Introducing the Flying Flashlight!

I have to share this story with you guys. So i was flying my drone in the field behind my house and I have been recently clipping a Ultrafire m5 onto it during night flights. Neighbor comes out and is like “damn your flashlights are even flying now” made me laugh as I really never though of it as a flying flashlight before. I thought I was taking a break from flashlights for awhile but apparently not lol, I’ve now just built my most expensive light ever :stuck_out_tongue: .

Only videos Ive got so far are these 3 which are very early into the build but I think its still fairly impressive.

That’s really cool, nice job!

How much payload do you think it can comfortably handle?

great! now I want a helicopter :slight_smile:

According to the spec sheets of the motors each motor gives 1.2kg of thrust with the props I’m using so it should easily be able to lift a couple additional pounds but your flight time suffers the heavier it gets. right now I’m getting about 15min on a 4a/h 11.1v battery and prior to the relays/video transmitter/camera/and lights it was about 17min. on my cheap controler im getting about 2km of control before it starts going into failsafe and returning home. The live video feed is good for about 1.5km then the quality drops pretty fast.

:open_mouth: so much space to fly in.

looks out own window and :_( at his tiny UK garden.

Very cool! I've wondered about trying out one of those cheap helicopters I keep seeing (like on FastTech) - note, I'm not saying yours is one of the cheap ones. Any thoughts on the cheap ones? They worth anything? Worth trying out? Junk that won't last?

-Garry

Been wondering this myself. :bigsmile:

That’s all I need…another expensive hobby!

argh, I just bought WLtoys V959 from ft :santa:

I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of UFO sightings in your area!

My recommendations for starting out

If you want a heli you want a Wltoys V911 + spare main blades + flybars + more batteries (150mah best) + a spare landing skid and swashplate.

If you want a quadcopter the Wltoys v252 / JXD 385 or a Hubsan H107L either of those along with a prop guard and spare props and body shells and one of the 380mah battery 5 packs.

Just make sure you don’t mistakenly buy an ARF or BNF as they do not include the remote controls!! you want an RTF and to see the remote control specifically mentioned and pictured!

Honestly till two weeks ago the only experience i had was on cheap little toy copters.

A very good beginner copter is the syma s107. pretty much anybody can fly this thing. Its only meant for indoors though. It can be had on aliexpress for 20-30bucks and comes with a controller. this is only a 3channel copter meaning you cant move sideways.

the next step up would be the WL toys V911. I really love this thing and can be had for about 50$. Its 4 channels which gives you full control and has 2 settings and can be really fast on the touchy setting. this thing can be flown inside and outside. This is pretty much the only thing I flew for like 2 years till I just built the drone.

Youtube some videos of either one and I’m sure you’ll be ordering one this afternoon=p

FastTech has the V911 w/controller, 2 batteries, 2 tail blades and charger, just under $40.

Flight time is listed only at 5 minutes…is that typical? Seems really low…

That would be about right with the 135mah battery it comes with stock I bought a 5pack of 180s for 10$ that give me about 8min.
There really cheap and the 180s charge up in about 35min (and you can independently charge 2 at a time in the stock charger it comes with)

Check out amazon as you will probably find it cheaper there and from a US supplier

$36.59 on Amazon with "upgraded batteries" which appear to be 200 mAh. Putting it on my wishlist for the future.

-Garry

I’ve been wondering what it would take to fly a camera over closed sites where a grizzly is feeding on a carcass to predict how much longer the carcass will last. I’ve assumed that something like that be in the $800.00 range?

Very nice. Thanks for sharing. :slight_smile:

Probably can find it cheaper somewhere but I visited Verizon this week and happened to see a demo of this quad with camera flown by cell phone controls on the video from the camera. Flipped the copter mid-air several times right over stacks of product inside the store. He did it within a couple feet of airspace. Could have messed up several tablet and phone screens with a small mistake. Said it had about 15 min of runtime on the lipo cell, charge time sounded decent. Knowing the company I was pleasantly surprised at the ask … and it’s almost 1/3 of what you thought.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/accessories/parrot-ar-drone-2-0-elite-edition-snow-version/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.parrot.freeflight

I didn’t think I’d get away that cheap, I see them for as low as $280.00 in Canada. I had been looking at something like this DJI Phantom at Banggood.

funny because i was just thinking of buying one of these, but just havent had the time to research which one is good.
all i know is that i want a quad, and is able to fly outdoors and is less than $100.
i think id add some of those lights onto mine as well.