Introduction

This is the newest freestyle rig that I've added to my fleet. After spending the last 15 months exclusively flying X-Hover Stingy Frames with Betaflight based flight controllers, I've decided to try something as different from my standard builds as I could come up with while suiting my typical freestyle needs.

Why 5S power instead of 6S?

While everyone is migrating over from 4S to 6S, I decided to commit to a 5S powered route for all my quads because I also fly quite a few 6" quads. Since the 6" quad space is a relatively unpopular one, I've had a hard time locating a good, smooth, low-kv motor (1400kv) that matches a 6" / 6S setup.

In my opinion, 5S is able to keep the same rough consistency in power output as 6S is. The difference between 5S to 6S is far less dramatic than the difference between 5S and 4S.

Goal and Parts Selection

The goal of this quad was to build a relativey lightweight (for freestyle) and reliable 5S powered rig that is high kv in power, long freestyle flight time, and has excellent flight characteristics.

In order to achieve this, I've dropped the Reverb frame height from 30mm down to 25mm with aftermarket standoffs (for a lower center of gravity), selected the incredibly smooth and powerful 2407 sized ETHiX Konasty 2200kv motors and paired them with the extremely battery efficient ETHiX 5x3.1x3 S3 prop.

Weight Reduction

I've used the following method below for shaving weight off the typical Reverb Build:

• Selected Micro FPV Cam over Fullsized FPV Cam
• Used small 3D printed FPV Micro cam mounts instead of the stock carbon fiber FPV cam side plates
• Used the TBS Crossfire Nano RX instead of the Crossfire Micro RX
• Used slightly shorter titanium buttonhead screws instead of the longer standard steel frame screws.
• Used 3 x 6mm titanium screws per motor over the stock 4 x 7mm steel screws that came with the motors.
• Selected foam wedge to mount the GoPro Session instead of a 3D printed TPU mount.
• Used one single lighter ETHiX battery strap over 2 standard ImpulseRC straps
• Minimized use of zip ties and shortened wires to the appropriate length.
• Used ThunderPowerRC 1500mah HV lipos (V2). At 184g, It's by far the lightest 5S battery made to date.

Average 5S powered Reverb / Kiss V2 AUW: 665g-680g
My current 5S AUW: 621g
With ThunderPowerRC's 1300mah 4S AUW: 585g

Results

With a "relatively" light 621g AUW, low cg, heaps of power, crystal clear FPV feed, and KISS V2 firmware, this freestyle quad is incredibly smooth and responsive. Kiss firmware (my first Kiss build) appears to have slightly less stick latency than even my best tuned 5" Betaflight quad and generally feels a bit more locked in and predictable from my intial tests. The Rotor Riot Micro Eagle Pro FPV cam (with gain dialed down to zero) is definitely a fantastic successor to the fullsized CCD based Swift 2. And finally, the 2407 2200kv Konasty motors (which TBH are highly inefficient above 80% throttle) are highly responsive and efficient from 20-70% throttle (where most freestyle pilots sit).

I may decide to change these motors in the future to a lower kv (2000kv to 2050kv) but for now, I'm happy with the heaps of power, predictablity, and 4 minute flight times.

You can see some flights from this quad over on my youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/c/warchest