This is the unboxing of all the things that I had purchased to get into flying drones.
I will just go through the list of things I purchased to start flying drones. This is everything you could need and a few extras. 🙂
- Drone The picture of this is from the Lab
- Radio FrSky Taranis X9D Plus
- Receiver Frsky XM Plus Mini Receiver Coming with 2pcs Frsky Antenna
- Battery Indestructible Quads “Black Label” 4S True 80C Racing LiPo 1500mAh Battery – Armored Edition
- He also threw in a couple freebies!
- DAL T4045BN Tri-blade Props (Red)
- Battery Strap
- Charger UP240AC Plus Quad 4 Port Balancing Battery Charger
- Bat-Safe (Lipo charging safe)
- Receiver case Transmitter EVA Hard Shell Case for Frsky Taranis X9D / X9D Plus
- Gopro Camera Equipment
- Backpack to carry everything out to fly
- Eyourlife 40L Tactical Backpack
- Clamps and Straps Grimloc Locking D-ring and ITW Molle Web Dominators with Elastic String
- soldering Station Weller WESD51
- Tweezers to help with Soldering Yaogong 2pcs ESD Stainless Steel Tweezers Anti-static
- Solder Alpha Metals #am31605
- Soldering Station with Helping Hands
- Heat Shrink Wire Wrap
I will not be unboxing the Drone parts since this is a photo from the parts that we will be using at https://www.thelab.ms/ to build the drone. I will start with 2 and work my way down the list.
Radio FrSky Taranis X9D Plus and Frsky XM Plus Mini Receiver this is the radio I have chosen to use to start flying drones. It has many features that allow you to easily switch between different drone setups and the firmware is opensource! Here is the link to the FrSky website and this controller. It has Many features that make it one of the leaders in Drone flying. It has the ability to hold 60 different model setups. This allows you to easily switch between Drones or for that matter any RC model that can use this transmitter. I purchased this model because I expect to have multiple drones so I wanted something that could easily handle switching. I also wanted the 16 channels in case I need the extra channels like for adding a servo and the ability to drop things from the drone! I read the reviews and other info about the transmitter and it seemed like the way to go. Not to mention Brian and Pat also recommended it.
Battery Indestructible Quads “Black Label” 4S True 80C Racing LiPo 1500mAh Battery – Armored Edition plus the extras that were included! I just happened across this website when searching for Lipo batteries. https://indestructiblequads.com/ it was interesting so I thought why not give a pack a try. Brian and Pat were telling me that the bottom mounted batteries can take a beating so it’s easy to damage the battery. These packs are supposed to be “Armored” so I am hoping it’s a good battery that can take some hard landings. 🙂 I would also like to say that they threw in some extra freebies the props and battery strap. That was very nice of them and I will be needing those props I am sure.
Charger UP240AC Plus Quad 4 Port Balancing Battery Charger. I purchased this charger for its ability to charge 4 different types of batteries at the same time. I thought it might be great to be able to charge multiple types of batteries at once. It also has several other features and abilities that should come in handy. We will see how it works out once I start using it regularly. I could potentially make a post about this charger once I am more familiar with it.
Bat-Safe (Lipo charging safe) This is basically a fireproof safe to charge lipo batteries in… I found out that lipo batteries are kind of unstable especially during charging and discharging so I figured better “bat-safe” than sorry! ….see what I did there 🙂 You can read more about them on their website. (http://www.bat-safe.com/web/) They are local to the area and this will contain a battery fire to the box instead of what could happen to your home. They have some photos on their website of what can happen when a battery goes up. I wanted to be as safe as possible when using the Lipo batteries so this will be the charging station for these batteries.
Receiver case Transmitter EVA Hard Shell Case for Frsky Taranis X9D / X9D Plus. I have a nice transmitter so I wanted something to protect it while carrying it out to fly and storing it. It seems to be a nice case for the price. We will see how I like it after some use. I will also see how it holds up with some use. I could not decide on the metal case vs this fabric/nylon.
You can read more about the GoPro Hero 6 Unboxing here and the returning and refund of the Hero 6 Black here This will be more about the unboxing of the Hero 5 black since the Hero 6 black had to be returned. Which is really disappointing since its the new release from GoPro. I recently used this camera on our vacation and I have to say it was ok. The battery does not seem to last very long at all and it takes LOTS of space to save 1080 @60fps videos but it did work every time, unlike the Hero 6 black which did not. The plan here was to have 2 GoPro’s one to potentially strap to the Drone and one to place on the ground near a gate or something else we would like to have constant filming action on. I am still undecided if I will replace the 6 with a 5 or just stick with the one GoPro for now… Time will tell. Here are some of the accessories I also purchased with the GoPro. These seem to be enough to have the ability to film most circumstances.
I figured I would need a way to carry everything out to fly so based on some recommendations from Brian and Pat I purchased Eyourlife 40L Tactical Backpack and some straps to hold everything in place Clamps and Straps
These seem to be great choices for the price and functionality. I will know more once I get some wear and tear on them. That could be a post for later.
The last item on the list is the Soldering Station. After lots of research and some looking around, I decided to go with the Weller WESD51. I found a nice blog here about soldering drones and the soldering iron that he uses. I see the point in a good soldering iron especially if you will be soldering on some small boards. I also really like the fact that it has a digital temp readout so no guessing on what temperature the tip is! I will more than likely have a separate post about this soldering station once I get to use it.
Well this is all I have for now so until the next post!