NOAR: NOt Another Rooster!

By Alloy907 on Feb 07, 2018

11  1,514  10

The first and the only build with GEP-KX5 frame on this site!

I was deciding between Rooster and Remix. Rooster had bottom base plate, Remix is too fancy and not practical. Both had replaceable arms, what turned me away from them. My very first racing quad was Eachine Falcon 210 Pro and since then i like the idea of unibody top-mounted baseplate. KX5 frame has perfect look of Chameleon/Rooster and practicality of Falcon 210. Frame also offers optional side panels, providing protection from side impact and green mist sprayed from propellers when (crash)landing in high and fresh grass.

Holybro Kakute F4 v1 FC is my flying test laboratory. I'm experimenting with my own filters on custom build of Betaflight, forked from 3.2 release. It was chosen because of soft-mounted 32khz gyro. FC is soft mounted itself too.

ESCs were purchased in very early days of BLHeli32. They had number of issues initially, solved later with new firmware releases. They are also quite noisy, so i had to add 470uF low-esr capacitor on each of them. Still they are very reliable. Couple of times my custom filter failed in flight, causing ESC and motors to get very hot. Those ESCs survived thru such a torture without any problem.

X6B receiver was used to allow this drone to fly with old Flysky TX, while my other quads are bound to Taranis Q7S. This way we can fly together with my son. Receiver mounting holes were 2mm in diameter, i've drilled them to 3mm to stack with FC.

Motors are RCX 2206V3 2400kv. They are just good. Not top performers, but quiet, well balanced and reliable. They had no issues spinning heavy Emax Avan props, but flying great with DAL T5046C too. Motors are soft-mounted via silicone pads.

Had no chance to fly it on the wild, will take it to Baylands park on the next weekend. Hovered a little on the backyard and it looks good. Motors and ESC are staying cool. I'm going to replace this old VTX once AKK/RDQ and Betaflight folks will figure out with SmartAudio support in 3.3.

Later will add Foxeer Box 4K as a payload, but it may require bigger motors. This drone is 565g AUW even without HD camera, 380g without battery. 10g lighter than Chameleon with Returner R3 2207 motors, which does not feels to be overpowered as well. Probably will give a try to Armattan Oomph Titan.

Photos

Part List

Frame

GEPRC GEP-KX5 Elegant 243mm FPV Racing RC Drone X Frame Kit 4mm Arm w/ PDB 5V & 12V (3 builds)
Banggood.com
$59.90

Flight Controller

Holybro Kakute F4 V2 STM32F405 Flight Controller With Betaflight OSD for RC Multirotor FPV Racing Drone (43 builds)
Banggood.com
$36.00

ESCs

4X Racerstar TATTOO 35A STM32F051 BLheli_32Bit 2-5S RaceSpec Brushless ESC Dshot1200 Ready for RC Racing Drone (7 builds)
Banggood.com
$47.89

Motors

4 x RCX RS2206 (V3) 2400KV FPV Racing Motor (Japan EZO Bearing / N52SH Arc Magnet) (10 builds)
Myrcmart.com
$59.96

Propellers

DALPROP T5046C Cyclone (2 CW 2 CCW) (391 builds)
Pirofliprc.com
$2.99

FPV Camera

Crazepony RunCam Swift 600TVL Mini Camera 2.3mm Lens 150 Degree DC 5-36V DWDR for Racing Quadcopter Orange
Amazon.com
$34.99

FPV Transmitter

Realacc GX210 5.8G 40CH 200mW Raceband Mini AV VTX FPV Transmitter RP-SMA
Banggood.com
$13.99

Antenna

EMAX Pagoda Antenna RHCP Set of 2 - 50mm and 80mm (62 builds)
Racedayquads.com
$14.99

Receiver

Flysky X6B 2.4G 6CH i-BUS PPM PWM Receiver for AFHDS i10 i6s i6 i6x i4x Transmitter (180 builds)
Banggood.com
$11.06

Batteries

AHTECH Infinity 1500mah 14.8V 90C 4S1P Race Spec Lipo Battery for RC Drone (24 builds)
Banggood.com
$28.18

HD Camera

Foxeer Box 4K Action Camera (10 builds)
Amainhobbies.com
$169.99

Misc Parts

(NG #58) 8pcs 470uF 50v 105c Radial Electrolytic Gold Capacitor Low ESR 13mm X 21mm
Amazon.com
$6.25

Misc Parts

4 PCS ESC Protective Case for DYS LittleBee 20A 30A ESC (11 builds)
Banggood.com
$2.50
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Discussion

Sign in to comment

Mehul Shocker   Jan 29, 2019  

how durable are those rcx motors?
ever bent the shaft?
are they smooth??

JC250   Feb 07, 2018  

Did u rill the holes for the x6b? I was always nervous about doing that to mine

Alloy907   Feb 08, 2018 

Should be quite safe operation. I did it with 2 different x6b receivers, both working fine.

Putyah   Feb 07, 2018  

Cool build. I'am thinking about buying the same frame, but don't know how to mount the flightcontroller. The flightcontroller has to be upside down to solder all the motor wires. Does this cause any issues? You can change the orientation of the flightcontroller in Betaflight?

Show 3 more comments
Alloy907   Feb 07, 2018 

This is not a Remix clone. It came out before the Remix. It's very different from remix. And some says Remix was inspired by this frame.

My personal opinion is that Remix has multiple issues. Very short body require some batteries to be mounted across the frame. Too many parts. Questionable reliability (saw a review where it was broken in the first flight). And price tag includes around $50 for the hype factor.

Alloy907   Feb 07, 2018 

having to chamfer the frame myself
its not chamfered to the same degree as Remix, but no sharp edges too.

Alloy907   Feb 07, 2018 

This is not a Remix clone. It came out before the Remix. It's very different from remix. And some says Remix was inspired by this frame.

My personal opinion is that Remix has multiple issues. Very short body require some batteries to be mounted across the frame. Too many parts. Questionable reliability (saw a review where it was broken in the first flight). And price tag includes around $50 for the hype factor.

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