Update 6/7/2019: Flew 2 packs outside in light wind. 5 minute flight in acro, 13amp max, and feels a bit limited at full throttle doing 200m sprints. 8 minute flight doing flips and rolls, 10amp max, cruising around yard. Camera did great in sunset conditions.
Update 5/28/2019: Basement cruising, 5amp max, 7 minute flight.
Update 5/27/2019: Flew outside again. 5 minute flight on 450mah. Tons of fun doing punchouts, dives, and light acro. Recovers great from any maneuver. Getting prop wash when horizontal on throttle drops just after punchouts. Flew through a thick pine tree. On 3rd crash, still no breaks. Still on 1st set of Rush props, really like them.
Update 5/26/2019: Rewrapped the narrow silicone banding around motor wires and coated them with UV curing adhesive (Bondic). Finally flew outside. This one is really hard to keep in a yard; dodging poles, trees, phone lines... Highly recommend for park flying only. Got it stuck 30 feet up, took 20min to knock it down. It fell hard right onto wet grass. Unplugged, dried out, recharged. Aside from some dried on mud, seems fine.
Update 5/22/2019: Moved receiver under frame. Rerouted receiver antennas under front struts. Removing this noise allowed my video signal to be much cleaner. Replaced VTX antenna with much lighter dipole. Lowered canopy. Remounted camera recessed in space vacated by receiver. Eliminated temporary split PH2.0 connector for 2x 1s flight. On 2s 450mah, xt-30 connector allows for very quick throttle response. Still raining here... stupid climate change.
Update 5/20/2019: Emax props are waaaay better. Quieter, faster, coooler...
Peak basement punchout hit 6 amps, and the ceiling. VTX gets warm on 100mw, meaning I need to move the receiver. Still handles great even with the 450mah cells. I can easily fly this one around an empty room. Just not past 1/2 throttle. Waiting for sun.
Also, included a fleet photo showing my evolution.
Built this for a 2S park flyer to go along with the backyard 3S version. At 67 (edit: 78.5) grams all-up, this one is more of a longer range cruiser. Featuring the new BetaFPV AIO 12A FC, RunCam Racer Nano, and performance limiting 1103's. Once lightweight 4S-rated 110X motors exist, I will swap them into this build and get some small 4s batts.
Solder pads on the AIO board were relatively easy to solder to. Had to jack up the canopy to cram it all in there, and still needs quite a bit of tidying up. (Perler beads made the best improv standoffs). The biggest problem is still where to house the receiver. Felt like everything and the kitchen sink is under that canopy. Maybe the receiver can drag behind the quad like a bi-plane towing a banner... or glued to the bottom of the frame.
I like having the 200mw and full range receiver at my disposal. Waiting on some Rush 3-blade props and HM 2-blade props (see below). The Hulkies are kind of heavy and slow to respond. And loud. Also waiting on the new 3D printed cam mount for the Racer Nano, which should tuck the lens back 1/4". I am actually using the EOS2 mount that came with the kit, flipping it backwards to contain, and using 1/4" adhesive foam to hold the camera against the canopy. A real hack job if I must say so myself.
Again, rain and wet conditions are keeping me indoors when I have time to fly. Basement punchouts capped at 3A, while being pretty snappy, and everything kept cool. Should be able to hold full throttle continuous without regard for burning out esc's. The motors are temporary, so I'll see what they're made of.
Gotta love that random connector hanging out of the top of the canopy. For cam adjustment pendant.
Pronounced "Doo-preme-oh". Runs on deuce juice.
AirbladeUAV has done it again and this time they've brought long range to the 5" class! Based on the popular Transformer Mini, the new Transformer 5" Ultralight adopts a lot of the same design philosophies with larger props and more payload capacity. It can fly upwards of 20 minutes on a 4 cell Li-Ion battery pack and in ideal conditions it's got a range of over 4 to 5 miles. In this guide I'll walk..
Read moreWith the release of the DJI FPV Drone cinematic FPV has become a lot more accessible, but you certainly don't want to crash a $750 drone! The QAV-CINE Freybott is a compact, lightweight cinematic FPV drone that can take a hit and keep going. It's a lot safer to fly indoors and around people. With a naked GoPro or the SMO 4k you can capture some great stabilized footage. In this guide I'll show you..
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Shouldn’t you fix the motor wires to the arms?
I‘m working on a similar setup... :)
Yeah, thats what I meant by needing tidying up. I've added some more recent photos that show the silicone wraps for motor wire management. The receiver is still a floater. I haven't decided how to further constrain it yet.