Birdbrain RC Polaris 5.5 "Snow Angel"
By BirdbrainRC on Oct 15, 2018
After flying the Mahou Shoujo prototypes for the best part of a year, I've come to love how they handle - they just feel really well balanced, clean and crisp on every axis even with stock PIDs. With the weather turning poor I decided to design one last frame before letting the CNC hibernate for the winter, and eventually decided to follow the Mahou Shoujo template, albeit with a more freestyle focus. This the result - the Polaris 5.5.
Design
I started out with the Mahou Shoujo baseplate layout, then stretched it slightly in each direction to allow for bigger props, and a larger pod to give more room for electronics. The baseplate is a little beefier all round and has extra bracing to deal with freestyle abuse.
The pod has a fixed mount for a full size FPV cam with "GoPro style" 2.5mm lens. I thought I'd left loads of room for the stack, but in a genius move I'd checked clearance at the back but not the sides - the tapered sides of the pod look lovely but also leave very little clearance at the back corners with full size boards!
Build
Most of the components are personal favourites - Omnibus F4 V5, Racerstar REV35A 4-in-1 ESC, and AMAXinno motors. Did up from 2305s to 2307s for this build though, with the extra weight and bigger props I figured the extra grunt wouldn't come in wrong. Whilst I was at it I decided to make the build long range ready, so it got an R9 Slim+ and I decided to cram in a HGLRC M8N GPS I had lying around from another project. Surprisingly it wasn't too bad a build once I got the ESC board low enough, even had room for soft mounts for the Omnibus. I did end up making a little G10 plate to hold the M8N and R9 in the stack and make it a bit neater.
Flying
Whilst this particular build hasn't flown yet, I put together a more conventional twin first (difference being no GPS and an XM+ rather than R9 Slim+) - took it to a woodland session with the local crew and it flew great, but still have yet to really see what it can do though. Tight and twisty flying isn't what it's designed for, high speed freestyle and carving smooth lines down mountains is more its true intention. Hopefully this winter I'll get the chance to really put the prototypes through their paces and get some quality footage out of it too!
Photos
Part List
Show stores (14)
Looks fantastic! I would love to bash it around to see how tough it is, looks like great reinforcements to the exterior (all the "spokes"). This looks like a great chapter in this project. I liked the last one, and I like this one too. How do your vTx's hold up to the heat fully enclosed like that? How many milliwatts can you run before they start to destroy things?
Well, it turns out even though the previous plus had next to ventilation and was fine, having absolutely no ventilation is a step too far! Test flights on the beater rig ended in overheating the stack, MCU temp warnings and reboots (of the 4-in-1 I think). Printed a new vented pod last night (bit rough but it's functional, got a nicer one going for the white long range build now). Onwards and upwards!
Sweet slick setup, love everything being totally enclosed! Are the plans available to print? How heavy is the frame?
Thanks! It's not a light frame (personally I like the feel of a heavier quad so it suits my flying) - comes in around 130g for the baseplate and pod. As for the files, well, I'm planning on starting to sell my frames later in the year, so whilst some stuff might get released (accessories like session mounts etc) the majority won't be. Also, neglected to mention in the description, but it's not a 100% 3D printed frame either - the baseplate is milled out of 12mm UHMWPE on a CNC machine for strength :)
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Love the build, but honestly my first thought was how much this looks like an attachment for a blender. "Hey guys let's rip some packs and then I'll make some smoothies!"