Mini quadcopter

Drone mania bite me and now I have a new hobby. After two weeks of research and tons of watched videos, I placed my order, actually dozens of orders. Complete solutions are cool, but I like to build things from pieces. That way I can learn how things work and have unique product at the end. I decided to start with 250 mm FPV category. These kind of quadcopters are very popular, meaning it's easy to find parts and build tutorials.

Main tutorial that I followed was recorded by Bruce Simpson. Here is the first part in series:

In video's description on YT, there is a list of parts but it's incomplete, so here is a full list of parts I used:

• AfroFlight Naze32 Acro
• Afro ESC 12Amp
• ZMR250 (QAV250)
• FS-iA6 Radio
• DYS BE1806 2300KV
• ZIPPY Compact 1300mAh 3S 25C
• Gemfan 5x3 Inch Plastic 5030 Propeller

FPV system:

• Boscam FPV 5.8G 8CH 200mW AV Wireless Receiver RC305
• Eachine 700TVL 1/3 Cmos FPV 110 Degree Camera w/32CH Transmission
• Quanum DIY FPV Goggle Set with Monitor
• Turnigy 1000mAh 3S 20C

I bought as much as I could from local stores. To my surprise, some prices were lower than ones on ebay.

Short build log

After one month majority of parts came:

and fun started:

I didn't documented the whole process, so it might look from pictures above that it can be completed between breakfast and lunch, but just video tutorial series that I linked above lasts few hours.

PS4 or quadcopter?

The price between those two is pretty similar. That is, if a quadcopter survives first fly tests. My first fly attempt ended after just a few seconds. Quad raised a bit but floated backwards and scraped a wall with propellers, resulting with light prop damage and one prop cap falling off. On my second fly attempt I managed to get quad in the air and wrestled with controls on the radio to hold quad steady. My happy grin didn't last long, because suddenly, at maybe 3 meters height, prop cap got loss, and quad hit the grass. I spent half hour searching through grass, but didn't find the cap.

Flying by looking at quadcopter is OK, but the real fun starts with FPV. I'm still waiting for my action camera to come, so I'll share a FPV video from a pro pilot Boris B.:

So all in all, my answer to the question is quadcopter.

UPDATE:

Here are two videos that I took. First one is altitude test, second is distance test.