Hello all, first time poster here. I just recently got back into the world of R/C machines when I saw that affordable quadcopters began hitting the shelves, and I just had to have one. I started out with the Syma X5C-1, which has been fantastic since the day I got it, and got two little guys after it(the Estes Proto X and JJRC's JJ-1000, both also very fun). I am now looking to upgrade to a hobby-level quadcopter or hexacopter now that I'm much more confident with my flying skills, and I can't decide whether I want to just go for the heavily-praised DJI Phantom 3 Standard, or just build my own FPV drone from scratch. Would a 500 dollar-ish DIY build be comparable to the similarly priced Phantom 3 in quality? Or would I be better off going with the Phantom for now?

What do you actually want to do with this craft?

Do you want to fly proximity FPV? Race with FPV? Do freestyle with FPV? Do aerial photography and high quality video with FPV?

If your answer is the latter, get a Phantom. You won't build anything DIY that is as good for $500.

If your answer is any of the former, a Phantom is not designed for these applications and will be underwhelming for those uses. The Phantoms are not really made for you to fly manually, they are true drones where the craft flies mostly autonomously and you just tell it where to go.

I suppose my main objective is to have a really fast and maneuverable craft with FPV so I can put on a pair of goggles or watch a screen and feel like I'm flying along with it, which points me toward racing/freestyle FPV. Now that I know a bit more about the phantoms, I can see that's clearly not what I'm after. (Would still be nice to have one, though.)
I've seen highly rated racing quads for around 450-500 USD, but I would love to build my own from scratch. From what I understand DIY is a bit more expensive, but how much more do you think I should expect to pay if I take that approach?

Are you counting Tx and goggles in the $500 or just the quad? My initial investment budget (all DIY) was $700 for everything, quad, goggles, Tx and Lipos (a sort of future-proof, budget-performance build). My NOX5R itself was approximately $300 and screams! (My first racer so take that with a grain of rice lol)

(11-Apr-2017, 01:01 AM)Coltron5000 Wrote: I suppose my main objective is to have a really fast and maneuverable craft with FPV so I can put on a pair of goggles or watch a screen and feel like I'm flying along with it, which points me toward racing/freestyle FPV. Now that I know a bit more about the phantoms, I can see that's clearly not what I'm after. (Would still be nice to have one, though.)
I've seen highly rated racing quads for around 450-500 USD, but I would love to build my own from scratch. From what I understand DIY is a bit more expensive, but how much more do you think I should expect to pay if I take that approach?

DIY is only more expensive if you don't have all the equipment you need to start with DIY. A good quality temperature controlled soldering iron, solder, various tools, tie wraps, a smoke stopper, a multimeter, various connectors, etc, etc all need to be purchased so that you can do a good job.

If you're lucky like me and already have all that stuff (I've been an electronics hobbyist since my teens), DIY is cheaper than buying ready to fly. Even if you don't, it's stuff you only have to buy once and when you have built your first craft, the second one won't be far behind! There are also great benefits in having built something yourself - it's immensely satisfying and as you already know the build inside out, easier to repair.

As an example, I priced up building an Armattan Chameleon from parts similar to what I used in my recent build. The Chameleon is a very high quality and highly rated frame and with the components used in the build makes for a jaw droppingly fast and incredibly agile FPV quad.



I didn't include propellers as they're cheap and should be viewed as consumables, or batteries. Otherwise, that's everything needed, not including postage.

You won't find anything ready made, apart from the recent Diatone GT2, that even comes close in performance, durability and looks.

So, with DIY, you can build yourself a high quality powerhouse for around $450. If you use a cheap frame and cheaper motors and electronics, you can easily build a good machine to learn with for $150.

If you really pinch the pennies, you can build a completely competent quad for $99!

Wow, that was quite a bit of useful information. I definitely feel more like I'm on the right track after reading your reply. I suppose my first step will be to start saving money and gathering up some tools while I research some more. I'm glad I joined this site and asked a few questions first instead of just shelling out 500 bucks for a Phantom and getting something geared more for the other end of the spectrum of drone use than what I intend on using mine for. I'm sure I'll be posting in the coming months about my build and the progress I've made, so I'll be sure to include a shoutout for you when the time comes.
Thanks a lot!

I'm glad I could help!

Good luck with the next chapter of your multirotor story.

Once you start having "stuff" you can build more craft more efffectively, reusing your Transmitter, and ground station setup etc. it's entirely possibly to build a competent DIY aerial platform for video for under $500 once you have some "stuff" but the Phantom3 deal is great value for that if you don't have anything.

On the other hand the fun to fly side will easily consume $500 for your first DIY build plus radio gear etc.

I'm going to do the UAV Futures $99 built as my next project - will be my first FPV rig so I'm looking at say $100 for the Goggles, and user side FPV kit plus the $100 to build the quad, and another $50 for sundry stuff like receiver and so on. That ignores the transmitter and spare bits of connectors and wires etc...

I can see how a lot of said "stuff" would be a one-time purchase kind of deal. That will make me feel a lot better about shelling out all that money. My only real issue is patience. So far, I've practically pounced on the delivery person every time they've showed up! Lol

Nothing like a good hobby to keep the kid in you alive.

Yes. Stalking the postman is a prerequisite to any miniquad build