It's no Elev-8, but check out the price
localroger
Posts: 3,451
You don't normally expect to find an Erco-worthy deal at the MakerShed, but after drooling over the drone issue I decided to check out the wares. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this:
http://www.makershed.com/UFO_QuadCopter_p/mkud2.htm
That's right, it's a quadcopter with gyro stabilization and a camera for USD$98. (Erco can find it cheaper by searching eBay for its maker and model number, "udirc u817a")
The best thing about it is because it's so cheap it's so lightweight that it could fall from practically any height or crash into anything without taking much if any damage. The video quality is astonishingly good, and the still pics are OK if the craft has been hovering a couple of seconds to damp motion. The same company has a couple of even cheaper models but for me the camera seals the deal. My very first hilariously incompetent flight around the shop at work yielded a beautiful video easily shared with my bemused coworkers. And I'm much more comfortable learning to fly on a model that's relatively hard to break and cheap to replace if I do manage to lose or destroy it.
Once I get comfortable flying this I'll actually feel a lot more comfortable about putting a thousand bucks into a rig that can carry more payload and maybe do FPV, but which will be expensive to crash or lose. And I'll get cool video while I'm doing the dangerous learning part.
http://www.makershed.com/UFO_QuadCopter_p/mkud2.htm
That's right, it's a quadcopter with gyro stabilization and a camera for USD$98. (Erco can find it cheaper by searching eBay for its maker and model number, "udirc u817a")
The best thing about it is because it's so cheap it's so lightweight that it could fall from practically any height or crash into anything without taking much if any damage. The video quality is astonishingly good, and the still pics are OK if the craft has been hovering a couple of seconds to damp motion. The same company has a couple of even cheaper models but for me the camera seals the deal. My very first hilariously incompetent flight around the shop at work yielded a beautiful video easily shared with my bemused coworkers. And I'm much more comfortable learning to fly on a model that's relatively hard to break and cheap to replace if I do manage to lose or destroy it.
Once I get comfortable flying this I'll actually feel a lot more comfortable about putting a thousand bucks into a rig that can carry more payload and maybe do FPV, but which will be expensive to crash or lose. And I'll get cool video while I'm doing the dangerous learning part.
Comments
Can you view the video real-time on that controller LCD, or can you only view the video after you remove the SD card and view in your computer?
http://www.banggood.com/Hubsan-X4-H107C-2_4G-4CH-RC-Quadcopter-With-Camera-Mode-2-RTF-p-75824.html
Edit: The Shed also has excellent prices on Gakken kits such as the Edison phono (want), Edo Clock (want) and the Theo Biped walker (have): http://www.makershed.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=gakken&Submit.x=18&Submit.y=15
If it flies more stable than the X4 and survives crashing better, then it's worth the extra money. I never could get the X4 to simply go straight up and down without it flying off in some random direction,. It lasted about 2 days before it self destructed. Parts to repair it were going to cost almost as much as a new one, so I just put it back in the box and stuck it in a closet.