Started to make my own frames to suit my own tastes - here's my 2018 race rig.

I'll be completely honest, I'm not the best racing pilot out there. That's a generous way of saying I'm about twice as likely to hit a gate as I am to go through it. My first proper race day in September last year was eye opening - I put my main quad into wet grass in the first heat, and had to fly my (completely different) backup for a few heats whilst I waited for it to dry. Ended up with a broken signal wire too, which required an annoying amount of disassembly to fix.

And so when I decided to start making my own stuff, this was the result. Fully enclosed pod (thank you Smartaudio!), all plastic which keeps the cost down, structured so it can take an absolute hammering whilst protecting all the components including motors. Oh, and it's a stretch plus because I hadn't flown one before and I figured it'd be fun to try.

First build had DYS Storm 2300kV motors, a Racerstar Shot30A ESC, Racekraft 5046TCS props, and no extra cap. Flew great, video was absolutely disgusting. Loads of noise from the ESC, was like flying looking through a set of blinds. In the end a massive hit into a gate removed two of the FETs from the ESC and that was that. Frame was all good though.

I rebuilt it with a new baseplate with holes for the motor wires underneath to clean up the whole thing, figured out how to swap filaments on the printer and made a tasty blue and orange pod, and for good measure swapped out the DYS motors (one of which apparently has an internal short) for some 2550kV AmaxInno ones, and put in a Racerstar 35A 4 in 1. Because I like to be able to see when I fly, I also added a big 1000μf Panasonic FM cap. Fitting it all in the pod turned out to be fun - in the end I printed a holder for the cap and used the OSD ground pin on the Arrow to ground the video to the Omnibus. No video issues since.

Anyway, it all looked good so I built a second identical one straight away. This was about 3 days before the first race of the season. Both got a test hover, but the maiden would have to wait until race day. Weight comes in at 356g minus lipo, 535g with a 1300mAh pack.

Race day was an experience - my flying was horrific, the course was extremely challenging, but the quad was flawless. There were a ton of midair collisions, I crashed out every heat, but nothing broke even as people around me had to swap to backup rigs or crack out the field soldering irons. Ended up in the H final and won it despite some of the sloppiest flying I've ever done.

Put another 10 packs through the prototype the week after and still have yet to break anything despite my best efforts - the backup still hasn't even been maidened yet. I do plan to start to sell the frames later in the year, before that I need to establish how much abuse I have to give one of these before it gives up. Still haven't tuned it yet either - for racing, Betaflight's stock PIDs worked well, there's always room for improvement though.

Oh...and the initial prototypes are using the lowest grade plastic I could get. I recently cut a new baseplate from the strongest plastic I could get, and ordered some Taulman filament for the printer...stay tuned!