YDQA: Ep 53- "How To Build Your Own FPV Drone?"

John Dickow: Hello and welcome back to another episode of your drone questions answered.

I'm John Dicka with the drone launch Academy. Here to find the answers to your drone questions. And today I have with me, I have Dusty Jolly. He's the community manager with the Drone Launch Academy. He also leads the Drone Launch Connect community. So Dusty, thanks for coming back and talking to me today.

Yeah, John. Thanks for having me on. Before we, actually get into the question, drum launch connect community. this is going to be a question that was actually submitted through that community. Tell us a little bit about that community and why it's, it's so cool. It's so important.

Dusty Jolley: Sure. you know, I feel like just as a drum pilot, it doesn't matter. kind of where you are a lot of times you're doing a lot of things by yourself. So it just, I think it's important to get plugged into a community, with some light minded people, just no matter where you're at, it does help, wherever you are in your journey.

about a year and a half ago, we started drone launch connect, which is an online network, just some drone pilots that are looking to improve their skills, network with other pilots, learn new things. so now we've got, I think around 350 members worldwide, we're growing, the members got an online forum.

We've got places that, uh, you can network, ask questions. We do every other week, a [00:01:00] live expert Q and a, that's where I bring on an industry expert and the drone, the members get to come on and ask their questions directly to them. we do happy hours. We do a lot of fun stuff. Live meetings each month, but, uh, it's a great place to come and just network, learn new things.

we've got a lot of guys that are very focused on mapping and, cinematography and real estate. a lot of people that are looking and getting started or just trying to grow their business, it's a great place to meet and network with other people.

John Dickow: That's excellent. Hey, how can someone be a part of this community?

Dusty Jolley: thanks for bringing that up. So, we hosted a webinar this past week on that, had some technical difficulties getting this thing started, but we are, running a current promo. So if you want to try out the community for just a dollar for your first month, you can go to connect, Dot drum lunch academy.

com. And that'll take you to our website. and if you use the promo code DLC community, that'll get you your first month for just a dollar, you can come in and try it out. We've got a 20 plus workshops that you can come in and look at all the, live Q and A's are recorded. So we've got over 32, recorded past expert Q and A's you come in and watch.

So I think it's definitely worth coming in and trying out for a dollar

John Dickow: Awesome. that promo code. That's. [00:02:00] Great opportunity to get involved. and it's funny too, cause you know, this is sure we're about to tackle a question that was submitted, through the drone launch connect community, but also I've found people who can actually answer questions on this podcast as well through that community.

So it really is a pretty useful, networking community to be a part of, especially if you, kind of got your own personal goals around starting a business or. Making drones a part of your current business. there's some really, great resources there.

Dusty Jolley: You know, it's like where I'm at.

I don't know a lot of other drone pilots. my wife doesn't really care to hear all the drone stories or anything. So it's just good to have a place to come and talk and, stay motivated, sharing these stories and learning from other people.

John Dickow: Excellent. So the question of the day, how do you go about building your own, FPV drones? clearly there's kits out there, but what's involved? Is it hard? Why would someone want to do it? first Question I have is, is to kind of recap here, refresh my memory. What is the difference between an FPV drone and a regular drone?

Dusty Jolley: so the difference really in an FPV drone is, with the traditional DJI Mavic, Phantom or something, you're going to be seeing that line of sight and just watching it for the most part, you know, from wherever you're standing. [00:03:00] some of the FPV drones can do this now, but for the most part, a lot of them don't have the GPS hold, or the obstacle avoidance like you see with some of the, the line of sight drones.

So, DJI has come out with some newer FPV drones. So when you're flying an FPV drone, you are seeing first person view. So you're seeing exactly what that camera on that drone is seeing. So it feels like you're almost in the cockpit of that drone. Which does give you a lot more, control over it.

it can be a lot more precise, as far as where you're flying. kind of getting into a little bit more of your question. I can get into why you would want to build your own FPV drone, but I think that for people who are wanting to get started, they have a little bit more options than I did when I first got into it.

when I first got into it, there wasn't a lot of. Ready to fly drones out there. so you kind of had to build your own, which took a long time. but right now, I think for anybody that wants to get into this, I do think the DJI is a good drone to start off with. the reason I feel that way is because it almost kind of takes you in baby steps to get an end to flying into what's called the acro or like a full manual mode where you have full control over the role of the yaw.

I mean, you can make these do backflips barrel rolls, whatever you want to [00:04:00] do, but it's a very different way to fly than what you're traditionally used to with a line of sight drone, a lot of times, with a line of sight drone, your throttle is always in the middle and you let go.

It's going to stay there in the middle of the drums can sit still. with an FPV drone, you start off with the throttle at zero and then you're constantly adjusting the throttle as needed to, maintain your altitude, whether you're returning or whatever you're doing. so it's a lot more involved, but, Man, it's a lot more fun to, I mean, you really do just feel like you're kind of in it.

And so with the, GPS hold and the obstacle avoidance of the, DJI Avada, I think it's a great drone. they're pretty durable. We've got several members in the community that have them, crashed a couple that, I mean, for the most part, I think other than some ducks and propellers, that's really the only, major damages that they've had.

So, That being said, once people kind of get into that and start to get a little bit more comfortable and figure out whether they do want to dive a little bit deeper into FPV drones, that's when I think that the advantage of learning to build your own comes into play, because if anybody is going to get into flying FPV drones, what you're going to find is you're going to crash a lot more.

You know, nobody wants to crash a [00:05:00] Phantom or Mavic just because it's almost, going to be total, it's very rare occasion to crash one and nothing's happened to it. But, FPV drones, you know, uh, especially to kind of start learning and improving, You're gonna end up just crashing.

You know, I crashed all the time, just really trying to either learn new tricks or, just do something new. that's where learning to build your own really, helps. so typically every FPV drone, they're very similar as far as the components of a traditional drone as well. With an FPV drone, typically you've got a carbon fiber frame.

then you've got an electronic speed controller and a flight controller. So sometimes those are two separate components, but a lot of times you can buy them, into one component that's put together. You've got your motors, your propeller, and then you've got your, your video transmission system on like your camera.

So other than that, they're pretty straightforward, as far as the components go. it does seem a little bit daunting at first when you first get into it, trying to understand there's a lot out there. If you kind of shop around, I would say that it is one of those things, if you really do want to get into it, it's worth it.

when you do crash these FPV drones a lot of times, you're not really, you might break an arm, you might break a propeller, but most of the time you [00:06:00] don't do any significant damage to them. That's not, you know, to the point where you can't repair it. if you do break an arm, it's going to cost you maybe five or seven dollars to fix that motors are anywhere from 15 to 30.

you know, the electronics, as far as the flight controller and the electronic speed controller, your ESCs, that's going to be the more expensive components, but, very rarely, do you have one of those go out, from a crash most of the time you can fry those when you're kind of building and putting them together, because one of the things that you do need to learn is, how to solve it.

And that is one of those things for people that don't have a lot of experience doing that is a little intimidating, but, it is one of those things that it's kind of like anything else. Once you get in and start practicing and doing it, it gets very easy. And you kind of see that there's nothing that hurt what you saw in the beginning really wasn't as big as you thought it was going to be, and you know, you'll crash is enough to where you're going to be soldering more than you'd ever want to sometimes.

So it's, Definitely worth it. hopefully that kind of answers some of the questions. I know I kind of skipped over a lot of that.

John Dickow: No, no, actually that was very good, overview of, and it seems to me almost like, you know, it's less about, building your own drone. That's just more or less knowledge that [00:07:00] you're collecting when it's time to perform maintenance on the drill,

Dusty Jolley: Exactly. And The other advantage of that is, yeah, the Avada, like I really think that's why I would say eventually to move away from the Avada is it's going to be one of those things. I don't think you're necessarily going to be able to repair yourself like you would, some of these, home built FPV drones.

so it's a lot, I think now you can probably build one with a DJI, air unit in it for probably 450 to 500. And then, You've got to have your goggles and you've got to have a remote. Other than that, With the FPV drones, what's cool about them is a lot of people build different sizes.

So I've got some that I fly inside Primarily that I've got some but you know are more freestyle drones that are go like, you know, 80 90 miles an hour once you kind of know how to build these drones you can build multiple drones for different uses and not necessarily break the bank and that way if you know that you've kinda got a small fleet that can tackle different jobs, and it is fun to have something that you can fly inside, but it's fun to have something that can, chase down a car as well.

John Dickow: and so, if somebody wanted, they're gonna build their own, uh, FPP drone. you mentioned Nevada. Is that, is that like just basically like a kit? No, the Abada

Dusty Jolley: is actually, it's a, [00:08:00] it's a DJI drone. So it's something that actually you probably got a best buy and buy one.

But, they have, I think that just what they call their FPV drone. And I know that it was a little bit, There's a lot more people crashing those. It wasn't, as durable as the Avada. at the end of the day, you're going to have to have a set of goggles and a remote.

So it's, you know, you can buy that, I think in a package with the Avada, or you can buy that separately. But the good thing is once you've got that, that's something that you can use with any other FPV drone at this point. for anybody that's looking to get into it, I would say, there is a website that I would recommend, fpvknowitall.

com. the guy that, owns that website and runs that website is named Joshua Bardwell, and he has thousands of YouTube videos. on just pretty much anything related to FPV that you could possibly think of. And he just finished, I think a 12 video series, 12 part, maybe 14 part video series on how to learn how to fly FPV drones.

And so it's step by step. and we've had him on as a expert Q and a guest on the community as well. So he is one of those guys that we'll have on that people can come on and talk to. but he's a great resource for. Learning the basics of getting in, and then I think he has a lot of links to as [00:09:00] far as products on how to get started and the basic components you need.

here as a resource to the community and anybody that, uh, that wants to reach out to me as far as getting plugged in and, flying FPV drones.

John Dickow: Awesome. Dusty, I really appreciate it. seems like a real cool concept to me. I've never flown an FPV drone, but the idea of it, and it makes me feel like it's, it's like stepping onto a ride instead of actually, you know, so very cool.

and Hey, I really appreciate you coming on and, kind of talking through not just. the building, why somebody would want to build, but just sort of what is an FPV drone? why would somebody want to fly one in the first place? it seems like some, this is something that's only gonna become a bigger thing.

Dusty Jolley: it's worth getting into. If you like flying drones, this is why this will just kind of take it to the next level.

John Dickow: Cool. Cool. Thank you again for jumping on here and talking FPV drones with me. Dusty Jolly, community manager, drone launch Academy. He also runs the drone launch connect community.

So check it out. use the promo code, earlier in this episode. Great place to network. Great place to get your questions answered here on YDQA, but also just a great [00:10:00] place to connect with other, drone people in experts and people that can help you get to where you want to go, when it comes to your own hobby or.

business pursuit. So, Dusty, thanks again. And hey, if you got a drone question, please send it our way. We will find someone to answer the question. you can hop onto YDQA. io and we'll see your question there. Or like I said, drone launch connect community, a great resource for getting questions answered and connecting with some pretty cool, people in the drone community until then we'll see you in the sky.