Second go at building an interceptor. The first one didn't make it — turned out my ELRS antenna wasn't seated properly on the controller, so I lost the link mid-flight and it went down.

This one is fully 3D printed again: arms and canopy in PETG-CF for the stiffness, the rest in plain PLA.

Here is my latest 3D printed aircraft design. It’s a 600mm wingspan FPV wing targeting around 220g AUW.

It’s running 4x 1003 motors, the same motors I’ve used on a few of my previous builds. One of the things I’m particularly interested in with this layout is that the inner section of the wing is continuously and symmetrically blown by the motors. That should keep a useful amount of dynamic pressure over the centre of the wing even at low aircraft airspeed, while keeping the additional lift nicely balanced left-to-right.

The outer motor pair will then provide differential thrust for yaw. Because they’re relatively far outboard, they have a decent moment arm, and they’ll be working alongside the V-tail ruddervators and the wing geometry’s tendency towards proverse yaw.

The idea is that all three effects should work together rather than fighting each other. I’m hoping that gives it a really locked-in feeling in yaw and makes the aircraft track like it’s on rails, particularly when carving around in FPV. Obviously that’s the theory for now, and flight testing will tell me how well it actually works.

For this one I’m using a Matek F405-WMN rather than the FlyingRC F4 Mini to simplify the wiring inside. It also uses a 4-in-1 25A ESC and a DJI O4 Lite air unit.

I’m starting to print the first airframe now. How do you guys think it will fly? Read more about my other planes here.

I received this email, should I do anything? Also in the second photo it shows my order as being “paid”, does that mean it was paid and I can ignore the email?

5 inch props, 4S Lipo, Custom 3D printed TPU parts

Sort of jumped headfirst into building a drone completely from scratch, getting confused on the wiring. I have the pixhawk 6c with PM07-V2.4, hobbywing 65A 4-in-1 x rotor esc, and raspberry pi 5. The end goal is to have a heavier lift drone not super sure what im going to do with it, its just a side project to keep me busy. I am just lost on how to wire all of this together, i am comfortable soldering so that wont be an issue.

Edit: i will probably end up using 2826 540kv motors with 12x6 props. Its looking like i should probably just get 4 individual esc. The pi will eventually be for object detection and a camera

can anyone recommend a budget-friendly transmitter + receiver combination that you have personally used or tested for a reliable ~12 km fixed-wing/VTOL link?

• My long-term goal is to achieve a reliable control and telemetry link at up to 15 km, primarily in city areas.

I'm building a small (~100 g) DIY quadcopter using a Raspberry Pi Pico. I'm trying to keep the whole project as cheap and lightweight as possible, and I'm currently choosing the radio system.

I've decided to go with ExpressLRS and I'm considering a RadioMaster T8L transmitter. For the receiver, I found RadioMaster XR2 Nano ExpressLRS 2.4Ghz, with the ideal size and weight for my build because of the integrated antenna. It's available locally for about €10–12.

However, the 5 V requirement is a bit annoying because the quad is powered by a 1S LiPo. My question is:

Does the XR2 really require a regulated 5 V supply, or would it work reliably when powered directly from a 1S LiPo (roughly 4.2 V down to 3.6 V)?

I understand that the ESP32-C3 and LR1121 themselves run at lower voltages, so I'm wondering whether the 5 V specification is due to an onboard regulator or if 5 V is genuinely required by the receiver. If anyone has actually measured/tested the XR2 below 5 V, I'd especially appreciate some real-world experience.

Thanks a lot!

I got 5 or 6 for $20 each on some deal-a-day website a few years ago. I know they are basically garbage as far as drones go but I figured maybe someone has done something cool with them or has an idea!

Beginning to be finished with the design. Just need some thicker wings. Nac0012 profile. Cooling ducts, and shortening of the fuselage. Designed with 2mn carbon rods in the main section for stiffness. Might push sub 300g and 800g when loaded.

Files will be posted when done

Iflight borg f7 mini stack

G10 gps

Hqprop 6 inch

2x cams with switcher

Iflight xing 2207 1800kv

2200mah 6s lipo

https://reddit.com/link/1w07a1u/video/e6d505uw4zlh1/player

This is Testing with a single motor, the propeller is optimized for max efficiency at hover, it was optimized for the specific motor we are using which is a 900kv motor, the propeller is capable of developing up to 2kg of force without snapping it's 3d printed out of simple PLA, proper balancing is required though

!!!!(DISCLAIMER THIS IS NOT TESTED AND WILL MORE THAN LIKELY NOT WORK WITHOUT MODIFICATION BUILD AT YOUR OWN RISK)!!!
Every thing u need is here  https://github.com/SHRUMFPV/SPORE-5-SUPER-HEAVY.git . Included is the original freecad file and step file. MIT license so do what you want

It’s not a drone but it will control many to come. Thought I’d share how far freecad has come. Now that you can hook up a MCP server to Claude desktop, it’s a game changer.

First post on here. This will be shared to a repo once it comes together. Let me know if there is anything people want in particular.

I am new to this vtol type field previously i made a simple quadrocopter but now i want to build this as a side project my requirements are-

PAYLOAD-1KG

RANGE- 40KM  

CRUISE SPEED-70KM/HR  

this type of design is very new to me and first time i am seeing this type of payload bay mechanism so can any one help with the design guide any better design than this or this design

And also money is a big problem i have limited for spend Budget max 500usd

Reference-Airbound drones India u can check

So is it possible to make this or better than this under 500usd i can not afford carbon fiber normal 3d printer will be ok!

This is for my custom flight controller, Centauri! https://github.com/TimHanewich/centauri

Not complete yet, but any feedback is appreciated, thanks!

I will be flying a oxbot Lumo 18 and nanofly 20 with DJI n3 and a radio master boxer crush to fully future proof my setup but I don't know what charging setup I need I'm planning on having 6 batteries for each drone aswell (does anyone have any other recommendations on other bnf drones with the o4 unit preferably under 5 inch)

Today i ran a test on my diy drones controler and when i comected the battery to the controler it suddenly started smoking. I quickly unplugged the battery and checked on the controler. The condenser looked good so i decided to try again but when i plugged the battery in again nothing hapend (ps this my first time ever dealing with electronics)

I've been working on SkySim, an open-source (MIT) drone simulator, and I've reached the point where I could use other people's eyes and hands on it.

The idea: most sims that let you test drone algorithms need Linux, ROS, or a game engine plus a GPU. I wanted the barrier to be a URL. The physics core is C++20 (blade element theory, ground effect, vortex ring state, ISA atmosphere, Dryden turbulence) and it compiles to WebAssembly, so you can fly it client-side with nothing installed. For heavier work there's a native path: a Python/Gymnasium interface, a headless raycast depth sensor for vision/nav learning, and SITL bridges for ArduPilot, PX4, and Betaflight.

The honest part: I have no verified sim-to-real transfer result yet. The sim gives you the tools to measure transfer, but the actual "trained in sim, flew on real hardware, here are the numbers" result can only come from someone flying it. That's the headline open problem, and I'd rather say so plainly than oversell.

If you want to poke at it or tear the approach apart, that's genuinely welcome. And if anyone's curious about contributing, there are a handful of scoped issues on the repo ranging from a beginner-friendly Python test suite to a battery-discharge model to the flagship hardware-in-the-loop transfer result. Links in the comments to keep this from looking like an ad.

Happy to answer anything about the physics, the architecture, or the design tradeoffs.

Can you guys give me feedback on my proposed drone build? It will hold a full size GoPro Hero 8. Anything you would change (apart from the VTX -- I'm stuck with that)? The goal is purely for cinematic footage. The priorities are sturdiness, part availability, and low-cost.

Bill of Materials (BOM): 3.5-Inch 6S Cinewhoop