After getting the Hypetrain motors I wanted to build a quad that could take a beating because I have babying my quads for too long. I guess we need to step out of our comfort zone to grow and get better. We all already know that the Armattan offer a lifetime warranty on the Rooster frame but after hering about the new “fly hard replacement program” Hypetrain is offering with the motors. That pretty much sealed the deal with this new build. Believe it or not, this is my 4th Rooster build.

Initially all the electronics was from a previous Chameleon Ti build, but one thing led to another (more details on my Chameleon Ti build) and I transplanted to a Rooster frame instead. The transplant went well until I crashed it and broke a motor. I must give props to Hypetrain because the replacement process was very easy. Within a few days the new motor arrives from RDQ. After replacing the motor, I had some other issues that prompt me for another rebuild to reduce the weight.
The Rooster ended up weighing 46g more when the guts of the Chameleon Ti. I was thinking if I switched to a 4in1 I would lose some weight and so how I ended up with a Flycolor X Tower. What the heck is that? It was on sale at HobbyKing during the Super Bowl, plus they had a 20% off sale. After it arrived, I noticed something strange about the FC, it is a solderless. Apparently, something like that exist. Everything is plugged in to the board and no soldering pads. It came with a bag that included different plugs, and some of them might work directly with popular hardware like the TBS Unify VTX. But unfortunately, this time I am trying out RDQ’s Mach 3 so I had to cut the connector off and solder it directly to the VTX.

Be warned, the Flycolor X Tower does not fit the Rooster frame unless you turn the ESC 90 degrees either to the left or right because the soldering points for the power cable is sticking out of the side. So, this board is perfect for people who likes the battery plug coming out from the side of the quad. Just don’t for get to remap the motors in CLI so they are positioned correctly.

In my case here is how I had to remap the motors when I rotated the ESC counter clockwise 90 degrees:

1 > 3
2 > 1
3 > 4
4 > 2

All I had to type in CLI is:

resource motor 1 A03
resource motor 2 B00
resource motor 3 A02
resource motor 4 B01
save

But keep in mind that it only works if your motor’s original resource ID is the same as mine:

B00: MOTOR 1
B01: MOTOR 2
A02: MOTOR 4
A03: MOTOR 3

All this info is just for me to remember if I ever flash the firmware and if it works for you too, great.

For some reason I was not able to get Crossfire working with UART6. I was going to try UART3 to see if I had the same problem but I switched everything over to a FrSky R-XSR because I just wanted to get the Rooster up and running ASAP. The Crossfire was pulled for another quad so I was working fine and it bound to my radio without any problem. I just could not get it read in Butterflight.

Here is a video of my very first test flight with stock PIDs and Rates. It was a cold and windy day, but I think I turned out okay. I forgot to turn on Smart Audio on the VTX so I was stuck at 25mw and I did not fly too far away.

After the first flight I have to say the Flycolor X-Tower 40A is a good stack. It is a F4 FC with BlHeli 32 ESC, has clean video and it flies just as well at my Helio Spring board on stock PIDs and Rates. Today I just watched a video from KababFPV (Tuning: Early 2019 - Quad Tips) about changing the TPA in betaflight to reduce the propwash flutter. I will have to give that a try when the weather gets better.

Update (Feb 13, 2019) TBS Crossfire Works!
After reviewing my pictures I figured out my mistake. It was the wiring for CH1 and CH2 on the Nano receiver, here is the correct wiring:
CH1 > TX6
CH2 > RX6
I am using UART6 for the Crossfire Receiver and UART3 (TX3) for Smart Audio.

Update (Apr 28, 2019) Switched Hardware!
A few things have changed since I finished building the Rooster.

• HD Camera: GoPro Session 5 > GoPro Hero 7 Black
• FPV Camear: Foxeer Monster Mini > Foxeer Falkor Micro
• Props: Gemfan Flash 5552 > Gemfan Flash 6042

I did not write about the new additions to the Rooster, but to make a long story short I end up adding a 3d printed mount for the Mach 3 VTX and Crossfire Nano RX and switched to a Foxeer Lollipop MMCX antenna. I was worried that I with loose some signal quality when I went a short antenna, but I did not notice a difference.

Recently I upgraded my Fatshark Dominator V3 goggles to an HDO and I did not think I would bother me that all my FPV cameras are 16:9 (Foxeer Monster), but it did. I happen to have a few Foxeer Falkor laying around and when I tried it with my new setup, I was very impressed. Like with all the other Runcam I tried in the past the colors seem off. I had friends raving how good the Micro Eagle is, so I gave RunCam one more try. The only reason why I did not buy more Falkor camera is because of the high latency. To be honest, I am not a racer and I did not notice the latency when I used it. But still, I bought 2 Runcam Eagles and I am sad to say, I did not like it at all and end up going back to a Falkor. All the Foxeer cameras are stock settings and so is the Eagle. I tried a few different custom configurations I found for the Eagle and still not that much better. I did not have any problems like the Light and Dark issues people had with the Eagle, I just did not like the color, and everything seems darker. Because of those characteristics the DVR video also looked bad.