Riley Turner has designed a new drone DIY kit from feedback he has received from the drone community to create an affordable drone kit that is capable of being constructed by anyone.
The Timber Drone DIY kit has been designed to be easy to build and affordable with a ready-to-fly price of under $500. The kit is also very easy to fix and expand with the addition of camera mounts for GoPro cameras and more.
In the video below Turner explains more about the inspiration and construction of his new drone DIY kit that is available to back over on the Kickstarter website priced at just $199 for early bird backers.
My friends and I have been building and flying drones for three years and have come to realize a universal truth found in the drone market and it goes as follows: You can either fork out the big bucks for a consumer drone, or you can brave the pitfalls of building one for yourself. Regardless, you are going to invest a lot of time, money, or both.
For the past year, I have been getting feedback from all over the drone community as to what would make the ideal drone and what features would give it the most value for your time and money. Having gathered drone preferences from beginners and experts alike, I created a drone kit that would most closely meet their needs.
Features include :
• Power connection points are built right into the frame, so soldering is clean and fast–no confusing tangle of wires and no worry of short circuits.
• The frame facilitates folding booms which serve two purposes. The first being that the booms can fold in case of a crash saving the expensive hardware. The second being that the entire frame folds into a small, transportable package that easily fits into a backpack.
• The wooden booms are secured in place (to prevent from folding in flight) by either rubber bands, zip ties or nuts and bolts. In the event of a crash, either the rubber band, zip tie or wooden boom will break saving the motors and propellors and allowing you to get back up in the air in minutes.
• The auxiliary power connection point allows you to power whatever accessory you desire. Possible accessories include: FPV equipment, brushless gimbals, lights and advanced flight controllers.
• Flight controllers such as the Openpilot CC3D, Naze32, DJI Naza, APM and EagleTree Vector all work great with the Timber Drone.
• The front of the frame features the perfect mounting point for cameras and gimbals. Extra long booms and far-forward mounting position keeps the frame and props hidden for gorgeous, unobstructed views.
• The final revision of the frame that you will receive will feature multiple mounting points for battery straps, so you can balance your Timber Drone according to whatever payload you are carrying.
• Flight times can exceed 12 minutes depending on payload and battery. With the included 3000mah 3s battery (in the PNF/RTF kits), the Timber Drone can fly comfortably fly for 8-10 minutes carrying a GoPro camera.
Source: Kickstarter
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