891View attachment 1892

Jack

 

[mailman35]

yeah i came to this conclusion when i got an referb ar drone.
and then i decided that its still just a toy, and will never be as good as a real RC device.
ive since upgraded to a DJI F450 Naza setup, its a big buyin but the results thus far have been quite well as far as the learning goes. i will also say that the pc rc sim solution has been really valuable as you can crash as many times as you want and not have to worry about burning more money. im still making my way through the training of the quads on the sim, but the lessons so far have paid back in the real world as well

so far im liking my inroads in to this hobby

the next step is the fpv video downlink flying, but thats a ways away.

mark

 

[jffry7]

Here are a few photos I took last week while flying. Best of luck

View attachment 3070View attachment 3071View attachment 3072

Jack

Is that HX9V? How did you fit it on a XA camera mount?

 

[Sar]

As a long time plane and heli flyer I've just gotten into the multirotor end of things and it's certainly a bit daunting, even for someone with a lot of RC experience. As someone with R/C experience and a good technical troubleshooting background with any new technology there is a big learning curve but I've found there are a huge amount of resources available if you only look. I can't imagine what it's like to get into multirotor craft with no experience in RC at all.

Aside from the large amount of platforms and technology there is to assimilate a newcomer might have a hard time deciding what is a personal bias and what is a personal opinion. It's best to take all 'I think....' 'In my experience...' 'The best...' posts at an arms length and average the sums of the information you collect. There is no 'BESTEST' FC or frame, controller or electronic layout out there, it all depends on what you like. If you're a tinkerer you might like one thing over the person who wants an RTG (ready to go // radioisotope thermoelectric generatorhttp://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...Mz8HcCec5t1T8-2jg&sig2=Jn_qEyzVgWNAWDr-MSggZg) setup. If you're getting into multirotor aircraft, whether you're experienced or not, just do a heck of a lot of reading, specification viewing, video viewing and start to sum up what you are seeing. When in doubt, just ask people, you might have asked before and a couple of hacks will berate you for not searching enough, but you can only search so many days in a row and view so many hundreds of post, many more people will be willing to help and make suggestions targeted towards your own personal goals.

 

[MombasaFlash]

Which is why I posted above that with all the 'help' available, such as the nuggets, turds, opinions, egos and bias' expressed on forums like this, ultimately everybody just has to jump in and get wet. Even basic r/c terminology can be foreign to a total newbie (who can actually understand a Futaba radio Owner Manual?).

Anyone who expects to read all about it and then build the ultimate machine straight off is dreaming. Just build anything to learn about it all and make a more informed choices subsequently.

 

[Dewster]

This is good advice. Hopefully people will read it. I tried Mikrokopter after seeing the videos of it's performance. I thought I would be able to assemble it without problems. What I got was a box of parts and forum link that I couldn't understand. I found DJI WKM after looking at other aircraft systems. The flight performance, almost plug and play connections, and clear documentation made me take another leap of faith. This time I won. I am so impressed. I still have the Mikrokopter parts. After building the DJI platform and researching so much for it's build I understand more about the Mikrokopter system. Anyway... It takes some work to make em fly. Do your homework unless you have money to burn.

 

[jonseer]

Anyone had any experience of this ?

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[tumad]

I personally wish I had never started. I started straight away with Mikrokopter system but soon found that even after extensive research, they have their good and weak points. I now have 3 units, each designed specifically for one task each. This way I can modify one unit to perfection for the job it is designed to do. Even then, it's still daunting every time one lifts off. Anything can go wrong and your craft can come crashing down as these things don't glide.. Personally, I think to many suppliers have jumped on the bandwagon of evolution and suckers are willing to pay big money after watching a video here and there from someone that has had some success, or from the manufacturer themselves.. Unless you have a lot of free time on your hands, a lot of patience and some money to throw away, don't think this is an easy quickfire way of making money with your machine.. It's not..

As far as ARF's are concerned. They have become much better and should be regarded as toys..

 

[MombasaFlash]

I personally wish I had never started... Unless you have a lot of free time on your hands, a lot of patience and some money to throw away, don't think this is an easy quickfire way of making money with your machine.. It's not..

For the most part I would entirely agree with how the multi-rotor phenomenon has been marketed and how folks have been seduced by what turns out to be immature systems still in development. Of the options currently available commercially, MikroKopter is probably still the one by which all others are judged but, as you say, it ain't perfect.

Where your post goes off the rails is the first part of your penultimate sentence.

Aerial photography is not an activity that is open to anyone who does not have a lot of time, patience and money to devote during the development phase. And so, the second part of that sentence, "..It's not.." is correct.

 

[ChopperAddict]

Whilst I agree in principal with most of the stuff in this thread, there is one small problem that nobody has covered, and that is how you get these "newbies" to even know that sites like this exist, much less join them and ask questions. I have spent much time on forums like Heliguy answering newbie questions, and that was in fact initially the whole reason that I started my own Helicopter web site, to put all this information in one place so that it would not scroll off as it does in the forums. The results have been quite astonishing, with that simple site leading to 1on1 training days, and doing build, repairs, setups for a multitude of pilots, both new and not so new.

This MRC forum will certainly suffer from those same forum problems as Heliguy and others did, with the same questions being asked time and time again. No problem, there are many of us out here who are willing to answer them every time they are asked. The real problem is to get the newbie to join forums such as this and be able to do their research with knowledgeable people here to help them out. How we do that is not something I have an answer to, but I think it needed saying in this thread ?

As an aside I am more than willing to extend my web site to include the obvious and not quite so obvious questions and answers if people think it would be helpful ?

 

[quadcopters]

I point a lot of newbies towards the forums especially when they are unclear about what they want to purchase or even where to start .
Sometimes just the reassurance of having somewhere else to ask for unbiased advice or see what other people are building and flying really helps .

Everybody I mention it to say they will join a forum so I believe if they are serious about multirotors they will join and many also that have learnt things from me and others on the forum extend this courtesy for helping others.

Geoff

 

[Dewster]

I agree. I wish that I found this forum before purchasing my first multirotor. I did fall into the trap of watching videos and testimonials of flight performance. Those videos didn't go into what's required to build one. I flew the Draganfly Ti several times and that's when my bug started for multirotor aircraft. I wanted to buy one built (with GPS altitude hold etc), but it was cost prohibitive and found that people were building their own craft for much less. I tried and wasn't successful with the Mikrokopter build. I ended up selling the flight system on Ebay. I purchased DJI WKM system and was successful. I spent about a month researching and crawling through forums, reviews, video, web sites etc before purchasing. This forum is a great resource for information, new trends, new technologies, build questions, solution, advice. I'm really thankful that I found this site.

 

[ChopperAddict]

Geoff
It is great that you are able to catch newbies BEFORE they buy something inappropriate, and point them to these formus, but as Dewster says, he did not realise the forums were around. He was better than some in that he did some research, but as he says it was not helpful and proved costly as well.

Sadly there is no easy answer to this, any more than there is for new helicopter pilots, who make all the same mistakes. How do we get the forum to be more well known ? Perhaps all MRC suppliers should point potential clients to them as a responsible part of the sale they make ? At least that way the new pilot will know where to go for help when he hits the first hurdle.

Not sure how the retailers will feel about this, but it is no loss or problem to them to do so, they will still make the sales.........
Ian

 

[Mrk172]

After being in RC for nearly 25 years and specifically Airplanes and Helicopters for the past 7, I've learned that in order to succeed, you must do your homework! It's easy to watch videos and be wow'd with cool tricks and editing and just end up angry and disappointed after spending loads of cash on garbage. Believe me, I've been down that road before.

Once I decided to get into Multirotors, I immediately started reading, watching videos and searching for specifically related sites such as multirotorforum. Sure, there are other sites that cater to all RC fields but it's nice to have a place to get information on exactly and specifically what I want to learn about.

After my research, I ended up buying the FJI NAZA F450 ARF and I also purchased a separate Hoverfly sport controller and 4 esc's in order to built a DYI setup.