For a long time I have been looking for a small cheap development drone. A few months Back I saw another blog post about about someone who had managed to make a tiny whoop run Ardupilot. From the moment I saw the post and the associated video I knew I wanted one of my own.
I just completed my tiny whoop project. I used a tiny whoop frame from FLywoo, Flywoo’s GN745 flight controller, Flywoo’s GM8 GPS and MRO’s sik radio. The really cool thing about the GN745 is that it is a 30x30 mm flight controller that can run ardupilot and has a built in 4in1 ESC. I have also been impressed with the MRO sik radio. I have go about 200m of range with the lolipop antenna I am using.
I built a Shen-based (TerraPlane) Cinewhoop for similar reasons, though it isn’t quite the budget solution that you’ve achieved here. Glad to see AP flying on something even smaller and more accessible!
Great build and stable flights. I’m happy that you and I are interested in the same exciting thing.
BTW, I could not find an RC receiver in the parts list.
So you intend to use a joystick via telemetry radio for manual control like stabilize mode?
If so, how do you connect the smartphone, joystick and telemetry radio (ground side)?
It flies pretty much well, but easily hits its own propwash when descending, so one has to fly quite quickly. The maximum range I could obtain with it so far is 1km, but it is definitely capable of more…
I am not using a dedicated RC receiver. to save weight I decided to use the mavlink joystick function in QGC. I purchased a micro usb to usb c cable which allowed me to plug in the sik radio to the phone. From there I bluetoothed the xbox one controller to the phone and setup up the joystick in the QGC android app. You can also do a similar setup with a laptop too.
