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Comment by 83 | Hacker News Reader

Building a drone is incredibly easy these days, there's so much reference information out there now and pretty much all the pieces just plug together.

There's tons of great open source flight controller software out there - ardupilot, inav, betaflight, etc. I'm wondering what you didn't find particularly appealing about them?

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Take a look at the brands for the most popular parts - almost all Chinese.

Isn't the concern with DJI mostly the software (artificial flight limitations, phone-home ability, ability for China to lock you out on a whim). I'm not concerned that the motors and carbon tubes on my drones are made in China, I'm worried about truly owning the device I'm flying.

If I were a Ukrainian DJI pilot I'd be worried about China doing Russia a favor by releasing a firmware update with this logic:

1) drone is flying in Ukraine?

2) motor amperage is higher than normal (probably carrying a grenade)?

  If 1 and 2, just return to takeoff point and drop the grenade

Maybe mix in a rand() so Ukraine doesn't catch on too quick.

Valid! It is interesting to me how the hobby market is all Chinese. I'm not sure why - perhaps it's a race to the bottom on price, and non-Chinese hardware manufacturers can't complete on price, but that's speculation.

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