I didn’t know they were a thing either until I tried them. I’ve spent the last 7 years trying to recreate them at home.

I know it won’t help much, but let your son know that I’ve lost quads too. It happens. It’s easier to find them if you install a battery powered quad finder, or if your goggles have a quad finder setting- but even those aren’t guaranteed, and you can’t really install a battery powered beeper on a small whoop.

As far as aio’s go, I’m a fan of the DarwinFPV 15A ELRS aio. It’s got some flaws- it has an spi based ELRS rx, it doesn’t have a built in vtx, it has an f411 so only 2 uarts- but they’re dirt cheap and they can handle quite a bit of abuse, they have esc’s rated high enough that you don’t have to worry about how much amperage your typical 0802 to 11xx motors are pulling, and they can handle 1s to 3s. I’m sure some other folks will respond with their preferred aio’s.

Interesting thing about losing a quad; I have lost 3 so far.

Yes, I install a buzzer on pretty much everything. There are pros and cons to each
type. First, you have the wire in buzzer which is simple, but useless if the battery
gets ejected. {personally, I have never had this happen} Next, there are the wire
in kind that have a little battery on them so that they will work even if the battery
does get loose. Then, there is the completely independent buzzer with its own
battery and is totally self contained. Yeah, you don't wire it onto the FC. Just Velcro
it somewhere on the quad.

The thing about the ones with the battery is keeping them charged. If you haven't
flown the quad for a while, the little battery looses charge. So, that feature doesn't
work until the battery charges up. 

Ah yes, on to actually losing a quad. If the quad drops in a relatively accessible spot,
then the buzzer will help you locate it. Well, up to a certain distance. If the quad is
very far away, well, you have got to get close to it. Even if the quad is located, the
next issue is being able to actually retrieve it. If the quad lands in a tree, then
it depends on where the tree is, how high up the quad is, and if you can actually get 
to the quad {mostly it is more challenging than one would expect}. Yep, I have been
in the trees and one I was not able to get to. Where I live, the brush is so horrible that
it is pretty much impossible to get through it. If the quad goes down over someone
else's property, any fenced property, or any restricted access property; maybe you
will get it back and maybe not. If the quad drops into any substantial body of water 
like a lake or the ocean. Well...if it sinks, it is likely gone {I guess if you have scuba 
gear then you might have a chance, but the buzzer will be useless}.

As you increase the distance of the flight and fly over various hazards, like trees and water, 
the chances of actually getting a downed quad back are increasingly reduced; buzzer or
not. 

My son lost a drone when he was learning to fly, and I've lost several myself so hope your son doesn't feel too bad, it is part of the hobby. Also the searching, tree-rescuing, and other misadventures...

For 1S-2S capable AIO with ELRS and VTX, I think the X12 is your only choice. Also you may consider just picking up a bnf, as you may get a better deal considering you also get a set of motors/props/frame/batteries for not that much more.
But if you want to try a different ELRS AIO using an external VTX, there is the Darwin board Lemony mentioned and Betafpv also has a budget 12A ELRS AIO.

For the lost quad alarm, I used the ones with their own batteries, but then those tiny batteries go bad after a while. You can modify them removing their battery and plug directly into the flight pack balance lead. As long as the alarm stays attached to the lipo, it will sound after a certain time, and benefit of running off the lipo, you just unplug it to stop the alarm instead of fiddling with the tiny buttons.

Thanks everyone, I'm gonna get some of those buzzers with the separate battery. A GPS tracker may be useful as well...need to research what kind of functionality they offer.

Need to dial down the rates.  Practicing rolls and flips.  Rates are way too quick.  This quad is using the UAVtech 5" freestyle filters preset (HD option) and ELRS 250Hz preset.

At around 1:10 I managed to sort of do my current favorite trick where you pitch forward 180 and look backwards upside down as the quad continues to fly forward.  I really like tricks that involve momentum.  



Got the Fractal 75 frame and built it with the ducts from a Mobula7 V3 frame.  I missed the little guy since my son flew it away into the wilderness.  Not sure if I feel a difference with the carbon fiber frame.  Easy build except for those printed parts to hold the camera and battery.  Not easy to pull them through the slots in the frame to secure them.

The camera is a runcam nano 3.  At first I didn't like the image quality compared to the Runcam Split 3 lite the other mobula came with.  It's NTSC only so I lose the vertical field of view and goggle filling image.  There are no adjustable settings and the image quality in daylight is pretty bad.  BUT....the low light performance is really good.  To my eyes it looks better in low light than bright daylight.




May 8th I'm taking the UAV license exam.  Been doing lots of practice tests online.  I'm having the most difficulty with the weather related questions, trying to memorize stuff but I've never been good at memorizing things from just reading.  Decoding the METAR reports is also hard.  I do seem to enjoy the sectional charts, for some reason.

Hi Cali,

Is that the Part 107 license?

(24-Apr-2023, 12:46 PM)iFly4rotors Wrote: Hi Cali,

Is that the Part 107 license?

Yes, the testing place is 5 minutes from work so I figured why not.

Hi Cali,

There you go.     

Had my first crash on concrete this weekend. Was flying the 5" and foolishly ignored the low battery alarms. Within a few seconds voltage dropped off a cliff and the quad lost power (motors and vtx shut off, quad fell around 20 feet). When I went to retrieve it all looked fine but later I noticed two of the motors were seized up. Had to use some force to spin them with my hand. I presume the quad landed on one side, the props did not appear any more damaged than they already were but the impact must have pushed the bell housing to one side just enough to where it's rubbing on the stator.

Lessons learned (the hard way):

1. Respect battery voltage and be more conservative....it really does go from "fine" to "dead" in seconds.
2. Concrete is way less forgiving than grass/dirt. I knew this and have crashed in dirt many times with literally zero damage...but I didn't really know how much worse concrete is.

(24-Apr-2023, 12:41 AM)cali_quad Wrote: May 8th I'm taking the UAV license exam.  Been doing lots of practice tests online.  I'm having the most difficulty with the weather related questions, trying to memorize stuff but I've never been good at memorizing things from just reading.  Decoding the METAR reports is also hard.  I do seem to enjoy the sectional charts, for some reason.

Practice checking METAR weather daily to decode and it gets easier. There are lots of questions on the sectional charts so that's good that you enjoy them.