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A comment on Show HN: The Jankest Autonomous Drone Built and Programmed from Scratch.

Re:Show HN: The Jankest Autonomous Drone Built and Programme... by walrus01 on Sunday March 10, 2019 @10:11PM (#19356175)
If you want to build a really cheap drone that can actually do autonomous GPS-guided stuff, the Kakute F7 can be flashed with Arducopter (Arudpilot), and is $49 with a power distribution board. Mostly intended for small racing drones, but can be used for other purposes.

https://www.getfpv.com/holybro-kakute-f7-aio-flight-controll...

https://shop.holybro.com/c/kakute-f7_0486

Or you can get the version that combines a four motor ESC in a stack with the version of the Kakute F7 that doesn't have a built in PDB (power distribution board), for under $120.

https://shop.holybro.com/kakute-f7-amp-tekko32-f3-metal-4in1...

other parts needed to complete something: motors, propellers, frame, battery, video tx (for something like 5.8 GHz band goggles), RC receiver, wiring, ublox m8n GPS receiver.

want a cheap frame? It'll be heavier than ordering a $45 carbon fiber frame from banggood or gearbest or aliexpress or such, but you can 3d print one at the cost of maybe half of a spool of $18 PLA filament:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:261145

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1206960

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: The Jankest Autonomous Drone Built and Programme... by StavrosK on Sunday March 10, 2019 @10:59PM (#19356338)
This is all great advice. Ardupilot/Arducopter is heavy duty stuff, you can make a quadcopter/plane/whatever that will fly completely autonomously by giving it waypoints on a Google Maps interface. Highly recommended, I've built a plane like this and very much enjoyed the process.

Total flight time was around thirty seconds because I managed to crash it twice, but live and learn.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: The Jankest Autonomous Drone Built and Programme... by djpilot on Monday March 11, 2019 @03:16AM (#19357239)
What is the approximate price range to get everything needed?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Show HN: The Jankest Autonomous Drone Built and Programme... by walrus01 on Monday March 11, 2019 @10:58AM (#19359420)
absolutely everything, there's some common ground station stuff (your handheld transmitter, and goggles or 7" LCD monitor + video receiver), that's an unavoidable upfront cost separate from the aircraft itself. Figure at minimum $300 to $400 for that.

For a small quadcopter, $400-500 total parts cost, anything below that will involve a lot of quality compromises.

Take a look at some of the RTF / ready to fly specifications sold by getfpv.com or helipal.com for examples.

[ Parent | on HN ]