drone lcd screen free sample

Almost every drone on the market right now relies on smartphones to transmit their video feed to the pilots and It’s actually not a bad thing, it keeps the price of the drone down since manufacturers will be relying on your smartphone and it also lowers the number of equipment you need for your drone (you always carry your smartphone anyways).

However, for some professional drone pilots, having a screen that comes with the drone is a better choice. That’s because most screens that come with the drone (almost always built in the controller) will have better resolution and be more durable to the elements. Both of which are things professionals need.

Which brings us to the topic of this article, the best drones with screens in the controllers. I’ll review 5 drones that have screens built in their remotes, some of them pricey, some of them budget-friendly. I’ll also discuss which is best, your smartphone and the manufacturer’s screen, so stick around.

Most drones rely on your smartphone and don’t have a built-in screen. Yet some drones, usually high-end ones that are sitting just below “Professional” category (prosumer drones), will have screens built into their remotes.

That’s because that way the manufacturer can have control over the screen’s size, the resolution and its heat/cold resistance. I mean, you wouldn’t want your $13,000 drone to be limited by the capabilities of your smartphone’s screen, after all.

As promised we’ll look at what I think are the best drones with screens on controllers. Some of them are high-end and aren’t exactly entry level, others lack in features and performance but are budget friendly and perfect for beginners.

I’m starting this list with a fun little drone and that’s the HUBSAN H501SS Pro. Now HUBSAN isn’t exactly a well-known brand and highly performant drones aren’t their forte but in the last few years we’ve seen some good stuff coming out of their factories.

This one is one of those things. The H501SS Pro is an affordable drone and relatively large, at 22cm wingspan you can’t exactly call it a toy drone. The camera has no gimbal though I don’t think you’d need one. This drone is made purely for the joy of flying and not for filming purposes.

Though with its 1080p camera you can get some pretty good shots if the drone’s flying still. You can fly the drone for a solid 20 minutes before having to recharge it.

The DJI Mavic 3 is also a drone that comes with a built-in screen in its remote controller DJI RC PRO. At a $2099 retail price, it’s a prosumer drone meant for professionals and people willing to spend on their hobby.

With a 15km flight range, a whooping 46 minutes flight time and 4K @60fps camera, the Mavic 3 may just be the best drone at this price range. Not to mention the cutting edge OcuSync 3.0 transmission system making you almost never lose the signal on it. I personally think DJI outdone themselves with this drone.

The drone comes with a screen built in its controller like the Mavic 3, it offers many options for customization through its touch screen (including advanced stuff like waypoints).

This one is the most pricey drone in this selection (can actually be cheaper than the Mavic 3 in some parts of the world). If there is any drone manufacturer out there worthy of being called DJI’s competitor, it’s Autel.

They have been on DJI’s tail for the last few years and the Autel Evo 2 just proves that they’re not that far behind. Many consider this drone a direct competitor of the Mavic 3 and for good reason.

When it comes to the built-in controller, I think the Autel Evo 2 takes the cake. It has a very sleek design, the thickness of the controller is lower than that of the Mavic’s. It also has a 3.3 inch OLED display with 2000 nits (for your information, the Mavic 3’s built-in screen is 1000 nits), making the Evo 2’s screen extremely bright even if you’re flying on a sunny day. The touch screen is also smooth and very responsive.

Not an actual drone per se, but the DJI Smart Controller is a separate controller sold as an accessory. It comes with a 5-inch screen, 1080p display and 8km transmission range. It can also switch from from 2.4 to 5.8GHz for less interference automatically, guaranteeing a good signal most times.

Unfortunately production has stopped for the smart controller with no continuation date released from DJI. But you can still get it on Amazon or other retailers. There is also the option of buying it used, just make sure it works by trying it on your drone first.

You might be wondering whether the added price for getting a drone with built-in screen or simply purchasing a remote controller with screen as an accessory is worth it. After all, you can simply use your smartphone, available in your pocket whenever you need it.

It depends on your goals, professionals will find more use for the built-in controller screens that hobbyists will. That’s because built-in displays are bigger in size and therefore better for filming and surveying activities. They’re also more resistant to the elements.

Not to mention that built-in displays have one mission: Show you the drones live feed. Meaning you won’t be distracted by calls and notifications that would usually annoy you during a flying session if you were using your smartphone.

I hope you learned a thing or two reading this article. Those are my top picks for now but the drone world is moving fast, new and better drones with built-in screens might hit the market and when that happens we’ll be sure to cover them here at Dronesgator.

Personally I prefer to fly using my smartphone, it’s less of a hassle and one less piece of equipment to worry about. But then again I’m just a hobbyist, pros might have need for built-in screens.

The Following End User License Agreement is included with Flood - Ambient Drones & Samples. This License is only valid for the individual who has purchased an unopened, new and lawfully made copy of Flood - Ambient Drones & Samples from a dealer or distributor authorized by Big Fish Audio.

We have used Liquid Crystal Displays in the DroneBot Workshop many times before, but the one we are working with today has a bit of a twist – it’s a circle!  Perfect for creating electronic gauges and special effects.

LCD, or Liquid Crystal Displays, are great choices for many applications. They aren’t that power-hungry, they are available in monochrome or full-color models, and they are available in all shapes and sizes.

Waveshare actually has several round LCD modules, I chose the 1.28-inch model as it was readily available on Amazon. You could probably perform the same experiments using a different module, although you may require a different driver.

Open the Arduino folder. Inside you’ll find quite a few folders, one for each display size that Waveshare supports. As I’m using the 1.28-inch model, I selected theLCD_1inch28folder.

Once you do that, you can open your Arduino IDE and then navigate to that folder. Inside the folder, there is a sketch file namedLCD_1inch28.inowhich you will want to open.

Unfortunately, Waveshare doesn’t offer documentation for this, but you can gather quite a bit of information by reading theLCD_Driver.cppfile, where the functions are somewhat documented.

The GC9A01 LCD module is a 1.28-inch round display that is useful for instrumentation and other similar projects. Today we will learn how to use this display with an Arduino Uno and an ESP32.

Liquid Crystal displays or LCDs have been used in electronics equipment since the late 1970s.   LCD displays have the advantage of consuming very little current And they are ideal for your Arduino projects.

In this article and in the accompanying video I’ll show you how easy it is to add an LCD display to your next Arduino design. I’ll also show you a very popular Arduino Shield that has a keypad which you can use in your projects as well.

Today LCD displays are used in a variety of items from test equipment to televisions. They’re inexpensive and versatile, this makes them ideal for all sorts of designs.

LCD displays do not emit light. Instead they block the passage of light, like little windows which open and shut the let light through. The liquid crystals used inside LCD displays are sandwiched between two layers of polarized material. By changing the orientation of the liquid crystals they allow light to pass or they block the light entirely.

Because transmissive LCD displays (the type we will be using) work by blocking light they require a backlight. Several methods have been used to create back lights including electroluminescent panels and fluorescent tubes.   these days the most common form of backlight is an LED, in fact so-called LED televisions are usually just LCD screens with an LED backlight system.

Another type of LCD display, the passive-matrix display, does not require a backlight, it works using reflected light. This type of display is often found in digital watches.

The principles of liquid crystals were discovered in the late 1880s but work on Modern LCD displays did not begin until the mid-1960s. a number of patents were filed in the early 1970s and in 1973 the Sharp Corporation introduced LCD displays for calculators.

The first color LCD displays were developed in the early 1980s but production units were not commonly available until the mid-1990s. By the late 1990s LCD displays were quite common.

A number of LCD displays are available for experimenters. These low-cost monochrome displays are ideal for use with microcontrollers like the Arduino and micro computers like the Raspberry Pi.

The LCD1602 display module is a very popular and inexpensive LCD display.  It is available in a number of different colors such as blue yellow and green and can easily be connected to an Arduino or Raspberry Pi.

Because the LCD module uses a parallel data input it requires 8 connections to the host microcontroller for the data alone. Add that to the other control pins and it consumes a lot of connections.  On an Arduino Uno half of the I/O pins would be taken up by the display, which can be problematic if you want to use the I/O pins for other input or output devices.

We will begin our experiments by hooking up the LCD1602 to an Arduino Uno and running a few of the example sketches included with the Arduino IDE.  This will allow you to get familiar with the display without needing to write any code.

We need to hookup our LCD display to our Arduino. The display can use any of the Arduino digital I/O pins as it has no special requirements, but if you hook it up as I’ve illustrated here you can run the example sketches without needing to make any modifications.

In addition to the LCD1602 display ands the Arduino Uno you will need a 10K trimpot ot potentiometer, this is used a s a brightness control for the display. You’ll also need a 220 ohm resistor to drop the voltage for the displays LED backlight.

The sketch starts with a number of credits and a description of the required hardware hookup. You’ll note that this is the same hookup you just performed on your Arduino and LCD module.

We then initialize an object that we call “lcd” using the pinouts of the LCD display. If you decide to hook up your display to different pins then you’ll need to modify this section.

The second example we will try isthe Scroll sketch. Scrolling is a useful technique when you can’t get your text to fit on one line of the LCD display.

As with the previous sketches we examined this one starts by loading theLiquidCrystallibrary and defining an object calledlcdwith the connection information for the display.  It then moves on to define the custom characters.

Finally the setup routine ends by printing a line to the first row of the LCD display. The line makes use of two of the custom characters, the “heart” and the “smiley”.

One thing you may have noticed about using the LCD display module with the Arduino is that it consumes a lot of connections. Even in 4-wire mode there are still a total of seven connections made to the Arduino digital I/O pins. As an Arduino Uno has only 14 digital I/O pins that’s half of them used up for the display.

But there is another solution. Use the I2C bus adapter for the LCD display and connect using I2C.  This only consumes two I/O pins and they aren’t even part of the set of digital I/O pins.

The I2C Adapter for the LCD display is a tiny circuit board with 16 male header pins soldered to it. These pins are meant to be connected directly to the 16-pin connection on the LCD1602 display (or onto other displays that use the same connection scheme).

The device also has a 4-pin connector for connection to the I2C bus. In addition there is a small trimpot on the board, this is the LCD display brightness control.

Load this sketch into your Arduino then open your serial monitor. You’ll see the I2C address of your I2C LCD display adapter. You can then make note of this address and use it in the sketches we’ll be looking at now.

On the next line we define the connections to the LCD display module from the I2C Adapter,. Note that these are NOT the connections from the Arduino, they are the connections used by the chip on the adapter itself.

The sketch is similar to our demo sketch in that it creates an “lcd” object with the I2C and display connection information.  It also defines a couple of parameters for the DHT22 sensor, as well as some floating variables to hold the temperature and humidity values.

So far we have used the LCD1602 display module for all of our experiments. For our final demonstration we’ll switch to a popular Arduino shield that contains a LCD1602 along with some push buttons.

The LCD Keypad Shield is available from several different manufacturers. The device fits onto an Arduino Uno or an Arduino Mega and simplifies adding an LCD display to your project.

Note that the LCD is being used in 4-wire mode. The LCD itself is the same one used on the LCD1602 module, so all of the code for that module will work with the LCD Keypad Shield as well.

Now that you know how the LCD Keypad module works and which Arduino pins it uses all that remains is to install it onto your Arduino and load the demo sketch.

Use a shield that exposes the pins for prototyping before you install the LCD Keypad shield. In the video associated with this article I use a “Screw Shield” that brings all of the Arduino I/O pins out to a series of screw connectors. There are other similar shields. Using one of these shields is the easiest way to work with the LCD Keypad shield, as well as other Arduino shields.

The sketch begins by including theLiquidCrystallibrary. You can use the original one or the one includes with theNewLiquidCrystallibrary.  We then set up an object with the LCD connections, note that these are just hard-coded as they won’t change.

After that we define a function calledread_LCD_buttons().  This function reads the value on analog port A0 and returns an integer corresponding to the button integers we defined earlier. Note that the function adds approximately 50 to each of the manufacturers specified values to account for intolerances in the resistors in the voltage divider.

We then call ourread_LCD_buttons()function and use it to display the value of the push button, right before the counter. Then we end the loop and do it again.

As you can see LCD displays are pretty simple to use thanks to the availability of some excellent libraries for the Arduino.  As these displays are also very inexpensive they will make an ideal addition to many of your Arduino projects.

And finally the LCD Keypad Shield is a convenient method of adding both a display and a simple keypad to your project, no wiring or soldering required.

It’s always fun to fly your drone in the air with a remote controller. It’s even more fun if you have a drone with screen on controller through which you can view real-time video from the drone camera.

But not all drones come with a built-in screen on remote controller. While most drones can stream video to your smartphone, some drones don’t even do that.

The below list is updated in November 2022, so you can be sure to get the most up-to-date information on available drones with built-in screens on their controllers.

The unapologetically gorgeous design, ultra-bright HD display, and compatibility with a wide range of DJI drones make it the perfect first choice for anyone looking for a smart controller with a screen.

Many fans are disappointed because DJI promised the Smart Controller will be compatible with all future drones but according to DJI, the smart controller is missing the hardware that is required for the new transmission protocol.

With the newer software DJI also released the DJI RC and DJI RC Pro. These are basically the upgraded versions of the smart controller with better processor and screen.

The DJI Phantom 4 Pro Plus V2.0 is a high-end drone geared toward professional aerial videography and photography. It has a bigger 1″ CMOS 20MP sensor attached to a sensitive gimble for high stability during aerial missions.

Although you can use the standard DJI Smart Controller with the Phantom 4 Pro V2.0, it also comes with its own controller with a built-in screen. To get the remote controller with the screen, you will have to get the Plus variant of the P4P.

The Hubsan X4 comes with a fixed camera without any gimble so expect the images and videos to be a little shaky without mechanical stabilization. The camera is 1080p so if the drone is flying still, it can catch some good live-feed videos and images.

It comes with a battery that can provide you with a flight time of 20 minutes. Since it is a beginner drone meant for hobby flying and learning, this is the best you can get at this price range.

One of the differentiating features of the Hubsan X4 is its remote controller which has a built-in screen for a live video feed. Whatever it lacks in the camera and gimble area, it makes up for it with a beautiful and fully integrated remote controller.

Since this is a drone designed more for beginners and kids, you don’t need to connect your smartphone and can use the integrated remote controller screen instead.

The DJI Mavic 3 is the newest crown jewel in DJI’s line of consumer drones. The DJI Mavic 3 was released on Nov 3, 2021, with the highest specs in any consumer drone yet.

With 20MP 4/3 CMOS Hasselblad camera, it’s one of the most anticipated drones of this year, and it did not disappoint. To be fair, DJI has set a new bar for aerial photography with the Mavic 3.

DJI. Although compared to DJI, Autel is relatively young and just starting out, it has come up with impressive products within a span of a few years. Their Evo series has captured a good share of the high-end drone market.

This approach is very versatile and economical as everyone already owns a device with a high-quality screen and can easily connect to the remote. But having a dedicated on-remote screen has its perk.

On the other hand, a drone controller with a screen comes typically with higher contrast ratios that offer better and brighter images even in sunny daylight.

For example, DJI Smart Controller has maximum screen brightness of 1000 nits (cad/m) while the Apple iPhone 12 Pro max has max screen brightness of 800 nits (for non-HDR content).

The best part, at least for me, is the freedom drone with screen on remote offers. You can go out and fly without your phone piggybacking your remote controller.

For me, the whole putting your phone on the remote controller is not a very neat solution. It is a compromise at best because most people don’t want to spend extra money on buying a 2nd screen.

Instead, a dedicated built-in screen takes away the mess and gives and nicely integrated remote controller that is well-balanced in your hand. Totally worth the extra bucks.

Also, your remote will come installed with all the necessary software that is required to fly your drone and record breathtaking aerial videos and images.

If you have a DJI OS2.0 supported drone, you can buy the DJI smart controller with built-in screen. Other manufacturers like Hubsan and Autel have their own remote controls that come with a built in screen.

Flying a drone is an exhilarating experience! The thrill of zooming in and out of epic locations completely immersed in the pilot"s view is hard to beat. It is something that many people are keen to take up however they often are unclear on how to build a drone, where to start. The biggest obstacle for many is getting their hands on their first drone with many hobbyists opting to build their own.

To build your own drone can feel like an intimidating task, it did for me and there’s a mountain of information to wade through before anything starts making sense. Fortunately, it’s not as hard as it sounds and with a little guidance you’ll be in the air in no time whilst picking up some practical skills! Initially, the idea might sound scary but I firmly believe that anybody armed with the right information will be able to get on and do it relatively hassle free.

A common question I often hear is “Why would I want to build my own drone with so many great RTF (ready to fly) and BNF (bind n fly) options out there?”

Many people have seen products such as the iFlight Nazgul and the Emax Hawk which are certainly great drones for the price you pay. The problem is that in this hobby you are going to crash and when I say crash I mean a lot! Typically in a session I crash about ten times and find myself often having to fix my drone in order to get back in the air.

BetaFPV CetusPro RTF Kit or Nazgul 5 make great starting drones and will teach you a lot about the hobby. If you are the kind of person who just wants to get in the air and fly or simply don’t have the time to build then these are some amazing options that will cover in our Top RTF Drones Article.

Infographic representing main quad part"s you will need to build fpv drone. We"ll go through every single part and explain it"s main functions. Click the image to zoom in!

When starting out you can get by with just a few basic tools. This list covers the bare minimum you need. Our Drone Tools Kit covers all the nice to haves which will make the process much easier!

Do you have an interest not only in building drones, but in building the autonomous drone applications of the future like package delivery and warehouse drones?

Building an FPV drone is an excellent start in building highly capable autonomous drones. At the Drone Dojo, we take drone hobbyists of all skill levels and show them how they can become highly capable drone engineers that are actually able to bring their crazy drone ideas into the real world.

We do that with courses and drone kits. Thousands have taken our 6 hour flagship course “How To Build A Raspberry Pi Drone” which dives into all the subjects you need to become a capable drone engineer.

The capstone project is controlling the drone not with an RC controller, but with a python script! The best part, no previous programming knowledge is required.

Hundreds have built our PiHawk drone kits, which fuse the power of the 32-bit Pixhawk flight controller with the high level control of a Raspberry Pi companion computer. The Raspberry Pi can control the Pixhawk through a UART connection, unlocking some serious potential flight applications like drone delivery, computer vision, object detection, 4G drone control for limitless range, and a ton more that the pixhawk alone is not capable of.

These kits are helpful because they come with the 50+ parts you need, along with a video building manual, and they are still highly capable. This makes them perfect for both total drone beginners and advanced engineers wanting to prototype an idea.

We also have a “Drone Delivery and Precision Landing” course that 3 separate drone delivery companies have taken. Two of those companies have received millions of dollars in funding. If you want to bring your drone knowledge to the next level, now you know the Drone Dojo is the place to start.

The smallest full size drone you should really be flying outdoors. These fly very similarly to their bigger brothers and are the perfect option for tight spaces. Check our indepth guide on micro drones.

The most common type of Racing/Freestyle Drone. Often described as they most versatile due to the fact they offer a large amount of power yet have incredible maneuverability and are able to carry a HD camera such as a GoPro without a significant compromise on flight characteristics. Ninety percent of mini quads out there at this point in time fit this category. From various configurations you can check recommended racing drone kits that we used and tested.

At this size you start to get into the photography / videography side of things. These drones are big enough to carry a camera with a stabalisation system and make use of other features such as GPS allowing them to hold their position and even return to home automatically.

My personal recommendation for a first drone would be a 5” as they are easy to build and have enough power to lift a HD camera. The 5" Drone also has the most readily available supply of parts meaning that everything is as cheap as it can be and easy to get hold of.

Of course you don"t have to just stick to one drone! Check out Stu from UAV futures wall of quads! His YouTube channel provides teardowns and flight videos of nearly every drone out there to help you decide.

So now you have a good idea what kind of drone you would like to build the next step is to choose suitable components. Each build is going to vary person to person but almost all builds will follow the same basic parts. For each component I"ll explained what it does, the choices you"ll have to make and the bare minimum you should look for spec wise.

Light weight racer or freestyler? - Racing Drones are typically minimal frames that are light and nimble. Freestyle Drones however fly better with a little weight as it allows them to carry momentum through various stunts. A Freestyle drone typically requires more protection as they are often flown higher and over harder surfaces.

Top mounted or underslung battery? - This will affect the center of gravity but could leave the battery more vulnerable. The closer the centre you can make it the smoother your drone will fly.

Is there an spot to mount a HD camera? - If you want to carry one of course! Race drones normally opt not to due to the extra weight. For many frames 3D printed options are available.

Another great resource to use to help you decide on parts is Rotor Builds. The site shows off user created Drones and includes details such has parts lists and build guides! It"s a great place to find inspiration.

These are the powerhouses that give your quad the thrust toreach the insane speeds modern drones are reaching. There"s alot of brushless motor choices out there for mini quad, it’s hard to decide. When choosing motors, there are specs that comes with the motor provided by the manufacturer. You should be able to find detailed information about the weight, thrust, power, rpm etc.

The first point is the size, a motor size is typically noted in a XXYY format with the first two digits referring to the stator diameter in mm and the second two being the height of the magnets. Basically the larger these numbers are, the higher torque the motor is able to produce, think of it like engine size with the drawback of larger sizes being the weight. In terms of performance higher torque allows the motor to hit it"s target speed faster increasing the feel and response of the drone. This could be useful in the case of a heavier quad or when running heavy props.

The flight controller is the brain of your drone taking into account the angle of your drone and your control input it calculates how fast the motors should spin and sends the signals to the ESCs. Flight controllers are normally built for certain software such as Betaflight, KISS or Raceflight so your software choice may effect your decision.

OSD (On Screen Display) - Flight controllers with an OSD chip onboard are capable of displaying all kinds of useful information on your video feed such as battery voltage, current draw and even an artificial horizon. I would highly recommend an OSD however they can also be run separately to the flight controller or onboard the PDB itself.

UART Ports - External devices are often connected to the flight controller through UART ports. These devices include receivers, stand alone OSDs, telemetry systems and controllable video transmitters. For a first build you may not have to worry about these but for more feature rich drones you will need to make sure you have enough UART ports for what you want to achieve. I would always recommend you look at the pinout for your chosen board to make sure that it has connections for everything you need.

This is the eye of your drone, anything it can see you will hopefully see in your goggles! What"s important here is that we can see clearly in all light conditions and that there is no lag in getting the image to us which could cause a crash. There a few very similar options here which will all work great. Most cameras also come with a load of mounts and cases to fit into any frame.

You can get away with flying a cheap CMOS camera however a CCD will give you better results. Almost all CCD cameras use the Sony Super HAD II sensor which is the gold standard in FPV drones. Examples of this include the RunCam Swift or HS1177 variants.

Resolution and Latency - I"ve grouped these two together as they go hand in hand, the higher resolution you run the more latency you are likely to see! Analogue cameras are rated in TVL which is the number of horizontal lines across the screen.

Camera Features - Some cameras have special feature such as the ability to monitor your battery voltage and display it on screen. Other options are low light cameras that can see in nearly total darkness. Mini and even micro cameras are available that may be a better choice for smaller builds whilst some cameras offer a microphone for audio feeds.

Robustness - Obviously the antenna on the drone will be subject to a lot more abuse than the one on your goggles! For this reason I recommend using your best/most delicate antenna as a receiver and using a durable protected antenna on the drone.

Hopefully you"ve already chosen your drone size in inches so you know your prop size! My honest recommendation for a beginner is to get a big box of cheap props as you will break them incredibly quickly. Props are often denoted as a AxBxC where A is the size in inches, B is the pitch (angle of the prop) and C is the number of blades.

I"ll tell you what almost every other website or drone forum will tell you in terms of remotes…. If you can afford it get an FrSky Taranis! For the money you pay the Taranis really is an exceptional remote that can really do anything you can think of. Taranis wise your options would be either the QX7 or X9D and their deluxe plus or special addition variants.

Communications Protocol - All radios talk to their corresponding receivers in their own language with some communicating your stick inputs faster than others. What this means is you will experience quicker response times and have more control over the drone. You want to look for remotes/receivers that support either SBUS (FrSky) , IBUS (FlySky), DSM2 and DSMX (Specktrum).

Telemetry - The drone can actually send key information back to the remote allowing you to know when to land and all sorts. In order to do this both the telemetry feature needs to be on both the transmitter on receiver. Many remotes with this feature are able to talk to you and can read out customisable warnings to tell you when to land or when your signal is getting weak!

Receiver Options - When choosing your remote it"s worth looking at what receivers are available for it. For example some are way to big for use in min quads however some are too small and lack a decent range. Look for a system that supports your needs a price point. If you do decide to go for a ready to fly drone with a receiver make sure that it is compatible with your remote! You will typically get a selection between FrSky, FlySky and Spectrum.

Box Style or Visor - Goggles can take two forms, either the slick visor style (such as FatSharks) that feature a small display for each eye or the larger box style goggles that simply incorporate an LCD screen in a darkened box attached to your face. Box goggles can be up to ten times cheaper than some FatSharks but offer reasonable performance if you don’t mind the form factor.

HDMI - Some goggles have an HDMI input allowing you to use them to play on a drone simulator or watch a movie. Look for this option if you value this feature.

Warning! Drones use LiPo (Lithium Polymer) batteries that are extremely volatile and dangerous if used incorrectly. Be sure to learn about battery safety before charging or using any LiPo batteries.

Number of Cells - Typically you will see battery packs described in terms of the number of cells such as a 4 cell or just 4s. This refers to the number of cells in series with each cell having a maximum voltage of 4.2V. The total voltage of the pack can be found by multiplying the number of cells by 4.2 ie. 4 cells x 4.2 volts = 16.8V. The higher the voltage the more power the drone will have and the faster it will go. Choosing a voltage higher than your components are rated for will cause them to burn out.

Capacity - The capacity of a cell is rated in mAh which stands for milliamp hours. This means that a 1500mAh pack can give out 1.5A for an hours time, of course we want to pull far more than that so will get much shorter flight times. Increasing the pack size will give longer flight times however will add weight, there becomes a point where the drone can"t lift the extra weight of a battery.

C Rating - The C rating is often what distinguishes a good battery from a bad one, it refers to how quickly a battery can discharge it"s energy and is often the limiting factor in high performance drones. For example if we have a 1500mAh battery rated at 10C that means it can give out a maximum of 15A when discharging, 10C is relatively low and will not give enough power for most drones of this size. I would recommend a C rating of at least 45 for most racing or freestyle setups. Note that some companies C ratings are not accurate and you should look at reviews to help select a battery - In general, you get what you pay for!

This one is entirely optional but is necessary to record your footage in a high quality viewable format. This is almost a necessity if you want to show footage to friends or publish to YouTube. The downsides to adding a HD camera include an added weight and the risk of placing an expensive camera on a drone that has the potential to crash or get lost.

Weight - Any HD camera you add to your drone will have a direct effect on it"s performance. For this reason you want to try to choose the lightest possible camera that gives you the quality of vide you need.

Mounting Options - You"ll need a secure way to mount the camera to your drone, relying on rubber bands or cable ties can result in an expensive loss! Either look for a frame with built in mounting options or opt for a 3D printed case.

That covers the parts list, hopefully now you have an idea of the parts you want to use and we can get onto actually building your drone! There is no set right or wrong order to do this however I find my builds normally start from the PDB and work their way outwards. This allows you to systematically get everything up and running while giving you space to easily connect each wire when needed. If certain components don"t fit the order feel free to mix it up, this is only a guide line!

Tip - Our drones are actually very subject to vibrations and some screws can rattle loose! Using a small dab of thread locker on each screw can prevent this!

The first component I like to mount is the PDB, the reason for this is that everything connects to it and it is the central hub to your drone. To mount your PDB your are going to need to think about which direction you want to mount it, the main considerations are going to be where your battery is going to be and if you have an all in one board where you want your USB connector to face. To mount your PDB you are going to use nylon or rubber standoffs which normally fix through the frame and allow you to build up a stack of boards.

4: Check your connections, you are most importantly looking to make sure the joints are not overlapping or touching as this will cause a short. Hopefully you will have high quality shiny joints here and if not don"t be afraid to redo them. Remember it only takes one of these joints to fail for your drone to fall out of the sky!

The first test which I always recommend you do before adding power is to check for any shorts with a multimeter. We can set our multimeter to a continuity mode which will emit a sound if wires are in contact. If we run a continuity check on the positive and negative pins on your battery connector we should not see any continuity. If we get a beep then there is a short circuit meaning that something is wrong and plugging in a battery will result in damage to you or the drone!

When mounting your camera one thing to consider is it"s angle. Basically the steeper the angle will make your drone travel forward faster when you are trying to look straight ahead. For beginners I would recommend a starting camera angle of around 15 degrees. As you progress you can increase it up and find your sweet spot.

Hopefully everything is working and you can use this as an opportunity to focus your camera by twisting the lens and using the nut to lock it into position. Position the drone 2-3m away from a focus chart like the one below, when twisting the lens you are looking for the point where you can make out the lines closest to the centre.

Warning! - One of the most important steps is to set up your failsafe. This stops the drone from flying away incase it disconnects from the remote and could stop it from injuring you or others. These will vary between different transmitter/receiver combinations.

The final component to mount is the flight controller! This is the brain of your drone and we will be connecting nearly all of our signal wires here. The hardest part of wiring the flight controller is knowing what goes where since all flight controllers have a slightly different layout. The very first thing I suggest you do is search for a pinout diagram of your board, it should look something like this:

Buzzer - This works as a mean to find your lost drone in a crash or to warn you if the battery gets low. Flight controllers typically have a + and - buzzer pad to use here.

LEDs - You can run all kinds of LEDs with all kinds of patterns on your drone which are great for distinguishing your drone whilst racing. LED strips are typically powered by any + and - 5V pads with a signal wire connecting to the flight controller. As with most components I would recommend powering your LEDs off of the PDB if possible.

You may have noticed that there is some kind of arrow or chevron on the drone which is used to represent the front of the drone. Luckily with software the direction of the drone can be set so I would recommend setting the board at the angle that works best for your setup.

Software configuration is a huge article in itself with a massive amount to get through depending on your components and preferences that will be different for almost every build. All I can recommend is a basic checklist of things to set until we have completed a full article. Make sure you have installed a software configurator such as Betaflight on your computer and connect up to the drone via a USB cable (you may need to install the relevant drivers for your flight controller)

Flash your firmware - Just like a computer runs Windows, OSX or Linux a flight controller runs different software versions. It"s always best when setting up a new flight controller to update to the latest release of your firmware of choice. This is often done from the main screen of the configurator.

Drone configuration - We want to tell the drone which angle with mounted the flight controller at, which receiver we are using, how to talk to ESCs and set various limits such as the minimum throttle. There"s a lot to set here which will be better explained in a future video.

Warning! These are the tests where we are going to start spooling up the motors and all sorts could happen. Make sure you have no propellers on the drone under any circumstances!

We need to make sure the software knows where the front of the drone is, we should of set this up earlier but need to check it is correct. On your configurator you should see a 3D model of the drone, when you tilt your drone the model should update in real time. Confirm that it rotates in the right direction for roll, pitch an yaw.

We need to make sure that our flight controller is talking to our receiver correctly, to this you will need to plug in a battery. With the drone powered you should be able to view any stick inputs on a receiver tab whilst checking that your switches match your intended flight modes. If this is not working correctly it may be linked to settings on your remote.

This is where your drone will start to come to life! With the battery still in head to the motors tab and click a box to confirm that you have taken off all of your propellers! Each motor should have a slider now you can use to power each motor.

We are ready to test that the drone arms and that you can control the motors with your remote! Connect up your battery, power on your transmitter and try flicking your arm switch. You can now try moving the sticks and hopefully the motors will move! Make sure that your disarm switch is working as you may need to use this in case of an emergency. If you cannot get your drone to arm here are some of the possible causes.

We want to now check that the drone will cut out if we lose radio signal. If you don"t have this correctly set up you risk either a fly away or the drone causing some damage if the remote is not powered up. To test the failsafe arm the drone and increase the throttle. With the motors spinning turn off the remote and see what happens, we are hoping that the drone cuts out within a second.

Place your drone far away from you, arm and gently increase the throttle and try to hover a few feet off the ground. Be ready to disarm or drop the throttle incase it flips out. If anything does go wrong refer to this video: Quadcopter Flips On Takeoff: Solved

If you"ve made it this far, and finished this indepth How to build a Drone guide, you"ve done it! Building your first drone is a big feat, you"ve had a mountain of information to get through and probably faced heaps of challenges along the way. The result however is a drone custom to your requirements that you can be proud of. Even better if anything ever goes wrong or breaks you"ll know exactly how to fix it! Take care when flying it and look after it, there"s nothing worse than seeing your pride and joy smash into hundreds of tiny pieces!

Thanks for sticking with me, you"ve read through enough now and must be excited. Charge up some batteries and go flying! Be warned however, building and flying drones is an addictive hobby you will always want one more! Hope to see you soon. Enjoy!

Next up in our “Ask Drone Girl” series is about drone LCD brightness and DJI’s CrystalSky monitor. If you have a question for Drone Girl, contact her here.

I am new to the drone world. I am hoping to incorporate the aerial photography into my roofing consulting business. I purchased a DJI Phantom 3 Professional and love its user-friendliness; however, I cannot seem to get a clear view of what the camera is viewing. It is taking video and stills but the view is dark. I have adjusted the brightness up all the way to no avail. I have tried using my iPhone 6, Samsung Galaxy and iPad, and the results are the same. I have tried using a glare shield, which is a slight help. I was wondering if I need to purchase those goggles I see others using? Maybe I should put my head into a pillow case or box?

Such a serious issue, that in fact, DJI announced at CES 2017 a prototype for a new product called CrystalSky, a monitor with an ultra-bright screen designed to be clearly visible in sunlight. With 2000 cd/m² of brightness, it’s more than four times as bright as most mobile devices. The monitor is designed to function with a range of DJI’s drones, including the Inspire 2 and Inspire 1 series, Phantom 4 series, Matrice series and the Phantom 3 Professional, which you have.

As for those goggles you mention, those are FPV goggles. Those could certainly help solve your problem, however, keep in mind that if you are used to flying line of sight (being able to see the drone), then this is going to be a very differently flying experience. FPV goggles mean you see what the drone’s camera sees. Personally, I find it more difficult to fly this way because I learned how to fly line of sight style. If you want to get FPV goggles, I recommend the FatShark Dominator goggles. I have a pair myself and they are fantastic (and they are compatible with your DJI Phantom 3 Professional).

Another possibly interesting solution is the Brother AiRscouter goggles. The AiRScouter is a hybrid solution for looking down at your smartphone screen vs. looking solely through FPV goggles; this is a headset with a screen on one eye that displays exactly what your drone’s camera sees. That leaves your other eye to maintain visual line of sight with the drone. I reviewed the AiRScouter goggles a few months backand it did take some getting used to, so if your eyes already struggle with brightness on the tablet, they may also struggle with the brightness of the AiRscouter.

Take flight with the Swagdrone 4-UP goggles and see the world the way your drone does. The 4-UP has the capacity for up to 5 different bands as well as 40 different channels. The wide variety gives you more room to choose a unique channel for your drone whether it’s flight practice or race day.

Every piece of equipment matters in the world of drone racing. These FPV glasses are designed to give you the edge over the competition. 4-UP features both AV input and output connectivity options which allows for high quality viewing connection, as well as the capability to receive both NTSC and PAL video signals.

Connect the 4-UP goggles with the Swagdrone 150-UP to experience a field of vision up to 110° or hook up to the 210-UP drone for an extended field of vision up to 120°. Dual antennas provide superior transmission from your Swagdrone to your VR goggles.

Beyond tech, comfort is a priority. 4-UP goggles are specially calibrated to prevent visual fatigue and features a 5-inch LCD screen with adjustable chroma, contrast, and brightness settings. 4-UP goggles are also light and come with straps and a cushioned headband for a comfortable fit.

Feel like you’re zipping through the air, looping around obstacles, and even flying upside down with the 4-UP. A personal, first-person drone experience is just a flight away.

Created for outdoor aerial imaging, the CrystalSky monitor features an ultra-bright screen that is clearly visible in sunlight. It is designed from the ground up to work seamlessly with the DJI GO app, giving camera operators total control.Ultra-Bright

A maximum 2000 cd/m² of brightness means the CrystalSky monitor is more than four times as bright as typical mobile devices. On-screen details are clear and sharp, and colors are vibrant, giving the quality needed to fine tune image composition. A dedicated Sunlight Readability Enhancement mode is especially designed for processing the image in real-time to ensure more comfortable viewing under bright light.

A two cell 4920 mAh secondary external battery gives the CrystalSky monitor a longer operating time than comparable mobile devices. It supports quick charge, and controls its discharge rate well even in low temperatures. Used with the 7.85" and 5.5" screens, it can achieve a maximum operation time of 4-5 hours and 5-6 hours respectively.Dual SD Card slots

Note: Fly safely and responsibly, folks. Never flown before? Learn to fly for free over here. Need to get your FAA commercial drone certificate? Start studying over here.

This guide gives pilots a crash course on drone racing, including the top five ready-to-fly racing drones, what FPV drone racing is, how it works, and a glossary of important drone racing terms.

Before now, only in movies and video games could most people experience a bird’s-eye view while racing through obstacles at breakneck speeds. Thanks to FPV quadcopters, hexacopters, and other multirotors, anyone with enough flying skill to maneuver a drone can have this experience.

FPV racing is growing rapidly as a competitive sport, and it’s become commercialized by organizations like the Drone Racing League, U.S. Drone Racing Association, and events like the World Drone Racing Championships. Pilots compete to make it to the top of the international rankings and to win prize money up to tens of thousands of dollars.

Race tracks are set up to challenge each pilot’s skill set. Professional tracks set up for sanctioned races can get extremely complex, requiring pilots to make acrobatic maneuvers to get around/through each obstacle. Many drone racing pilots also enjoy setting up their own courses, using DIY racecourse kits.

If you’re interested in becoming a professional drone racing pilot, you need to practice, practice, practice! An excellent way to develop your flight skills is to practice on a simulator, like the DRL Simulator or the DJI Flight Simulator.

You should also plug into the drone racing community. Look for local racing events in your area and join a drone racing league. Attending events as a spectator can help you learn more about the sport and may give you an opportunity to network with or seek mentorship from an experienced racing pilot.

The Drone Racing League – The DRL is a global, professional drone racing circuit for elite pilots. The DRL season involves different races in which pilots accumulate points. Pilots with the highest number of points qualify for the World Championship.

MultiGP Drone Racing League – With chapters all over the world and events and classes for all types of FPV racers, MultiGP is leading the way in FPV racing and event management.

British Drone Racing Association – This group is a “Specialist Body” of the British Model Flying Association and provides racing opportunities via club programs and the British Drone Racing Championships.

Drone Racing World eSports – These online drone racing events are the convergence of two major trends in the public arena today, the first being drones and the second being eSports. Drone racing pilots from all around the world compete on the Multiplay eSports simulator.