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Saturday, December 21, 2013

Misc. 4: Micro Quadcopters

This little quad is getting harder to find these days due to legal copy issues within (surprise surprise) China. But it usually runs for under $40 on eBay and AliExpress.  These are my first impressions of my new WLToys V252 micro quadcopter drone, and micro quadcopters in general.

WLToys V252 Micro Quadcopter

Don't let their little size fool you. Their motors are much more powerful than needed for their size. The end result is that this little quad rockets at the push of the throttle. It's an extremely fun, agile, and challenging quadcopter for intermediate and advanced flyers. If you're starting to get bored with your current quadcopter, then you need one of these to wake you up!


But the speed of these little quadcopters could easily get a beginner into trouble. Also the small size makes it hard to maintain orientation outside for those without some experience. It can quickly become a tiny dot on the horizon. Beginners would need to know how to maintain orientation on the quadcopter by its motion alone.

Imagine that you've flown too far away, and now your little quadcopter is just a dot in the sky in the distance.  A simple way to maintain orientation when you can't visibly note the propeller colors is to watch the movement of the quadcopter when you apply controls.  Push the pitch control forward to get some forward motion on the quadcopter.  If the quadcopter dot in the sky moves left, slowly apply left rudder to turn it towards you.  If the quadcopter moves right, slowly apply right rudder to turn it towards you. Once the horizontal motion slows, the quadcopter should be headed home, straight toward you. You can visually confirm this as it should also be climbing slightly from the horizon.




10 comments:

  1. My first quadcopter was a Hubsan X4. I bought a second one with led lights so i could see it at night. For beginners i agree with you, start small, learn to fly them then upgrade to a big one. Now i'm building a X525 quadcopter since i want to test one with camera. and despite i manage to place a spy camera on the hubsan, it loses most of it's aerial characteristics (speed, stability, maneuverability)

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    1. Jorge, how about the WLToys V262. It can lift a GoPro Hero 3 camera. I like to fly it with my Mobius actionscam. And you don't need to build anything, it's ready to fly for under $100.


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  2. Why don't you try a Hubsan H107C? I've got the 2.mp version and the video is suprisingly good

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    Replies
    1. Agreed, the camera is nice on the 107C. But the little Hubsan's get very hard to see fast, so video from them would have to be from relatively close and low. With a bigger quad like the V262 you can maintain orientation and location in the sky much more easily for
      more distant flights.

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  3. I play around with Cheerson CX-10 as my first quadcopter. It is ridiculously cheap and very tiny. But it does feel like the motors have lots of power, I find it terribly hard to control it indoors. It's really fast!

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  4. I'm getting a hubson h111 q4 its my first ever quad is it good for begginers?

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  5. Hey I have put 18 charges through my Floureon H101 and followed this website to become pretty okay at flying, figure 8s, all in a weekend! Thanks QC101 and CR

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