7uvoK's Black Gold: This is my second build. Going for high performance and a sleek appearance. I won't be flying this much right away as I am still getting broken in as a pilot with my first build, Martian Embarkation.

You can purcahse this quad, or have me build a customized variant, here.

Software summary:

• Betaflight 3.3
  • 8K gyro, 8K PID
  • Dynamic notch filter (for now)
  • Default PIDs and Bardwell rates (for now)
  • Black Box @ 1.5kHz, activated and erased by remote switch.
• DShot 1200, 5% motor idle value
• Neato "dead cat" motor mix for Breakneck frame:

mmix 0  1.000 -0.870  1.000 -1.000
mmix 1  1.000 -1.000 -0.570  1.000
mmix 2  1.000  0.870  1.000  1.000
mmix 3  1.000  1.000 -0.570 -1.000

Frame: The Neato plastic side skirt arrives in rough shape right out of the 3D printer. Since this is a bling build, I couldn't accept an unfinished look. Gold PlastiDip looked like shit, so I peeled it off and ended up using spray paint. I wet sanded, primed and painted it. I also had to open up the side skirt where the front motor wires enter and where the receiver antennas stick out. I used a gold Sharpie paint pen and acetone to paint the frame edges.

Flight Controller: The Joshua Bardwell F4 board has a great manual, his YouTube channel is invaluable and he will answer email questions. He even provided a one-hour trouble shooting call on my first build (for a reasonable fee). I will keep using his F4 for the foreseeable future. I did not bother to wire the board to use the current sensor this time.

Receiver: I flashed the newest firmware to the XM+ using the information from Project Blue Falcon (R.I.P. JC). This enabled me to get RSSI onto the OSD. I use pieces of small tapered zip tie, heat shrink tube and bonsai wire to make the RX antenna tubes. The zip tie makes it rigid and the bonsai wire makes it so I can shape (and re-shape) it. I cut the bonsai wire off well below where the antenna is unshielded. To mount the receiver, I had to trim the through-hole solder points and had to wrap in heat shrink because the carbon was causing a short. I hope that the contact between the receiver and the battery strap/upper plate doesn't transmit too much noise into the stack. My motors are soft mounted, the FC has dampeners built in and I soft mounted the entire stack, so it should be okay.

Motors and Props: The HypeTrain motor wires were just long enough to be soldered directly to the ESC, that is all except one. I had to extend it by 5mm. :sweat: These motors are super smooth on the bench. I put gold props on front and black on the back because I still rely on LOS and horizon mode when things get hairy.

VTX: I used a spare piece of carbon to hang the the VTX and the receiver on the top of the stack. It all just barely fits. The VTX will be hard to access but it has TBS Smart Audio. I used the stubby antenna, which I hope is bullet-proof. I used a brass washer on the underside and used hot glue to make the whole connection a bit flexible (i.e. the elbow connector has about 2mm of hot glue between it and the washer and the washer sets directly against the frame, one image displays this). The receiver is very tight between the stack and the upper plate.

Camera: The Predator Micro's bracket didn't accept the hardware I was using. I had to Dremel it out. I was unable to get the remote camera control to work through the OSD. Otherwise, the image quality is great.

Misc.: I tucked a buzzer right behind the camera and at the base of the stack. The wires run under the ESC and back up to the FC pads. There is very little room between the buzzer and the camera. I tried to keep everything clean and indulged myself with all the paracord wraps and heat shrink. I also tucked a 1000uF capacitor in the back. It will be visible outside the skirt, but it is black and gold! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Post Flight Update: This thing is fast! I need to tune the PIDs as there is some prop wash oscillations. The dead-cat design took some getting used to, there is less stability in hover. Frame: The frame offers a lot of protection. However, I sent a huge amount of grass into a side skirt vent and had to remove the top plate and side skirt to clean it. You cannot access the USB or SD card throught the side skirt, so Blackbox reading and Betaflight adjsutments are difficult (still have Smart Audio to mess with PIDs). Finally, there is no problem with yaw and the side skirt. I had someone comment on that below and it just doesn't exist with this frame. I can spin around the Y axis like a little ballereina. The VTX antenna is great. Its low profile and gives the best signal I have seen in FPV (compared to my other build with same VTX).

More Updates: I reversed the motor direction. One reason is that I broke the camera where the set screws go into the plastic. It is still functional, but is probably one wreck away from it's demise. The main reason is that the standard prop direction mows the lawn and puts all the clippings right into the side vents. Like it packs them full of wet grass. I also switched to a FrSky X-4R so that I can get some of that SmartPort telemetry goodness! Does anyone know why this RX gets so hot?