My partner bought this kit for my birthday in 2015. I didn't get around to assembling it until January 2018!

It was a nightmare to assemble due to the 2015 era components I was using. I pretty much followed the original RotorX instructions. I made my own PDB using wire and everything. There are much better options these days.

The ESCs and Naze32 FC were only capable of OneShot125. The first thing I did was replace the original 1105 motors with 1306 motors so I could reliably run 4S batteries. What a difference that makes. It flew quite well on 4S and had full telemetry and range, though the sticks are noticeably notchy due to the older oneshot125.

The ESC wire insulation I used was plastic rather than silicone. You can see it melted away in a few of the photos. I learned my lesson here. I'll only use silicone ESC signal wire from now on.

I quickly discovered crashing just after a rain would cram wet organic material into the FC and coat the motor pins, stopping the motors from spinning and potentially burning my rig to the ground. I resolved this problem by liberally coating the ESCs, FC, receiver, and VTX in silicone conformal coating. This is what gives those components a purple hue in the photos. I highly recommend this procedure. It's a pain to apply and slows down the build process, but having the ability to fly in the rain is pretty awesome.

You'll notice my ESCs are bare and zip tied to double stick tape. I don't really recommend doing this, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was sure something would break during crashes, but it was never a problem. One advantage is quick easy motor desolder operations. My only complaint with this setup is that the solder joints are raised more than they would be with heatshrink. The silicone rubber band I use to grip the motors when changing props contact the solder joints and I was always concerned one would break during a prop change. It never happened though.

I was also sure the hand made shitty wire PDB would fail at the XT30 pigtail joint during a battery ejection, but it never happened.

I went through a couple of U.FL clover leaf antennas. This red one is on it's way out. I have some Lumenier U.FL AXIIs waiting on the bench. I suspect they'll be much more durable.

I chewed through 4 motors in just a few months (2 due to crash damage - vibrated too much after crash, 1 due to user error, 1 arrived DOA). I can't definitively say this was the lumenier motor's fault, but I do recommend emax 1306 motors instead. I use them on a different 3" micro and they're built to a higher standard while being substantially cheaper. Win-win.

I love the dead cat configuration. It's probably my favorite configuration. It looks great, it's low weight, and it's durable. It also flies great for me. However, I do have two major complaints with this frame:

1. The carbon bottom plate is a little thin. I'd prefer a 4mm bottom plate.
2. It won't readily accept a Caddx F1 camera. The nano I'm using is a terrible camera compared to the F1.

I'm super tempted to rebuild using an all-in-one that supports DShot 600, an R-XSR, and maybe raise the top plate a bit to support a Caddx F1. I do love a dead cat.