Isaac Hronopoulosbuild log

Drones · finished

FPV Drone Build

I built a first-person-view drone from individually chosen parts, rebuilt a DJI Avata with bigger motors and a carbon fibre frame, and modified the radio I fly them with.

Role
Parts selection, assembly, soldering, setup and tuning
Team
Solo
  • Drones
  • Building
  • Electronics
The finished FPV drone held in one hand outdoors, with a black carbon fibre frame, green arm guards, a camera on the front and a green-wrapped battery on top.
The finished drone, ready for its first proper flight

How I built it

The steps, in the order they happened.

  1. 01 Parts

    Choosing every part myself

    Instead of buying a ready-to-fly drone, I picked each part myself, from the carbon fibre frame and motors to the flight controller, camera, video transmitter and radio receiver.

  2. 02 Build

    Assembly and soldering

    I built the frame, mounted the motors and soldered all the electronics together, including the power wiring and the flight controller stack.

  3. 03 Setup

    Making it fly

    I configured the flight controller, bound the receiver to my radio and tuned it until it flew the way I wanted.

The build, the Avata and the controller

The FPV drone partly assembled on a workbench, with motors on green mounts, the flight controller in the middle, wiring, and spare parts around it.

01

Mid-build

Every part was chosen and fitted by me. Building it from parts means I understand every wire on it, and I can repair anything that breaks instead of replacing the whole drone.

The finished FPV drone held in one hand outdoors, with green arm guards and a camera on the front.

02

Finished

This is the finished drone, tuned and flying.

A modified DJI Avata held in one hand, with grey propeller guards and a carbon fibre frame around the DJI camera unit.

03

A modified DJI Avata

I also took a standard DJI Avata and rebuilt it with bigger motors for more power and a carbon fibre frame in place of the original.

The modified Avata from below, showing the carbon fibre frame plate, the four ducted propellers and the larger motors.

04

New frame and motors

Underneath you can see the new carbon fibre frame plate and the larger motors sitting inside the propeller ducts.

The back of the TX16S opened up, showing its circuit boards, wiring and the new joystick gimbals installed.

05

Making it competition ready

The main change was new joysticks, for smoother and more precise control than the stock ones. That meant opening the case, removing the old gimbals, wiring in the new ones, then recalibrating the sticks so every input was exact before a match.

A RadioMaster TX16S radio controller held in one hand, with blue gimbals and its screen lit up.

06

My competition controller

A stock radio is fine for casual flying, but drone soccer is fast and close-quarters, where small, precise stick movements decide a match. I modified my RadioMaster TX16S to be competition ready, and it's the controller I flew drone soccer with.

I flew the same controller in competition, which is on the Drone Soccer page.