I was browsing RotorBuilds one night and stumbled upon rtyler's insanely clean Squirt v2 build. I couldn't get it out of my head and knew I had to build one.
I copied Nurks PIDs from his blog and they work great. Based on a few things I had read I was prepared to have a bit of a hard time flying it in a cinematic way but it wasn't that bad. I definitely need to slow down my pans so the horizon doesn't tilt so much. I'm considering trying RealSteady GO for horizon lock, I just need to print a new GoPro mount that isolates from vibration better, as there are issues with the Hero7 and RealSteady if you have any vibrations reaching the camera.
The maiden flight video below was filmed at dusk last week so the lighting isn't the greatest. I've got some ND filters I'm excited to try out on a nice sunny day though, hopefully soon. I love this thing and can't wait to get more footage this summer.
I almost forgot - the TPU ducts. I have an Ender3 3D printer and it's pretty dialed in for TPU. I figured these ducts would be no problem at all to print and I'd save $55 vs buying the pre-printed ducts. Up until this project my TPU prints had all been pretty small - battery holders and canopies for whoops basically. These ducts are huge and even with retractions turned down as far as I could reasonably set them, I had 5 or 6 prints fail at about 90% (8 hours into printing) leaving me with a bunch of nearly finished ducts to throw away. I eventually tried a slightly harder TPU from Amazon - Priline Black in 98a shore hardness. It produced a perfect set of ducts on the first try. They are nice and soft but not so soft that they deform at the slightest touch. I also printed the GoPro mount and the antenna mount (designed by rtyler, see link below) in the same TPU and they came out great as well. The GoPro mount could probably stand to be printed at 99% for the Hero7 Black, it's a bit loose, forcing me to run a velcro strap around the camera.
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Hi Bootbox, nice build. I just got an Ender 3 printer. What did you do to "dial in" your printer to make it better for TPU and also what type of filament were you using when your prints failed? Andy Shen highly recommends the SainSmart 95A filament, but he uses a different printer. Thanks for your information.
Hi, the biggest improvement for TPU printing on my Ender 3 was changing the stock extruder to a SeeMeCNC EZR Struder. There are also some Cura slicer changes you can make that will help a lot - Set all speeds (inner and outer walls, supports, top and bottom surfaces etc) to 20mm/sec. Turn off wall compensation, turn off any variable flow rate settings, basically you want the pressure in the bowden tube to always be the same. Turn on 'connect infill lines', set combing to 'all'. With regard to retraction, I did not change the settings at all from PLA (4.5mm @ 28mm/sec), and my TPU prints are beautiful with no stringing.
For what it's worth, the first time I crashed the quad in this post the TPU ducts were absolutely shredded to pieces by the props. I printed some PETG ducts and sold the whole setup. If I were to buy another cinewhoop today it would be something like the iFlight Bumblebee with the injection molded ducts and foam bumpers.
Haha yeah I have my email tab open all day. Not a bad idea to have a spare set on hand. Be sure to disarm right away if you crash. When my ducts shredded they turned into TPU belts and got caught up in the motors and twisted/tightened around them immediately. If I hadn't disarmed when I did, it for sure would have burned out my ESC.
Nice build and lots of great photos. stands up to current state of the art. I'm just building one now and this helps a lot. good job! it will be a good addition to the cine-fleet.
Hey Bootbox I finished my Whoop but what wories me are the motors get hot I havent done anything but fly stock steetings
Hey Bootbox I finished printing my ducts and was just wondering if this was your end result and thanks
Hey Bootbox how are you liking your Shendrones Squirt V2. I just bought the frame, but will be printing my own parts. Also wanted to ask I see everyone is using 5mm hub motors and was thinking of going w/ Emax RS1408 1.5MM shaft so I would not have to cut props any thoughts on this and thanks sir.
I was really suprised how locked in it flies. It's super stable even in acro mode. I think it has to do partly with the design and partly with Nurk's PIDs. He has the I-term pretty high and the D-terms relaxed. It wouldn't be a very good setting for a freestyle quad, it's really stiff. But it's perfect for the Squirt.
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What's your flight time with 850 4s lipos? Did you try to go 11000 mah or 1300 mah?
I sold this but I used to get around 4min on an 850mah 4s. For what it's worth, if you're considering building a Squirt, if I were to build another one I'd use 1507 motors, the 1407s I used on this build were underpowered.
maybe because of the kv? I'mt thinking about FPV cycle 2203 3450kv (kebab) or xnova 1804 3500kv (lightning) or 1507 xing 3600 kv