Armattan Rooster 5inch

Have been putting this together over the past month or so, no real rush to get this together as I was more than happy with my alien knockoff. That sentiment changed over the weekend, as a wave decided to eat it, rip quad... (and session 5 hence no pics with the session on).

The Rooster Frame

Went together fine, I was sent the new bolts that were definitely better than the original ones included. I didn't have any trouble with the press nuts, I used a vice to sandwich them in and it worked a treat. There is a slight 'slop' in the rear arms however it is very minimal and at this point requires quite a bit of force to move them. Will be interesting to see if it worsens over time but for now I don't see it causing any issues in flight. I replaced the top plate foam pad with a Ummagrip, it wasn't the cleanest job, but it works. Of note is the added weight, the top plate with the foam weighs 9.3g, while with the Ummagrip (cut to fit) it weighs 17.9g. Certainly not a negligible weight difference, but the stuff is super sticky so I'll take it... I anodised the titanium front cage with Tetraborate and ~27 volts.

The electronics

Matek F405-CTR

On paper this seems like a great flight controller, I've yet to maiden this quad so I will see how it goes. The inbuild rubber grommets should help minimise any vibrations getting to the gyro however, it does use the MPU6000 so it shouldn't be too bad to begin with. I really liked the layout of the board, it was a pleasure to solder everything up to.

T-Motor F40II Pro + Wraith32 35A V2s

These motors, in my opinion, look incredible. The thrust tests I've seen also look impressive, the motors are reasonably efficient while pushing a decent amount of air. Out of curiosity I tried anodising the shafts of the motors to match the cage, and of course it worked... I matched these motors with the Wraith32s, I've used the V1s in the past, and they work great (although I did need to cap the V1s). The V2s have a huge amount of ceramic capacitors on board, so hopefully they shouldn't need any additional caps to settle any noise. As an aside, I have added a 1000uF 25V cap to the battery lead, just as a precaution. Each motor and ESC combo weighs 35.7g. The motor with the wires cut to the lengths shown weigh 28.9g, each ESC with the battery pos and neg wires weigh 6.7g. Going with a 4in1 ESC would have definitely saved some weight, probably about 15g but I didn't think the rooster would have the space, especially since I wanted to use a 30x30 stack VTx. In hindsight I could have probably squeezed a 4in1 ESC in the build, it would have definitely made the wiring up a lot quicker and cleaner.

EXUAV VTx

Banggood special (?!), I was originally going to use the Matek HV-VTx (MMCX version) but it was out of stock everywhere.. I found this on Banggood and I thought it looked alright (the company makes a lot of Flytowers that seem to have decent reviews). The addition of the large heatsink is nice, will definitely help to keep the VTx chilled. It also features smart audio which was a definite must in a VTx. This is also the first MMCX VTx I've used, and I really like the connector, it is magnitudes better than Ufl. The VTx with all the neccessary wiring weighs 7.3g, the Foxeer pagoda I paired with it weighs 7.2g. I was going to use an AXII MMCX antenna, but it was way too short.

Foxeer Mini Monster Pro

I use Commanders as goggles, so a 16:9 camera was needed. I waited a while for this camera to come out after seeing the glowing reviews for the Predator. I'm yet to test it, so fingers crossed it has a good picture, otherwise might look at getting a micro Eagle in there. The 1.8 lens is so pretty though.

TBS Crossfire Nano Rx

It is so small :o good bye Frsky forever... Sorry poor little XM+ and RXSR lol... I'd previously only used the micro crossfire recievers which were kind of cumbersome with the JST connector, so the addition of solder pad is great, it certainly makes the footprint that much smaller. The immortal T antenna is kind of half stuck on, using some zipties and hotglue.. If I can get my 3d printer working again I'll add a proper mount to clean it up.