After much research, much watching of Youtube (Rotor-riot, Bardwell, Le Drib, Steele, Drone Mesh, UAV Futures), and browsing Banggood reviews, I’ve chosen components for my first build.
There are quite a few components required – so here’s the list I came up with and my reasons.
| Part | Choice | Cost | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frame | HSKRC TWE210 210mm | £15.36 | Robust, cheap and was part of a UAV Futures build. |  |
| Motors | Emax ECO Series 2306 4S 2400KV | £34.01 | Good performance:cost ratio. (And UAV Futures recommended.) |  |
| Flight Controller | Mamba F405 Mk2 | £33.02 | The flight controller and ESCs came as a combo. It has an F4 processor. I wanted F4 or F7 because they’re relatively modern & capable. (F7s were more expensive.) |  |
| ESCs | Mamba F40 40A 3-6S | n/a | Part of the package (see above) | |
| Props | Cyclone T5046C 5046 and Racerstar V2 5048 | £4.96 & £5.74 | I chose the Racestar props (10 pairs due to low cost and good reviews), and a couple of sets of the Cyclones really just for variety – see how they fly. |  |
| FPV Camera | Caddx Ratel 1/1.8” Starlight HDR | £22.47 | 1. Needs to fit the frame 2. This one had good reviews and reasonable price. |  |
| Video Transmitter (VTX) | Eachine TX5258 | £12.19 | This was used in a couple of build videos I saw. It includes smart-audio which seems important. |  |
| VTX Antenna | Foxeer 5.8G Lollipop 3 2.5DBi Omni | £12.21 | This comes in a set of 2 – so I may have one on my goggles and one on the VTX. |  |
| Receiver | FrSky R-XSR | £20.67 | I already have a FrSky Taranis transmitter, so my choices were limited. Joshua Bardwell also spoke well of this, albeit a couple of years ago. |  |
| Batteries | ??? | Still to purchase | ||
| TOTAL SO FAR | £160.63 | (not including Transmitter, Goggles, Batteries & Battery Charger !!) | ||