Backpack

I bought one of the cheap backpacks recommended by Stew from UAVFUTURES, for carrying FPV Multi-rotor gear.

However, as I own a sewing machine and a box full of spare rucksack fittings, I figured I could make some improvements.

(There are a whole load of different Ebay sellers, selling bags from several different manufacturers. As there are slight differences between manufacturers, you may not end up with one exactly like this.)

What All the Plastic Bits are Called

In case you need to buy extras (add 'webbing' to your search, to avoid getting lots of other stuff):

Removing Unnecessary Straps

First off, the bag has a lot of compression straps to squash it down when it's not full, and stop things rattling about inside. Seeing as it is going to be completely filled, I decided to remove most of these, along with the waist and chest straps, because I'm not planning on hiking long distances, or carrying a lot of weight that needs to be firmly attached to me.

Doing this gets rid of all the extra straps that might get in the way when you just want to open the bag, or get tangled up in things when moving it around. It also provides some webbing and fittings that can be re-purposed to tailor the bag more to FPV use.

Cut the seams open and remove these straps, then sew the seams up again:

• Bottom compression straps at A. Leave the other end attached, as we're changing these from compression straps to somewhere to strap things to the bottom of the bag.
• Side compression straps B and C, and also remove the waist strap while this seam is open.
• Full length strap at D, then unthread the other end where the Y shaped piece attaches to the top of the bag (this gives us a nice long piece of webbing, and a buckle).

Fixing the Shoulder Straps

These are probably the worst thing about these cheap bags, because the straps keep pulling out of the D-rings the top:

I undid these, threaded the strap up through a tri-glide (that I removed from the bottom end of the shoulder-strap) then the rings, and then back down through the tri-glide. The double thickness of webbing holds a lot firmer.

(I could have put ladder locks at the top of the shoulder-straps, but didn't want to remove and then replace all the stitching, so kept the D-rings.)

What's inside

The bigger version of the Turnigy transmitter + goggles case (320x220x110mm).