6" Mid-Range Scrap Quad

By The Van on Mar 15, 2018

15  882  4

I'm going to start off by saying that this build has a lot less thought put into part selection than most of my other builds. I didn't have any big ideas or theory to test - my goal was to use as many old parts as I could to make a nice smooth 6" cruiser, and to source what I needed without breaking bank.

Like a lot of people starting out, one of my first quads was the Eachine Wizard X220. It worked so well for me in my beginnings that one of my friends bought not one but two for himself. As we've both moved on for the most part, we have lots of Wizard parts. I started this one with the Wizard frame but wanted a lower CG. In particular, I kinda wanted to replace my old hyperlow setup which was stolen. Along with my order of motors, I added some 15mm standoffs and made some cuts in the frame so the camera would still fit.

From the Wizard came the frame and ESCs. I vaguely recalled these ESC to be 30a BLHeli S, but I was wrong - they're just 20a. Learning this made me pretty nervous about running them on a 6" build. So far (maybe about 8 flights in) they're doing fine. It's prone to flips of death if you clip something hard.. but that's the only thing that seems weird about it.

Banggood was the place for the two cheap things I needed to pick up: motors and an AIO flight controller. I went for the 2305 vs the 2306 to keep amp draw on the lower end. The cheapest FC/PDB I could find was the Omnibus F4 AIO, not bad for $25! Note: Having a single-board stack is really really nice for building and maintenance.

VTX was originally a VTX03 pulled from an old build, but when the Mach 2 went on sale a few days ago I couldn't pass up the chance to up the potential range. $19 for 800mw. Sold.

Antenna I've had for a while ¯\(ツ)/¯ It works well. The stubby antennae we're seeing a lot of today are really great for close range (I use the AXII stubby on my GT2), these traditional guys with the long SMA stem take the cake if you want good placement for better range.

The Monster camera I've had for a while as well - came from my first "nice" build. I crashed it hard into a tree and broke the case but was able to stuff the board into a spare Runcam case to fit in here. This camera is AMAZING... in perfect lighting. If you're flying in low light though, or even just a spot with a lot of shade it can be a little rough. The V2 does a bit better with WDR, but neither are up to snuff with Runcam on that front. While I like the color and overall quality on these more, Runcam just does really really well with WDR. Not sure about any of Foxeer's newer offerings.

So, before this I'd never flown a 6". That being the case, these RK 6032 props are all I know at the moment. Can't say much from experience - BUT I will say that these are impressively lightweight. Lighter even than most Bi-Blade props that I bought to try out. They're pretty quiet and feel very, very smooth but those may just be qualities of the 6" class. I've had a handful of crashes, some have been pretty hard but I've only bent these props a couple of times - and so far they bend back very easily.

I've run a 1300 and 1500mah 4S pack through this. Getting around 7 and 8 minutes cruising flight, respectively which is perfect. Very curious about 1800+mah packs. This being the case I'm glad I did 'splurge' a little on a crossfire nano RX. You could very well use a cheaper sbus or whatever protocol you use (of course), and I almost just used an R-XSR I had lying around - but with longer flights it's really really nice to be able to cover some distance! Can't wait to get it out in the desert or mountains.

Again, this is only my first 6" but I'm absolutely in love. The super smooth feel, the extended flight time, the range. With it, a 5" and a 2.5" I think one is equipped to have a blast at just about any spot.

Photos

Part List

Frame

Wizard X220 Frame (3 builds)
Unmannedtechshop.co.uk
See Site

Flight Controller

CA$20.54 56% Omnibus Betaflight F4 Flight Controller V1 STM32 F405 MCU Integrated OSD for RC Drone FPV Racing Multi Rotor RC (38 builds)
Banggood.com
$15.00

ESCs

4X Racerstar RS20A V2 New 20A Blheli_S OPTO 2-4S ESC Support Oneshot42 Multishot 16.5 Dshot600 for RC Drone (7 builds)
Banggood.com
$41.00

Motors

4X Racerstar 2305 BR2305S Fire Edition 2400KV 2-5S Brushless Motor For 210 220 250 300 RC Drone FPV Racing
Banggood.com
$36.79

Propellers

Racekraft 6032TCS Tri-Blade (Set of 4 - Clear Smoke) (8 builds)
Getfpv.com
$3.49

FPV Camera

Foxeer Monster HS1194 1.3 Mega Pixel 16:9 1200TVL HD IR Block PAL/NTSC FPV Camera w/ 2.5mm Lens (2 builds)
Banggood.com
$39.99

FPV Transmitter

VTX - All Video Transmitters (555 builds)
Racedayquads.com
$24.99

Antenna

Foxeer Pagoda Pro 5.8GHz 2dBi RHCP FPV Antenna 86mm SMA/RP-SMA Black/Red/Orange (28 builds)
Banggood.com
$8.15

Receiver

Team BlackSheep TBS Crossfire Nano RX - Heli-Nation (1488 builds)
Heli-nation.com
$24.99

Batteries

CNHL 14.8V 4S 1500mAh 100C G+ Plus LiPo Battery - XT60 (54 builds)
Racedayquads.com
$24.99

Radio

FrSky Taranis X-Lite 2.4GHz Radio Controller Black and Red Color with Free 18650 Battery Black Caps (65 builds)
Horusrc.com
$129.00

Goggles

Orqa FPV.One (2 builds)
Shop.orqafpv.com
$550.00

Misc Parts

Eachine Wizard X220S FPV Racer Spare Part 30° Camera Mount for Runcam 3 Gopro Session RC Drone FPV Racing (21 builds)
Banggood.com
$5.54

Misc Parts

4 x TC-R180 TC-R220 TC-R260 Carbon Fiber Frame Arm 4MM For TC-R180 220 260 Frame Kit
Banggood.com
$15.40

Misc Parts

Hyperlow FPV Camera Mounts (1 set)
Hyperlowframes.com
$2.50

Misc Parts

Suleve™ M3AS3 10Pcs M3 15mm Knurled Standoff Aluminum Alloy Anodized Spacer (3 builds)
Banggood.com
See Site

Video Receiver

ImmersionRC RapidFIRE w/ Analog PLUS Goggle FPV Receiver Diversity Module (13 builds)
Banggood.com
$150.00

Radio Module

Team BlackSheep TBS Crossfire Micro TX | Heli-Nation.com (154 builds)
Heli-nation.com
$69.99

Battery Charger

ISDT Q6 Pro Pocket Battery Balance Charger (300W/14A) (9 builds)
Unmannedtechshop.co.uk
See Site

Soldering Iron

TS100 Portable Programmable Smart Soldering Iron (264 builds)
Racedayquads.com
$58.99
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Discussion

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Jodie Froster   Mar 17, 2018  
1

Nice work! Where did you get the arms for it to run 6"? I like the low deck! What height are your standoffs above the arms? How bout' a shot from below so we can see the cuts for the cam in the baseplate??!

The Van   Mar 17, 2018 

Thanks man, can do! Adding 6" arms to the parts list. The standoffs are 15mm. Allllmost was able to mid-mount the arms too (putting them on the top side of the bottom plate), but I was losing space for battery straps and whatnot & I just didn't want to mess with that.

The Van   Mar 23, 2018 

Took a minute, but, photo added! The cut isn't super clean but I had to work with what was already there, made the hole a bit too wide. I did a similar cut on top, thinking about adding another top plate section for a little more sturdiness. Having it so narrow on the sides makes me a little nervous :)

RocketSquidFPV   Mar 16, 2018  
2

That's weird. I got the same flips of death on 4s whenever i ran the OG F1 board. Thinking back it may have been my escs! nice build man!

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