I have been flying multirotor from last 3 years. I learned many things from my quad builds and many things yet to be discovered and one of them is FPV!. I have 4.3 inch and 9 inch LCD monitors and 5.8GHz FPV system. LCD screen is best and cheap solution for newbies like me. I tried LCD screen during some of my FPV flights but they all ended with minor crash. One reason was LCD screen. I was changing my view from FPV to LOS and it was really confusing. I was looking for more immerse view where i can fully concentrate on my FPV link. Solution of this problem was fpv goggles but they were out of my budget and at this stage i don't want to invest money for goggles. Meanwhile i found some youtube links to build cheap FPV goggles using small LCD screen, foam and fresnel lens. Check the links below.
Part List
1. 4.3 inch LCD screen - 2500rs
2. SKI goggles - 520rs
3. Fresnel lens - 110rs
4. Cardboard sheet - 20rs
5. Marble paper - 20rs
6. Other misc things like cutter, fevicol etc.. 100rs
Build Log
I all ready had 4.3 inch LCD screen with me so i started looking for other things.
I found fresnel lens and ski goggles on ebay but i couldn't find foam anywhere so finally i decided to go with card board sheet(same sheet i used for my hovercraft project).
One of the important thing was dimensions of shell and distance of fresnel lens from the LCD screen. I collected some raw data of fresnel lens distance without shell. It helped me design the top, bottom and side panels of the shell. Check below drawings with dimension and first cut part
First i measured size of the 4.3 inch screen. It was 12cm x 7cm. As shown in the pic below i designed top, bottom and side panels and later i cut it using cutter and glued it using fevicol and drawing book paper. Well before sticking pieces together i got some black marble paper and glued it in the inner part of the shell.
One important thing i did was, glued some cardboard pieces to use them as a stopper to support fresnel lens and LCD screen. It worked really well so i decided to use same trick for fitting screen as well using rubber band. Check images below to get an idea
Here is the snap showing all pieces together. The shell has enough strength and looks good.
After completing shell using top, bottom and side panels i decided to put some holes on each side to reduce the weight of goggles. Check below snap, you can see holes on top, bottom and side panels, it helped reduce the overall weight. Make sure while cutting the holes that it should not affect the strength of the shell.
Next thing i made was fresnel lens frame. Instead of sticking lens directly to the shell i glued it on on the cardboard frame and then to the shell. I glued lens at 100 mm distance from the LCD screen in the shell. I was planning to give bit curve shape to lens to get rid of image distortion but later i just kept it straight. I don't see much difference but may be my next build will have this update.
Now i glued(black part inside and white part outside) two layers of marble papers on the outer part of the shell to cover the shell.
We are now near an end but most difficult part was to mount ski goggles on the shell because curve shape of ski goggle was making thing harder than i expected. After thinking a lot i decided to stitch ski goggles to the shell instead of using cello tape. This trick worked really well and i am really happy to see final build. It works really well but before doing this i removed ski goggles lens.
As i posted above i glued some cardboard pieces to work as a stoppers same thing i did to make hooks to fit LCD screen behind the shell using rubber band. Check below snap. Glue two pieces on the top panel and two below the bottom panel. This assembly consist of small piece below and big piece above glued together to create slot where rubber band gets hooked.
Here how it works. I used single rubber band but you can use two or more but one does the job well.
And here is the final output i got from my DIY FPV goggles. It feels really nice. You won't feel that you are watching 4.3 inch LCD but it more feels like watching theater screen due to fresnel lens. This lens comes with different focal length so before you start the build collect raw data of distance between LCD and lens.
So we have completed the build. Final conclusion is you can make things from household items without spending money and best thing is you will have lots of fun of making it DIY.