Sunday 22 September 2019

Best Cheap FPV gear

Here are my tips for the best cheap FPV gear.  Perfect for entry level or budget constrained pilots, but this gear will still be useful as your FPV requirements progress.

All In One camera and Video transmitter (AIO)

These camera / VTx combos are the simplest way to convert a plane to FPV. They are light and inexpensive and easy to swap from plane to plane.

The down sides are:
- The camera will not be the best quality, with lower dynamic range and large fisheye distortion.
- The range may not be as great as a more expensive Video Transmitter.
AOI VTx power output ranges from 25m to 200mW, giving range of maybe 100m up to many hundreds of meters.
- Voltage input is usually 3.5 to 5V. This means you cant run them straight from your flight battery. Best option for cleanest FPV video is to use a separate 1S battery for the FPV, or you can run it from the receiver or BEC.

Eachine TX02 200mW is my current recommendation - Eachine TX02 Banggood

FPV Goggles / screen

Recommending goggles is more difficult.

- Proper two screen goggles like Fatsharks, Skyzones and Aomway Commanders are very expensive, so I'll discount them for this discussion.
- Single screen box goggles are much cheaper but will not suit everyone. I need +1.0 close-up glasses for reading and I find that I cannot focus on the screen with most box goggles. I have modded some by glueing close-up lenses into the box enclosure.
- FPV screens by themselves can be a good solution but they are often more expensive than the box goggles.

Eachine EV800 goggles combine a detachable screen with goggles mount, so I think these are the best cheap option. The screen part can be mounted on a tripod or directly on your transmitter, and it includes the video receiver, battery and antenna. They also come with good quality antennas.



Eachine EV800 is the cheapest option with single clover leaf antenna - Eachine EV800 Banggood 











Eachine EV800D has clover leaf and patch antennas for greater range, and a DVR for recording the FPV feed - Eachine EV800D Banggood












Eachine EV800 screen on transmitter


Eachine EV800 review