I permanentlly lost this quad on 30th of July 2020 in a lake while shooting some water activities. I got too close to the water surface and received a big splash from the boat I was chasing and, while being confident that my conformal coating will pretect it, 30 sec later, it dropped dead in the middle fo the lake. Unfortunatelly I had my GPS disabled and my DVR recording was off (2 rookie mistakes) so I had absolutely no way of locating it although the lake was only 1m deep (with a muddy bottom).
The only time I felt so attached to a multirotor was when we lost our first ever multirotor back in 2012 (a dji f550 called Hexy). This quad was my first longrange quad and the adrenaline it gave me while pushing the limits over mountains was like no other quad I flew. I am glad it ended in glory, taking some great shoots (luckyly I changed the gopro micro sd card just before the last flight) instead of getting dusted and forgotten in a drawer somewhere.
rip my friend :(
original description below
This is almost an identical remake of a quad I droped in the ocean: https://rotorbuilds.com/build/10783
The frame is the one recovered from the bottom of the Ocean. See below video.
My personal records with this setup:
10.05.2019: personal best, went 7.1km out with a gain of 1620m at a maximum altitude of 2500m. see screenshots.
24.03.2019: personal best, went 6.4km out with a gain of 1400m at a maximum altitude of 2400m. see screenshots.
This is my main long range setup which I fly using custom made Lion packs. See the above build for more details.
Relevant videos:
Photos
Part List
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Did you use the ND Filters with, or without, HyperSmooth on the Hero7?
I only shoot 60fps or higher if I need it. If I shoot a fast moving subject (like a drift car) then I may want to slow down the footage in post so I shoot 4k 60p. In general I shoot 4k 30p because the lower the frame rate the batter the quality of each individual frame (due to limited bitrate). If the sunlight is coming from a particular angle (has to do with optics) the image will be washed out because of flare effects. All you can do is to use good quality ND filter (to minimize the flare effects) and to avoid the angles which cause large amounts of flares (washouts). I was never in a situation where I could lock the shutter. I would lock the shutter if I were to shoot indoor where I can control the light otherwise it would not be practical. Outdoors you would risk having bad exposure for a big part of your footage because of extreme light variation (sun coming in/out form clouds, drone change orientation in relation to the sun ...). From ISO 100 to ISO 800 (which is maximum in my opinion) you only have 3 stops of light which are not enough to compensate for the light difference outdoors even if you have the perfect ND for the respective situation and you will end up either overexposing or underexposing certain areas (unless its very cloudy).
16:9 not 4:3. The only time I use 4:3 is when I forsee the need to use RSGO in which case I also turn off internal stabilization. But this only applies to Hero6 and more recently to Hero 8 which are the only cameras which work well with RSGO. Not 100% sure about hero8 because I haven't yet tested it personally but I've seen some videos with decent results.
In my opinion RSGO should only be used when shooting in low light where gopro stabilization will fail miserably. The gopro internal stabilization of hero6 (with older fw), hero7 and hero8 are good enough for the majority of the cases. I can also see RSGO being usefull on small cinewhoops which tend to be shaky.
Yes, I change between ND 8, 16 and 32 to try and get the shutter as close as possible to correct ratio. I use the polar pro cinema series NDs which to my knowledge are the best gopro nds on the market. Some of them do cause a little vignette like artefacts in the corners but I don't mind that much since most of the time I end up cropping the corners because I export ultrawide. I also bought the new hero8 NDs from pollar pro but I am yet to test them.
Amazing..amazing videos! After flying my 7" all summer and battling for that perfect tune, I'm convinced 6" props are the way to go for smooth cinematic long range.
Excellent results with this quad and beautiful build.
What kind of range( thinking of battery,motor,prop, throttle position, speed) are you getting? Do you like the 2306? have you tried others with this kv? I just bought some motors to move fro 5s LR setups to 6s and would very much appreciate some ideas. Thanks!
thanks! sry for the late reply. my combo gives you between 12 and 20min of flight time depending on the flight altitude and style. at a constant speed of 60kmh you will fly for 16-18min with a 3000mah lion pack. to compare the motors with others would require to fly them side by side and see which lasts more. all I know is that I have a 7inch setup with 2507 1850kv avenger motors which to my surprise are not more efficient than these tiny tmotors and I guess is probably due to the KV (1600 vs 1850). until I made this comparison I thought that my tmotor f40 1600kv were too tiny for such a heavy 6inch build but it turned out completly opposite. if you join the longrangehooligans group on facebook and see my posts you will find there complete flights with telemetry where I tested the Lion packs. I have recently build a 4s 5inch long range setup with F60 2150kv which I will soon test.
Hi painfpv, thank you for sharing this build. I've a similar setup here (https://rotorbuilds.com/build/15550) but am a bit disappointed by the video range (up to 2 km with a Unify Pro HV 800mW), and am in the process of exploring different ways to optimize it (e.g. placement of the VTX as far to the FC as possible). I was wondering if there is a specific reason for the placement of your video antenna, on the side, rather than on the back of the quad. Is it because of the limited length of the pigtail to the VTX or is there any other better reason? Thanks a lot for your feedback.
sorry for the late reply but for what is worth here are my thoughts: I flew at 4km horizontal distance and 1.2km vertical distance with an 800mW Unify and didn't have any issues so you shouldn't either. I keep my VTX antenna on a side because it was easier for me to mount it that way but having it on the back is even better imo. assuming you don't have any silly technical issues on your quad (like bad antenna wire connections ...) I think you should check things on the receiver side. make sure you are using a good receiver module and good antennas. I currently fly with two direction antennas (for long range missions): a trueRC x2-air and a cheap triple feed patch. also make sure you antenna are oriented towards the area you are flying, tilting you head by 15degrees might make a big difference. when I fly up on a mountain I move my head while flying untill I find the best video quality and then freeze :)
Is is ok to install 6" props into this 5" quad?
it seems there are 2 versions of it, here is the 6inch version: http://pirofliprc.com/HyperLite-FlowRide-Freestyle-6-inch-Frame_p_4459.html
Amazing Video!!
How much time do you get with that battery pack?
this is the best build guide I know of: https://blog.seidel-philipp.de/diy-build-a-longrange-lithium-ion-battery/
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