First fpv recommendations.

[MK1G4V]

Wow cheers buddy!

This is exactly the sort of help I needed

This stuff sounds great. I'm going to go ahead and read up a little more and purchase some if not all of the stuff you so kindly suggested..

Thanks a bunch guys! Great forum, Helpful people.

Have a great day!

Gav

[bigMouse]

If your thinking of going for a Bixler, then consider the multiplex twinstar, much better penetration into wind and can carry an impressive payload in battery capacity, and should be available at local hobby shops. Both the Bixler and TS can be very quiet in the air (depending on power train choice)...
http://www.gliders.uk.com/Multiplex-Twin-Star-2-Comes-with-2-brushed-motors/productinfo/MUL-214210/
Shop around for prices, I got mine for £40.

Flying wings are good and very popular but generally noisy as hell. Depends where you want to fly.

rangeLink r/c is what I use, plugged into an old futaba 9C, good stuff but so far as I know, only available from the maker in china, futaba 9C's go on ebay for about a ton
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR2.TRC1.A0.H0.Xfutaba+9c&_nkw=futaba+9c&_sacat=0&_from=R40

[MK1G4V]

Well that twinstar 2 looks very nice!

I hope to get some if not all of the parts suggested here for me from Uk.
I notice hobbyking have a uk warehouse that I'm hoping will be able to provide me parts. and of course there is uk sellers on ebay so all looks good.

If I can get all In and up n away for 500 GBP Or there about's I'm a very happy chappy!

I may switch to a slightly better cam/osd I might as well go with one with a RTH function. and I would like the distance from TX to be measured In meters rather than feet. But I did notice there are a bunch of buttons on a separate board for the cam xxpit suggested. Seems to have some some sort of control over what's displayed on screen, maybe I could change to meters? But I don't think this cam has a RTH function if I'm not mistaken?

Would you recommend I also swap out any motors provided With either planes suggested for a brushless set up or will I be ok with Factory motors? In which case I hope to find some sort of kit form as I would be removing most of its guts and possibly throwing them In the bin Lol

Thanks again fellas!

Gav

[bigMouse]

There is a confusion with osd's!
the cams often come with an osd (on screen display) this osd is ONLY for setting up the camera config settings like lighting etc. Nothing to do with flying!

Then there are FC's Flight controllers or a bewildering choice of dedicated OSD's for the actual flying!

[MK1G4V]

Oh right Gotcha!

In that case I am an idiot, I watched a YouTube vid of the cam and I noticed the guy was using some sort of Osd I assumed quite wrongly that it was built in.. Probably should have guessed really as its labelled a security cam haha

I clearly have LOTS to learn

[xxpitt]

Glad to help. Wish I had found this forum before I first started. I never even knew about uhf and could of saved some dosh if I bought everything o have now straight off instead of upgrading.

If you go down the chinese route there's some things you need to know. There is an import to pay on anything you buy valued over a set amount, think its around $23 or something. But what you can do is ask the store your buying from to mark the declared value to below $20 that way you dont have to pay anything. This still a chance it can get stopped by custems but 9/10 times it gets through. Maybe if your buying your plane and uhf from the same place do 2 seperate orders as the parcel will be hugh and theres mire of a chance customs will pull it.

If you have a osd that does rth chances are it will to cppm to so you can get the cheaper 4ch ezuhf rx as you will only need one or 2 channels

[MK1G4V]

Yes thanks very much bud!

I did think because of my flight time ect and clear lack of fpv understanding that It would be a challenge to get the kind of responses I have so far received from your good self and others

You see I'm not likely to try and throw it all together and try and break any distance records. and I will be sure to do a LOT more research In the meantime. I really just wanted to buy the right parts before the money runs out or goes to different avenues.

I may use this place a lot in the future so between here and my good friend who is frankly a RC nut although admittedly not FPV savvy we should be just fine.

I will try and avoid overseas orders as much as possible though If I'm honest I haven't had the best of luck In the past with overseas orders and Frankly Although not in any rush to take to the skies , I am rather impatient when I have shelled out for goods and have to wait an eternity for a delivery. 

If there is anything else You guys think I should be aware of or any pointers I should consider then please feel free to let me know. I'm really here to learn and possibly make friends within this rather awesome sport You guys have here!

Great work guys and thanks again for not shooting me down right away

Gav

[xxpitt]

If there is anything else You guys think I should be aware of or any pointers I should consider then please feel free to let me know. I'm really here to learn and possibly make friends within this rather awesome sport You guys have here!

Don't fly over water until you can afford to lose what your flying. I learnt the hard way after sinking my 2nd quadcopter 

[MK1G4V]

I have a few more questions If I may guys.

I'm really just trying to cover most angles. Since my initial Intention was to fly a fpv heli for more many reasons and despite the fact that I'm a scale freak deeply In love with the ec135 helicopter. One of the main reasons besides this was the very short landing/take of room required, You see deep in my mind which hasn't always been my ally  , I had visions of sitting at home possibly indoors while soaring the skies above me..

I saw a few videos a while back where a guy did something very similar only using a fixed wing. He had very limited space but he seemed to make it work great.

And so my questions..

How will adding extra length's of cable from transmitter to antenna location fair?
I'm aware than any added length of cable in general will have an adverse affect on signal quality as opposed to having it right In your hands with very minimal if not no cable involved.

Will this have a great enough effect in signal loss to worry me at say 3km on a uhf system and same goes for video signal using 1.2 as suggested here In this thread?

I have a neighbour  who has a pretty looong garden that backs onto mine with its own sort of roadway access I don't know the exact measurements but it pretty long. It would be interesting to see If I could bring a bird down there

I'm not entirely keen on standing around In my local park with a few hundred quids worth of gear attached to me, I'm not eliminating this completely I'm a big lad I can take care of myself, but I could do without the unwanted attention of say even kids who want to take a look through the goggles or well anything like that when I'm trying to pilot my plane at 1000ft :0

And for this reason after less than 3 pages Into this thread I may even consider a "Quad thingy" after all, If Its going to be easer to take off/ land. I may just be coming to my senses and closing the book on the scale plane, heli FPV idea as much as it pains me (Sad face)

But regardless of airframe how is adding lengths of high quality signal cable going to effect the overall experience? I would be mounting both Video and Uhf antennas as high as is possible yet practical for me.. I'm guessing mounting the Video reciter up high and minimising the antenna cable length by running some long video cables instead of antenna cable's would be of some benefit. But how is the UHF system going to handle such an idea?

Is it possible to add some sort of well I don't know the words for this "repeater" maybe that could stand as a go between the Tx and Rx. Like I hold the Tx in my hands it then sends input signals to the "repeater" mounted up high which then control's the aircraft?

Wow I'm in far too deep here I literally have no idea what I'm saying sometimes, and I'm sorry to be such a pain in the ass with all these looong winded posts.

Thanks In advance!

Gav

Gav

[MK1G4V]

Here's the link to what I had in mind or something of a similar nature  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8kQVVTe2i0

[xxpitt]

Thats over my head all that stuff. I know ben flies with 3m of coax cable to his uhf tx. But thats only experience ive had with it. Cant see it being a problem though. As for for small take off landing area. Quad is number one choice but foam models dont need that much room to take off. Landing needs considerable more though. There is a  wing that turns from a tri copter into a flying wing which would be ideal for you. But it has a hefty price tag about £800 I think

[MK1G4V]

Ok well that's a better response than I imagined. I may have to speak with the other guy about this, cheers!

I'm sure Take off's like you mentioned will be fine on a relatively small area . I will of course be doing any landings using my eyes and not fpv,  Ill have a play with the model for a while first without any FPV gear see what's realistic and  achievable for me regarding landings.

Out of interest what are we calling a "budget" quadrocopter? capable of carrying all the FPV stuff you suggested for me?

[MK1G4V]

Ok after a bit of research.. Is it right that the turnigy 9x Will do the same job for me? I don't really like some of the newer features And I don't fancy shelling out money for a special Lipo battery for it.. I hear the 9x can make use Of 8xAA battery's. Although I'm sure not everybody Choice of battery's but I do have A whole bunch of 2700Mah Rechargeable AA Cells that would be nice if I could make use of.

Does anybody know If the 9x comes with a 8xAA carrier for the AA cells?

Cheers!

[bigMouse]

If the tx you get can take a lipo then fit one, the nimH rechargables work but imo unreliable in critical applications (and it will last ages between charges) get the lipos (or LIFE) batteries especially designed for r/c Tx's, they are just too cheap to bother messing around with single cells...
 

[MK1G4V]

Ok I here this.. just to be clear It doesn't have to be a special Lipo for the 9Xr? just a regular 11v lipo with a standard balancing port type end?

Cheers!