The Micro Quadcopter 500

500 Flights in 198 Days

     I keep a log of every flight that I make with my quadcopters, so I knew that on February 2, 2017, I had made my 500th flight.  I made my first flight with my first micro quadcopter, the Hubsan X4 H107L, on July 20, 2016.  Thus, it took me 198 days to achieve 500 flights; an average of 2.53 flights a day.  Of course, a lot of days, I didn't have a chance to fly any of my fleet, but, on the other hand, my one day record was 11 flights.  As a retired engineer, I enjoy keeping records and analyzing data.  I have put together the following table showing all of my drones, the number of flights for each, how many days since I purchased each one and the average number of days between flights for each drone.

Drone                          No. of Flights             Days since purchase       Days between flights

Spidex                                88                                  184                                  2.1

Hubsan                               64                                  198                                  3.1

Verso                                  52                                  196                                  3.8

Syma X13                          44                                  168                                  3.8

UDI-U27                            40                                  168                                  4.2

Spyder X                            36                                  158                                  4.4

Blade Nano                        30                                  191                                  6.4

Kodo                                  23                                  181                                  7.9

Sharper Image DX2             24                                  135                                  5.6

Proto Z                               22                                  170                                  7.7

Quadrone                            22                                 143                                   6.5

Sky Rover                          13                                   63                                   4.8

Sky Thunder                       12                                   63                                   5.3

Swift Stream                        9                                    44                                   4.9

UDI U-841-1                        6                                    12                                   2.0

Zoopa Riot                           6                                    13                                   2.2

Quadrone Spark                   5                                    12                                   2.4

Quadrone Sparrow               4                                    12                                   3.0

     The last four quadcopters have not been discussed in their own post, yet, since I am waiting to get more flights with each one to have a better understanding of their capabilities.  In the chart above, the "Days between flights" column gives a fairly accurate indication of which drones are my favorites.

The Flight Room Becomes a Race Course

Results of a few time trials

     After flying all my drones back and forth the length of the flight room for a few months, I decided I needed more of a challenge: like a race course.  After some thought, I decided to use crepe paper streamers to make gates to fly around and through.  I took two eight-foot long pieces of paper, one blue and one orange, twisted them together and duct taped them to the ceiling and floor.  I put four of them in a row across the 12-foot width of the room, thus making three gates each four-foot wide.  I made three rows of gates, with rows being ten feet apart.  I now had a slalom course with nine gates that I could fly through using a variety of different patterns.

Slalom Course looking North

Slalom Course looking South

     I started out with the simplest course: a rectangle.  Fly down the three gates on the left side, across the back and up through the three gates on the right.  I wanted some quantitative measure of how well I could fly each of my quads on the course, so I decided to time each one in a three lap race around the course.  I would start the stop watch on my wristwatch, take off from the launch pad on the floor, fly the three laps, land (or crash) into a bean bag landing zone and stop the clock.
     I soon learned that flying this course was not easy!  Part of the problem was my lack of experience and skill and partly the narrow size of the gates for the speed and quickness of some of the drones.  A major problem was misjudging the speed of the quad and the distance to the back wall.  Luckily, the walls are padded.  I also chewed up plenty of streamers with the props.  Using the slowest speed settings for each drone, I have completed the course 41 times.  The best time was with my Syma D44: 37.06 seconds.  Here is a list of the number of times I finished the course (three laps) for each drone and the best time for each:

Quadcopter                   Completions      Best Time (seconds)

Syma D44                              3                    37.06
Ares Spidex                           4                    37.36
Sky Rover                              2                    38.44
Propel Spyder X                    5                    38.68
Swift Stream                          5                    39.89
Syma X13                              5                    44.45
Quadrone                               2                    46.63
Dromida Verso                       1                    52.89
Hubsan H107L                      6                     53.37
Dromida Kodo                       1                     54.37
Blade Nano                            1                     59.90
Sharper Image DX2               2                     63.32
UDI U-27                               2                     64.49
Estes Proto Z                          2                     67.32

     As can be seen from the results, there was quite a range of times over the entire fleet.  I was able to get each one of my quads through the course at least once, but is was a challenge for a few.  The best times, I feel, represent the quads that are the easiest for me to control and not necessarily the fastest ones.  My Blade Nano is certainly the fastest drone in the fleet, but I just couldn't control it well enough on this tight course to get a good time.  The Propel Spyder X set the record by having  completed the course all of its five times on the same battery charge.
     After a few days, I scrapped the slalom course, afraid I was going to do some major damage to a few of my drones.  I then built a simple oval race course with a large pylon at each end of the flight room.  Each pylon consisted of four two-stranded, twisted streamers attached to a paper plate at each end and tacked to the ceiling and taped to the floor.     

Two Pylon Race Course

Close-up View of  a Pylon

     Again, I timed three laps around the course for each quad.  The times dropped significantly for this new arrangement.  With a total of 90 course completions the results were:

Quad                               Completions      Best Time (seconds)

Quadrone Sparrow                  6                        25.81
Zoopa Riot                              5                        26.09
Propel Spyder X                     17                       27.07
Dromida Verso                         7                       27.53
Blade Nano                              6                       27.70
Dromida Kodo                         6                       28.48
Hubsan H107L                         6                      28.98
Swift Stream                            6                       29.21
Syma D44                                7                       29.27

Ares Spidex                            15                       30.24
Sky Rover                                3                        32.20
UDI U-841-1                            1                       35.95

Quadrone                                  2                       36.54
Syma X-13                                1                      37.87
Sharper Image DX-2                 1                      38.03
UDI U-27                                  1                      41.44

     You will notice that a few new names appear on this course due to some new purchases.  I could not get the Proto Z or the Quadrone Spark around the course to the finish, although, I tried.  As before, I am sure that the times reflect my flying ability more than they do the quads' speeds.  This course was much easier than the previous one and I enjoyed it a lot more.

Sharper Image DX-2 goes to the Repair Shop

A little solder fixes the problem

     While flying my Sharper Image DX-2, it crashed into a pylon on the race course in the flight room.  I will talk about the race course in an up-coming post.  Usually, hitting a pylon is not dangerous since they are made of crepe paper streamers.  Whenever I hit one, I immediately shut down the throttle to avoid having the props cut the paper or getting the paper wound tightly around the prop and its shaft.  Most often the quad gets tangled in the streamers and stays suspended until I retrieve it, or, it falls harmlessly to the carpet.  

The race course pylons

     This time the DX-2 fell to the floor.  When I put it back on the launch pad everything appeared fine.  But, when I increased the throttle it immediately rolled over, not once, but a couple of times.  I inspected the propellers while slowly increasing throttle and discovered that one motor was not turning.  So, after removing 12 tiny screws, popping off the props and prop guards and separating the upper and lower sections of the quad, the problem was immediately apparent: a motor wire had a broken solder connection.  The only previous time that I had damage to a motor was with the Blade Nano when the motor cap pulled off and I had to replace the whole motor; but it just plugged in.

The DX-2 disassembled

     I got my soldering tools out and in a matter of minutes had the wire reattached.  I plugged the battery in, turned on the quad and the controller and carefully gave it a little throttle.  The motor spun perfectly.  But, another one of the motors would not spin.  I soon found that I had accidentally broken another connection.  A bit more soldering and that one was also fixed.  Reassembly and then back to the flight room to finish the flight and try to avoid the pylons.

     While I had the quad apart, I discovered that the battery could easily be replaced by soldering if and when the battery ever died. 

Swift Stream Z-32CV Camera Drone

Drone #14: Swift Stream Z-32CV

     My fourteenth micro quadcopter is the Swift Stream Z-32CV.  It was purchased at CVS / pharmacy in Maineville, Ohio, on December 21, 2016, for $29.99.  The Swift Stream is larger than any other of my drones.  At 120 mm diagonally from propeller center to center, it is over my intended limit of 115 mm, but, at this price and with a camera, I could not pass it up.  My next largest drone is the Dromida Verso at 112 mm.

Swift Stream Z-32CV Camera Drone

     I have made six flights with the Z-32CV in the flight room.  It handles very nicely and I cannot wait to get it outdoors and see what it can really do.  The quad has very long landing gears which give me some problems.  If it just grazes the carpeting while flying horizontally, the landing gears will catch and flip the drone over.  And, when landing, it has to come straight down with no horizontal component to avoid flipping.  Except for this, it is great fun to fly.
     With this post, I have completed introducing my entire fleet of fourteen micro quadcopter drones.  I think it is quite a diverse group with plenty of variations and different options.  But, it is time for me to think about expanding the fleet for there are plenty of quads on the market with all new features just waiting for me to try.  So, I am asking my reader(s?) to suggest new drones, similar to the ones I now have, that I might invest in.  My only requirements are:

     1. They have to be QUADcopters - four propellers only.
     2. They use 1S LiPo batteries.
     3. They measure approximately 100 mm (4 inches) diagonally across the propellers center to center (85 - 115 mm, 3.5 to 4.5").
     4. They cost less than about $50.  More, if they have some great new unique feature.
     5. No FPV, yet.

     So far, all of my drone purchases have been from local merchants, but I am running out of sources for new ones that meet my criteria and will have to eventually go online for additions to the fleet.  Amazon, here I come.

Syma Sky Thunder D44 Dragonfly Drone

Lucky No. 13 of the Fleet

The Syma Sky Thunder D44 Dragonfly Drone has the longest name of any of my drones.  I acquired it on December 2, 2016, from Meijer in Loveland, Ohio, for $39.99.  I have flown it nine times, all in the flight room.

Syma Sky Thunder D44 Dragonfly

     The D44 is a fun micro quadcopter, although, it does not have any unique features that my other drones don't already have.  It combines easy control with fairly fast flight.  When I set up a slalom course in the flight room and flew each drone around it, the Sky Thunder had the fastest time of all.  Again, that does not mean it is the fastest drone I have, but rather the one that I personally can control best at high speeds.  And, its margin of victory was very slim.  I will give a more detailed description of the race course and flight results for each quadcopter in a future post.
     Like my other Syma drone, the X13, the D44 has geared props.  In addition, the motors on the Dragonfly are horizontal with the motor shafts perpendicular to the propeller shafts.

Sky Rover Voice Command Drone

The Twelfth Drone in the Fleet

     The twelfth micro quadcopter in the fleet, the Sky Rover Voice Command Drone, was purchased on December 2, 2016, from Barnes & Noble in Cincinnati, Ohio, for $60.86.  I have flown it ten times, all in the flight room.

Sky Rover Voice Command Drone

     The obvious difference between this drone and all of my other ones is the voice command option.  The first time I tried the voice command feature was a disaster.  The drone only recognized a small number of my commands; not understanding or incorrectly interpreting most of them.  That is when Cheryl, my wife, decided to give it a try.  Amazingly, she had instant success with the commands, getting almost everyone right.  Since she was a mathematics professor and also trained in acting and opera, she explained to me that I had to speak more clearly and distinctly.  Sure enough, I can now get it to do almost everything I want it to.  Of course, I still have the control sticks to correct any problems that arise.  We like the fact that the Sky Rover is the only quadcopter that we can fly together at the same time.  Cheryl uses the voice command microphone and I use the sticks on the transmitter.  Since the microphone plugs into the transmitter we have to stand close to each other, but it works just fine.  Whenever she has a problem getting a voice command to act quickly enough to get her out of trouble, I just use the sticks to help her out.

Sharper Image DX-2 Stunt Drone

My Eleventh Micro Quadcopter

     On September 21, 2016, I purchased the Sharper Image DX-2 Stunt Drone from Walmart in Mason, Ohio for $33.88.  I have flown it 20 times in the flight room.

The Sharper Image DX-2 Stunt Drone

     This quadcopter has several new features differing from the rest of my fleet.  By pressing and holding the flip button and then moving the directional stick in any direction, the drone will flip up to three times in a row.  Pressing the Auto Landing button makes the drone automatically descend until it lands.  I have used both of these features successfully in the flight room, but I am sure they will work much better when I get a chance to take the quad outside.  With less than eight feet from floor to ceiling, neither function is great.