Best products from r/fpvracing

Buy cheap and buy twice. Save your money and get good stuff. The extra money you'll spend will be less in the long run when you factor in having to upgrade all of your current equipment when you start getting serious and realizing you shouldn't have gone cheap.

• Do you want a monitor? For that price you can do a DIY goggle system which is much more immersive.
  
  
• That camera isn't great (especially considering the best camera you can buy is only $35) and that VTX transmits too hot to be used in a race. You can get a 200mw ImmersionRC VTX for ~$30. If you wanted to spend a little more you could get the TBS Unify Pro or TBS Unify Pro HV (the newest version which has a built in regulator) which, on top of other nice features, lets you adjust the output mW between 25-200-500-800
  
  
• I always recommend the Alien 5' frame first and the QAV 250 second. If you don't want to spend $100 more dollars on a frame - I don't blame you, but you get what you pay for. You can buy clones that have lesser quality or stick with the one you have picked out. Keep in mind, the Rotor Riot edition frame I linked to includes a lot of nice extras that you'll end up needing during your build - zip ties, ratched ties, foam padding, heat shrink, wires, etc.
  
  
• Those motors are small. Depending on if you want to race or if you're just looking to fly casually, you'll need to double your motor budget and get something bigger that can deliver more power. The best motors out right now for price and performance is the Emax 2205 2300kv (aka "Red Bottom") motors. They also happened to be recently added to the Rotor Riot store and match the red anodized screws of the Rotor Riot Alien Frame
  
  
• Naze 32 is a popular board. If I'm not mistaken this is an F1 board and most people have/are migrating to F3 boards. I would consider an F3 board since it has better features and faster calculating speeds. Popular F3 sized flight controllers are the Tornado, LUX, or the SP Racing F3 boards. I personally use the KISS flight controller and matching KISS 24a ESCs which are the best of the best and 100% worth it.
  
  
• The Props are good but you'll want to go with a 5040 or a 5045 for that size quad. 5x4x3 is preferred by many, but this is completely personal preference and tri-blade props will break more often. However, props are really cheap. Gemfam is pretty good, but HQ is higher end. Lumenier just released their own line of props I'd like to check out. Most Lumenier stuff is really good quality.
  
  
• The best receiver you can get right now is very inexpensive. I wouldn't recommend any other receiver or transmitter combo no matter how you're planning to fly or what you're planning to do. The Taranis X9D Plus and X4R w SBUS are the only TX and RX on the market for FPV worth buying. Anything else is a waste of money and a complete shame. The TX is the last one you'll ever buy no matter how far you go into the hobby and the matching RX is the best money can buy right now and it's only $25.
  
  
• Those ESCs are very, very dated. Not many people use 12a ESCs anymore and if you ever plan on competing you won't get very far with these 12a Afros. At least get the 20A Afros if you're sold on the brand. If there's anywhere on your quad you don't want to go cheap - it's the ESCs, Motors, and Flight controller. For ESCs and Flight controller I recommend nothing but KISS (KISS flight controller and matching KISS 24a ESCs). Some people might diagree, most would argue there's better and cheaper alternatives, but hardly any would contest the fact that KISS is the best. It's what guys like FinalGlide and Steele use.
  
  
• Batteries can be really confusing when you're starting out so I won't fault you there, but these batteries aren't what you're looking for. You want either a 1300mah or 1500mah. Most people consider the 1300mah size the sweet spot. On top of that, you'll want a 3s or 4s depending on how fast you want to go and how much power you want to have. 3s is getting really dated and most people are running 4s these days. The third thing you want to look for is the "C" rating (which isn't dependable anymore because of marketing). You want a battery with a high C rating which means your battery is capable of outputting large amounts of power without catching fire - something you need for FPV. I've never used these, but the Turnigy Nano batteries are a great price. For the price I'm thinking about getting a few and testing them, but I have a feeling this may be one of those situations where a brand is marketing a higher C rating than what the battery can actually output due to the price. However, I could be wrong and I'm sure it's a great battery for anyone starting out. Other high end batteries are the Lumeniers and Tattu.
  
  
• Perfect antennas. These are what I use and you shouldn't use anything else. The next comparable set of antennas are TBS Triumph, but the ImmersionRC antennas have still been tested to be a hair more reliable.
  
  I was in the same boat as you. I only had roughly $700 to spend, and for me, that's a lot of money. I picked out most of the components you did and read reviews, watched videos, and did nothing but learn, learn, learn. After dozens of hours researching and learning new things, what I found is that if I wanted a drone that a) Flew good and b) was fast and c) was responsive - I was going to have to spend more and go quality. The adage "Buy cheap and buy twice" rings true in life and holds doubly true in this hobby. In the end, I decided to go the quality route. I ended up spending ~$475 on my quad and picking up a second job to pay for the TX and goggles. It's ultimately up to you, but if you want to freestyle, go fast, and end up racing. I would strongly recommend not going frugal in regards to your quad. It's what the vast majority of people told me not to do and, even though I spent way more, I'm glad I listened and built a top quality high end quad that's going to last.
  
  My Build:
  
  RotorRiot Alien 5' Frame
  
  KISS FC & KISS ESCs
  
  EMAX 2205 2300KV (aka Red Bottoms)
  
  TBS Unify Pro HV
  
  HS1177 camera
  
  ImmersionRC Spironet Antennas
  
  HQ 5x4x3 Props
  
  
  Taranis X9D Transmitter and matching X4R Receiver
  

I want to start by saying I’m not affiliated with Amazon, nor are any of the links affiliate links. I’m just a guy that looks for good bargains and wants to share what I found.

Background:

I live in Austria and I’ve been flying micros, the TinyHawk, Mobula7, M80, and a custom 65mm since the beginning of the year in my apartment. Austria has super strict laws regarding UAV’s and you need an expensive license to fly anything larger than 250 grams. Under 250g’s, you’re free to fly as you please as long as you’re not flying around a populated area. I decided to go with micros for the time being to keep myself under the radar and get my flight time in before I eventually move back to the states in a couple years.

I’m generally a price conscious person and I’ll spend a lot of time looking for good deals, usually through Banggood. I’ll stuff something in my wishlist and wait for it to go on sale, the transmitter I got for 85€, goggles for 40€ etc. So, when I started looking for a backpack to become a bit more portable and fly away from my apartment, I got a bit of sticker shock when I saw the prices on “quad bags”. A buddy of mine suggested the bag he has, the Lowepro Quadguard BP X2, but at 110€ it would be the most expensive piece of my FPV equipment, additionally I needed something that would be able to hold my 15.6” laptop that I need for school, which the BP X2 does not have the space for. I looked at the other big budget backpack that is recommended around Reddit, which is the Realacc Backpack, but again, no space for a laptop.

After digging and digging, I decided the best way to go would be to get a camera bag that has a laptop sleeve. Enter the AmazonBasics DSLR and Laptop Backpack. I want to take a moment to say that there are 3 AmazonBasics bags that have the same description, only their dimensions are different, I’ll link the backpacks at the end. Fortunately, I decided on the backpack a few days before Prime Day and was able to pick it up for 27€. At the time of this writing, it is not on sale and is listed at 34€. I got it in and opened it up and immediately spent the next hour trying to arrange the padded walls to fit everything that I wanted to stuff inside. The timing was perfect because I would be going back to the US for a 3-week trip to visit family in 5 different states and I could run a nice torture test on it.

Items I brought in the bag for the 3 week trip:

15.6" Laptop, 3” Spare Props, QX7 Transmitter, EV800, Diatone R349, Mobula7, TinyHawk, Sunglasses w/ Case, Lipo bag with 16 1s batteries and 2 4s batteries, charger for EV800, 65mm Spare Props, Lipo charger, spare parts, mouse, magazine, school book, 7" tablet, charging wires for tablet and laptop plus adapters, pens, and screwdrivers.

Review:

Pros:

• Price! 27€
  
• The size was just about perfect. I say just about perfect with two caveats that are not enough to make them cons. I would have liked the top of the backpack to not taper in. The base of the bag is deeper than the top of the bag by a few centimeters. Similarly, the top of the bag also curves in on the sides a bit. Not enough to take away points, but enough that it is noticeable.
  
• Zipper feel. It’s a funny item to include, but the zippers feel really good, not overly robust, but incredibly smooth.
  
• Large laptop sleeve, good for up to a 17” laptop.
  
• Straps felt secure, additional straps for across the chest and waist are provided to help distribute weight. I found that I didn’t need the waist strap and there is no way to remove it without cutting them out, I was usually able to fold them over themselves to keep them out of the way, but I would have preferred to not have them. I did use the chest strap, however.
  
• Adjustable interior pads. These were really convenient; they gave a lot of options for configurability. I ended up not using the two longest pads though.
  
• Front pocket held a surprising number of items.
  
• The bag stood upright on its own with it fully loaded.
  
• Fit as a carry-on underneath the seat of every plane I was on, including some small regional jets! (some planes were tighter than others)
  
• Did I mention the price??
  
  Cons:
  
  
• Side pockets are fixed with a Velcro cover. This may not be a con to some people, but I would have rather had a mesh pocket with elastic. That would be much more versatile for my usage, that being said, I was able to stuff my laptop charger into the two pouches. (Main cable in one, and the brick in the other. My brick is pretty small, only 80cm or so YMMV).
  
• No straps on the outside of the front of the backpack to strap a larger quad. You could buy one of those adapters from ebay.
  
• It does have a feeling of being a little cheap, in my travels I didn’t have any fraying, but other reviews I read have reported fraying and seams unraveling after only a few months. I was generally quite mindful of the bag and didn’t throw it around too much.
  
  

  Overall:
  

  
  You can’t beat it for the price. If you’re a budget conscious flyer like me, and lets face it if you stuck around to read all of this than you are, it’s a no brainer just go and buy it.
  
  

  Links:
  

  Amazon.com - AmazonBasics DSLR Camera and Laptop Backpack Bag - 13 x 9 x 18 Inches
  
  Amazon.de - AmazonBasics DSLR Camera and Laptop Backpack Bag - 13 x 9 x 18 Inches
  
  Suggested Buckle Mounts for Backpack

I'm in the process of building my first FPV drone with my 11 year old son. Tools I owned or have purchased for this are:

A set of small screw drivers. I found a set in the bargain bin at NAPA Auto that had straight, philips, a few hex, a few sockets.

A decent electronics soldering station. Not the gun. I have a digital Weller that is easy to control, but the analog is just as good for these purposes.

A third hand. There are many different kinds. I got a cheap $5 one at Harbor Freight. Not great, but does the job.

Solder, de-soldering wick, flux (maybe)

Depending on where you're doing your work, might want an air-filter or fan.

A magnifying lamp is helpful but not necessary.

An assortment of board stand-offs/spacers is handy.

A good small pair of wire snips.

Wire stripper

A digital multimeter is not a bad idea.

Those are all the major tools you might need. Plus all the drone parts. batteries/charger. Radio/receiver. Camera/receiver(goggles or screen).

In short, it's a lot of stuff. The drone parts end up being the least expensive part, honestly.

Above links are just examples, not necessarily endorsements.

You mentioned you're on a budget, which I totally understand. Building is not the cheapest route, but it's been a lot of fun so far. People who've done it for a while tend to forget the cost of tools. Once you've built one, subsequent drones are relatively cheap. You can re-use batteries, the charger, most decent radios, even the receiver.

If you're not in a hurry, Bangood is a good source for cheap(er) parts. You're on your own for support, usually, but there's lots of help out there.

Frame: Realacc x210 V+
I have the non-V+ but the size isn't easy to build with, it required to mount the PDB flat, not on stand-offs.
4mm is pretty strong, a good choice for starting.

FPV cam: there are no bad choices, only preferences (PAL vs NTSC / CMOS vs CCD / IR block vs IR sensitive), this Swift will do fine.

Motors: Racerstar 2205 2300KV
2300KV gives you more torque, thus more compatibility with any propellers you want to try, see props section.
You'll choose 2600KV when/if you feel the need to, after more experience flying.

ESC: Racerstar RS30A V2 Blheli_S
Blheli_S is mandatory if building new: compatible with Multishot and Dshot in some extent, start with Multishot though.
20A would do fine I'm sure, but I'll choose 30A because Chinese-numbers and price difference.

PDB: Matek-clone with 5V/12V/Current Sensor
It's so cheap and do the job, integrated current sensor, XT-60 connector at the back.
Buy this XT-60 if mounting battery on the side.

FC: Omnibus F3 clone
OSD is integrated, and works well with the PDB above to read Current Sensor. This Youtube playlist is also nice when starting

Antenna: Anything really, small or long, you'll break them a lot so don't go too expensive right now.
Bear ind mind:
-first fly with this, it still works at fair-enough range and very durable.
-buy the same "type" of antennas: RHCP with RHCP, LHCP with LHCP. Don't mix them and label them if needed!
-5.8GHz for the video, 2.4GHz for your radio/remote.
-look at your video transmitter (Vtx) connector : RP-SMA/SMA-male/female
-buy multiple adapters, you never know when you'll need them.

Props: Science now! Propellers go according to your motors (torque) and also the battery (3S vs 4S), that's for the future, obviously they all fly (and break) at the end.
KingKong 5040 bi-blade are known to be cheap, good and durable.
-Tri-blades are heavier than Bi-blades, 2300KV motors can even bear Quad-blades.
-Bi-blades generally allow more room for unballanced propellers.
Need balancing your props?

Charger: Genuine Imax B3 = need to buy a power supply.
Fake Imax B3 = it works fine, no need to buy power supply.

Battery: There is debate to whether start 3S vs 4S, you could buy 4S now and be gentle on the throtlle.. but do you trust yourself?
I'd start with two 3S until I can do powerloops with confidence, and that's not today.
Get cheap at roughly $30 each, and around 1500mAh to get the most flight time/experience, forget lightweight ultra expensive 100C fake-rating 900mAh like you were racing for $2,000 championship.

Video Transmitter: preferably small & power adjustable, 25mW when flying with others and 200mW when flying alone.
DO NOT turn on 600mW it will simply burn unless you fly very fast all the time, when cold..
Also never power the copter without an antenna, Vtx will also cook.

Goggles: check if it accepts both PAL and NTSC, depending your camera.

Radio receiver: depends on your radio transmitter/remote obviously, I'd suggest going FrSky if you're naked. Check the difference between Mode1 & Mode2 before buying, Google will help.
No money and geek: Devo7e + FrSky/small toys multi-module, can control FrSky & TinyWhoop-like toys but requires some good knowledge on hacking/soldering/configuration.
No money and newbie: Turnigy Evolution is having some hype recently, but does not work with FrSky receivers. You probably need to open this link twice for it to work btw.

EDIT:
M5 size nylocks cuz the aluminum stock ones suck.
Blue Loctite or similar cuz vibrations will loosen the screws.
M3 screws cuz you never have the right size.
M3 nylon stand-offs cuz they break in crashes, you can get a pack of different sizes too.
75W soldering iron and it's the minimum, in this hobby you'll prolly want a station (you'll find good-enough ones at $60 on Amazon)

I'm in a similar boat to OP. A lot of people talk about the Whoop, but there are a lot of options at the cheap end of the spectrum. Is the Whoop something the community agreed on as the best option?

I feel like I'd like to buy something a little more substantial, because I know myself and that I'll move on in a month or two. So while I'm not going to dive in properly (upgrading on a per-component basis and spending $300+), I would perhaps like a more capable first (and only) quad. Does that make sense?

Other options I've found:

Blade Inductrix, $150, FatShark 101, $200, Hubsan Storm, $130, Bolt Drone, $160

Can anyone comment on these? Is my assumption that a $150-$200 fpv quad will give me a better experience than a Whoop correct?

Edit: I see now that Whoop is a size class, which makes a lot of sense!

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/soldering-station-with-adjustable-heat-range-us-warehouse.html is the best value iron IMHO. I have one I keep at the office and a ~$100 Hakko at home, and find them to be about equivalent so far.


I'd recommend picking up a cheap tip set as well. They won't last forever, but good for light use to figure out which ones work best (usually chisel tip style) and you can replace the ones you wear out with better ones.

You'll also need some solder ( or this is a lifetime supply of good stuff) and tweezers at minimum, and there's more stuff that's useful too, especially side cutters and solder wick.

I second the tiny whoop suggestion. People are actually racing whoops. Let me convince you, watch this video

Good, now that you're convince. Get this instead - Blade Inductrix FPV. Yes it's more expensive but it will pay for itself in the long run. First off it's a better product. Second as I mentioned it's an actual format that people are currently racing. I bet if you look around within an hour of you you can probably find others who are racing tiny whoops.

Third, what's going to happen is you're going to love it so much that you want a little more. First you'll upgrade the motors. Then you'll want a better flight controller. You can't upgrade the hubsan the same way.

Good luck!

That one on amazon you found looks really bad to be honest. When something breaks you'll have trouble finding a replacement, the radio is proprietary and will never work with anything else, it's got tons of plastic parts, and the battery is probably crap. Even if I'm completely wrong about it and it isn't garbage, there's no way it's worth $450, since you can actually get a pretty decent set up with that much.

There aren't going to be many good full kit options out there. The only one even worth considering is the eachine wizard, and even that is dubious at best. Instead you'll want to buy the radio, goggles, and then a BNF (bind and fly) drone all separately, which means you choose which receiver to put in it (usually when you buy it, you select which one when you add it to your cart and they'll put it in for you), and when you get it you just bind it to your radio.

For a radio, get the Taranis QX7. There are several options to consider, but you really can't go wrong with this, it's worth every penny: https://www.amazon.com/Frsky-Taranis-Transmitter-Racing-Drones/dp/B06XQWQ7C3/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1510987554&sr=1-1&keywords=QX7

This is a FRSKY radio, which means when you're buying the drone, just select FRSKY version so you get the right receiver in it.

Check out the channel uavfutures, he reviews a lot of prebuilt stuff, as opposed to other channels which review individual components. He does really clickbaity titles which can be difficult to get through, but check out his playlists as they're a bit better organized.

For goggles, there are so many to consider across a huge price range. The big two "types" are box style vs compact style. Boxes are big and bulky, but also a lot cheaper. Usually under $100. Most compact goggles are way up in the $300-$500 range, but there are a handful like the eachine EV100 and F640 that manage to get that slick form factor in at just over $100. Here's UAVFutures' playlist on them: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP0PoGwU8OPYW549moGE6OSj5qNa8vx67, but if you prefer written down with way more detail and comparisons, Oscarliang is a fantastic resource as well: https://oscarliang.com/fpv-goggles-review-fatshark-skyzone/

It's also worth noting, since you asked, that latency is not really going to be an issue as long as you're using fully analog 5.8GHZ, which is going to be basically anything you see on uavfutures. Latency is only a thing on digital, like those shitty wifi cameras that connect to your smartphone. There are a couple digital FPV systems worth using, but they're still very new and thus very expensive.

Field of view is very important. The more you see, the more awareness you have. However that's a property of the camera lens, not the goggles. You can also swap out the lens very easily if you want it wider or different. I personally use this lens which is branded for gopro, but they're all the same.

Field of view in goggles is different, it's the size of the image in front of you. Getting wider field of view in this case won't actually allow you to see more, it'll just be stretched. You don't want to go too small or it'll be hard to see, but you also don't want to go too large or you'll have to move your eyes around the screen to focus on different things. Not too many goggles go outside of either extreme, so you probably won't need to worry about this part.

For the drone itself, again, UAVFutures. He reviews a ton. Just watch through a bunch of them and see which one catches your eye: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP0PoGwU8OPaYMlsaWxSg7xr7xZXbxhf1

I bought the Wizard and I LOVE IT! It's plenty of power to start with some very solid components for the price. I wanted to build one myself as well... But then I found the Wizard.

I'll give you a list of the things that I bought along side the Wizard.

1. RunCam Swift 2 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MY9IFJU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
   
   
2. Quanum Cyclops V1 Headset (about 35$ on HobbyKing). The Quanum Cyclops is a wonderful headset for the price. The thing you need to watch out for when looking at cheap headsets is whether or not you get static or a bluescreen when you start losing signal. These headsets give you static. That is most certainly what you want. (https://hobbyking.com/en_us/quanum-cyclops-fpv-goggles.html)
   
   
3. Two clover leaf antennas (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M9IER0E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
   
   
4. x3 3s batteries. (The other great thing about the Wizard is it's 4s ready for when you are ready for more power).
   
   
5. Keenstone UP100AC LiPo Charger. (https://www.amazon.com/Keenstone-UP100AC-Battery-Minimum-Balance/dp/B01JV826I0/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1492193093&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=Lipo+charger&psc=1)
   
   
6. Parallel charging board (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UBOAXEI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
   
   
7. XTronic Soldering Station (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DGZFSNE/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
   
   
8. FrSky XSR Receiver (https://www.amazon.com/FrSky-2-4GHz-Receiver-Output-Support/dp/B01HZB6XTI/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1492193206&sr=1-1&keywords=FrSky+XSR)
   
   
9. FrSky Taranis X9D Plus (https://www.amazon.com/FrSky-Taranis-2-4ghz-ACCST-Transmitter/dp/B01D7QHB9G/ref=sr_1_2?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1492193250&sr=1-2&keywords=taranis)

Here's the tape I was referring to. It's pretty good stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HWROO7E/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_p2pKybHH6A56G

As I mentioned, heat shrink looks better but this stuff is excellent for when you can't get heat shrink over a component.

Awesome, thank you for the recommendations (there goes the money I partitioned for dominators, ha)!

I ordered:

FrSky Taranis X9D plus

D4R-II

Spare motors + ESC

X-treme tape

Looks like a JST SH plug. Something like this (depending on how many pins you have) might work: https://www.amazon.com/HOBBYMATE-silicon-quadcopter-transmitter-controller/dp/B07SYLHPF5

just get this https://www.amazon.com/Weller-WES51-Analog-Soldering-Station/dp/B000BRC2XU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467263305&sr=8-1&keywords=weller