The current (almost full) F450 set up, except the FPV camera, after endless of iterations and crashes.

Specifications:

Frame: genuine DJI F450

Flight controller: Pixraptor (upgraded Pixhawk)

Speed controllers: DJI 30amp opto (x4)

Motors: QXmoto 4006 680kv (x4)

Props: locally made carbon fibre 1155 T-motor pattern, Tarot self locking prop adapter

Battery: 5400 25c 3s

LEDs: generic RGB

GPS: Ublox M8N

Power module: Happy Model 3amp 5.37v

Landing gear: generic foam padded

Gimbal: generic 2D with Alexmos controller

Gimbal/transmitter battery: Turnigy 800ma 30c 3s

Camera: GoPro Hero4 Black

FPV transmitter: Skyzone TS 5823 mini 200mw

Antenna: 5.8GHz generic CPL

(pssttt, don’t get too impressed. Matt ran me through the specs! )

In the very near future we would like to get a folding carbon fibre frame to take this bad boy to Indonesia in January, main concern is the portability. The F330 Mark I (currently in Nige’s possession in England) used to do the job, but it struggles to take the weight of GoPro and gimbal. The F450 barely fits in the drone backpack, and due to airlines regulations for luggage, we’ll go for a folding frame.

The DJI F450 is our first quadcopter, thank you to our friend Josh. After the F450, Matt (he is the engineer and the brain of all the quads. I am just an aerial photography & videography enthusiast after all) has built a F330 Mark I. Subsequently he built F330 Mark II as the crash quad which I find it more difficult to drive, and now we are waiting for bits of the new racing quad QAV210. Propellers have arrived, they are minuscule!

The F450 is my personal quadcopter and fit my style of flying. It is like a girly quad, easy to control and has lots of fun functions (such as Follow Me, Return to Launch, etc) but also less nimble, less swooshy and less acrobatic. It is the videography quad basically. Matt always pushes me to fly the F330 Mark II (it does not have GPS) from time to time, just to remind me how to fly a “real” quad without an aid from a good flight controller. That’s an update from us. Way to go to be a better pilot, but we’ll keep on trying. Bye for now.

Some fun pictures of the university from F450 quadcopter this weekend. Took the shots from the FPV video capture.

We flew our quadcopter around campus a couple of days ago. The five minutes (sped up to double speed) YouTube video was when I took turn to fly it. Pardon the novice piloting skill, lacking of gimbal and inexperienced cinematography skill. Baby steps ey!

Ever since I graduated from the Syma toy quadcopter, the F450 is just an amazing piece of equipment (thanks to Cinta– Matthew Wallwork, for the incredible problem solving and technical skills). Good news are Cinta will be building another quadcopter, F330, more aerobatic for flips and stuff. And we just placed an order for FPV and the goggles, super excited! Hope to get hold of the gimbal and 4k GoPro soon.

Here is the phenomenal UNNC’s (University of Nottingham–  the China campus) Chinese garden and English garden, hope you enjoy it.

The Nottingham geese were pretty excited when the quadcopter was upside down, they wanted to check it out. I took the picture this afternoon when I was trying to quietly pap them marching on the lawn, suddenly they made this move! Hillarious.

Bye for now!