The TundraCam

The Durafly Tundra comes with a few extra accessories included in the kit. Besides the floats, there is a nice FPV tray to assemble, and an EPO spacer to install the candy dropper. So after enjoying the Tundra in its “clean” configuration for a while, I’ve decided to try that out. Not having yet a fully functioning FPV equipment at home, I could still strap an action cam to it and take in-flight pictures and videos. Even without real time broadcast to the ground the “TundraCam” could still record the footage on memory cards to be viewed and edited later on.

The FPV TRAY

Tundra FPV tray — The stock FPV tray after painting

As mentioned before, this FPV tray is found in the Durafly Tundra’s box, in the form of a laser cut little wood kit. I just had to separate all the parts from each other and figure out how to assemble it. Although the manual was a bit shy in helping the process, once you have the parts in your hands you’ll eventually figure out how they need to go together. Just pay attention to the holes on some of the parts, as they are there to help you with a gimbal system (not included). So, in case that’s going to be your setup, be careful on which side you leave those holes before you glue it. The Tray is made of light plywood, and installs in place of the front canopy/battery area hatch, kept in place with a magnet at the top. After building it up, to make it look nicer, I opted to sand it down, use a bit of filler on where needed, and paint it white. Of course this was not necessary at all, but since I was painting the Juliet2 engine cowling anyway, I decided to add those few extra grams to make the Tundracam look even better.

The Cameras

Tundracam with Runcam2 — The Runcam2 installed under the Tundracam’s belly

The TundraCam has been flying with two different cameras, and old Xiaomi Yi and a Runcam2 camera. I used the former directly bolted to the FPV tray, covered with a soft silicone case (just in case). The cover, found in the Hobbyking’s Bargain Bin for a few cents, has the nice benefit of being bright red, making it easier to find should it fly off during some aerobatic maneuver. The Runcam2 didn’t need any cover, being already stronger and orange. The Runcam is installed below the belly, using the attachment of the candy dropper and its adapter. A bonus feature of this installation is the possibility to rotate the camera around the bolt to shoot from different angles. Between the two, the RunCam2 gives for sure the best results, being also lighter and easier to attach to the plane. But the Xiaomi Yi with a few software tweaks also gave pretty decent results, totally worth to give a try if you have one hanging around.

Ok, ok, here are the videos!

Spoiler alert, the first video is quite long, as it’s a collage of several flights made during the summer of 2019. It was all recorded with the Xiaomi and edited in Cyberlink Power Director. The second is shorter and came out a bit more interesting, it has footage from the Runcam2. You’ll see also a bit more dynamic flying from my part as I was getting confident that I was not losing the cameras around. So enough said, enjoy my first video attempts! If you want to see how raw footage from the Runcam2 looks like, here is a short clip for you.