There are many advantages and disadvantages associated with both building and buying your new drone. The biggest considerations when determining what to do should be your level of technical ability and willingness to invest your time.

Building a Drone

When you decide to build drones for kids or yourself, you’ll have to build a parts list and ensure your selected components will get you off the ground. One way to do this is by using software such as eCalc, which you can use to determine things like lifting capacity and flight time. Once you know the lifting capacity, you’ll have to make sure your total system weighs less than that, else you’ll just sit on the ground and spin your props. Additionally, you’ll have to take care to get the right ESCs for the job, meaning the rated maximum current of the ESC exceeds the maximum current of the motors.

So you can see that it takes a little time and technical knowledge just to pick the parts list, but the bulk of it happens after you’ve gotten your parts. The actual build can seem incredibly daunting, but in reality it isn’t that bad. However, you’re first build is bound … Read the rest