Drones

Dust0741@lemmy.world to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 53 points –

Can y'all help get me started with open source drone stuff? Ideally sub 250g. I'm looking to get into the hobby, and don't have anything. Recommendations for controllers, SIMs etc would also be nice.

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I was looking at these too a couple days ago but cheapest option is like $500USD without batteries, camera, radio controller, etc. Half of them are so expensive you have to call for a price and shit.

Not exactly beginner pricing IMO when you may just crash it anyways

No matter which kind you pick, you always start with a simulator unless you have more money than sense. There are free ones, and good ones aren't expensive either. Radios these days can just be plugged into a computer so you're using your actual controller for the simulator, too.

Any recommendations? Ideally for SIMs/radios that work on Linux

All of the OpenTX/EdgeTX radios work on Linux as a controller, and generally most radios that support this probably will, because they just appear as a joystick (HID profile). There are also ways of connecting them other than just plugging the radio into usb and selecting "controller mode", but even those usually result in a joystick device I think? So which radio in particular mostly depends on what kind of drone you want to fly, if you want to fly other things (plane, helicopter, scale models), or drive other things (cars/boats/crawling/scale models). Also ergonomics (size of hands, similar to a classic radio or similar to a game controller?) and just personal preference, mostly.

As for the Sim, I think Liftoff has a native Linux port, but these days most of the sims should just work anyway with the recent developments of valve for the steamdeck.