UDI U818A - Stand Alone - Camera Mount & Battery Storage

thingiverse

I frequently visit Mircocenter to purchase inland filament, which has made me a regular at the Michigan store. My son and I bought the UDI U818A-1 quadcopter-drone there over a year ago, and it has been the best quadcopter we've ever owned. It's withstood numerous crashes without sustaining any damage. We almost lost it on its first night when we took it up 200 feet at dusk, and the wind suddenly grabbed it. We battled the wind for ten minutes in low setting mode (we should have used high setting mode), but it eventually fell from 200 feet after the battery ran out. Thirty minutes later, we found it on the sidewalk, two blocks away from our street. So outfitting this quadcopter-drone with a FPV camera is definitely worth considering. It already has a camera at its bottom, but it's not an FPV camera. I didn't want to buy the UDI FPV version that comes with one pre-installed. Side note: buying a tiny whoop FPV camera separately can also be repurposed for use on my son's RC truck. The cost of getting into FPV racing is quite steep, especially if you just want to try it out to see if you like it. Instead of buying new equipment, I designed and remixed a camera mount to hold a tiny whoop camera on the UDI U818A-1 quad. Rubber bands secure it in place well. My son has a blast flying it! The UDI U818A-1 quad is more than strong enough to fly with two batteries: one for the camera, and one for the drone. The drone's main battery is located at its bottom. I initially used the Crazepony 5.8Gz Polarized Clover Leaf Antenna ($25), which fit this top mount best. However, it's now missing (Ugh! It's so small it might have accidentally been thrown away; I hope we find it). The FPV camera in the pictures is the Wolfwhoop WT05 Micro AIO ($17). To accommodate its wires, the top piece had to be mirrored, and I had to trim at the back too. This camera has a wider angle view of 140 degrees (Note: The Crazepony had 120 degree view). However, the clover antenna is supposed to get a longer range. The FPV viewer my son received for Christmas was the Eachine EV800 ($90), and it works great! In the end, I've created a fun drone that my son can fly around the house. He sits in the basement and flies it up to the 2nd floor where the bedrooms are without any issues. *Note: I'm not the original designer of the camera mount on the top piece... See 30 x 30 Top mount tx03 cam universal ... # 2192570. Updated Comment (2018-04-09): For faster and longer flight times, remove the blue plastic housing, then see my alternate design of a dome with camera mount .... thingi 2816084. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2816084