4” Hex Racer
By ajohnsoncollins on Sep 05, 2019
After a bit of drinking at IO this year I somehow convinced my good friend Truc Quach of Kinetic Aerial Designs to design me a 4" hex racer. We saw a lot of interesting and innovative designs in the X Class race and it inspired us to go wild. He came up with this 4mm thick plate that takes Merica pods and keeps all the motors in a row rather than a traditional hex. We went this direction because I think it looks cool and somehow it flies fantastic. I ran a 58.3 on the global qualifier the day after I finished the build. My best with a conventional quad was a 56.7 for reference. Second one is coming soon with some 1606 motors and a few other small changes, this thing has ruined quads for me.
Some LOS footage: https://imgur.com/r609uax
Photos
Part List
Show stores (3)
do you have any flight footage?
FANTASTIC! You used a Matek F411! I may need to ask you a few Q's.... I have a 2.5 hex OTW (and I am gonna use F411 too) and only this minute received a 7" (https://rotorbuilds.com/build/19781)! Thanks for sharing!
Honestly the F411 could not have been easier to use. Pad 5 and 6 are already mapped as DSHOT outputs so solder up your signal wires and choose the hex mixer. Thats literally it. It was running away into the sky on BF4.0.5 but flew fantastic on stock 3.5.7 so I'd probably start there. That 7" looks like it's going to be an absolute hoot with big props and 6 big motors!
That is great news (that the F411 is as straightforward as one might hope)! I love it for anything smaller than 5 inches because it is really a great FC. 3.5.7 is my religion... I just got a dual gyro F7 and didnt know it required 4+. This one (7" ARX-R) seems to be doing better than my past experiences... but we shall see. I am nowhere near as confident in it as I am the 7" hex.
Guides & Reviews
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 more
With 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..
Read more
awesome! ! ! a 4inch hex - very nice thanks for share! awaiting for the 1606 version ;-)
what does it weight?
whats your impression about flydynamic? a dvr would be very nice
beautyfull!
Thank you! No clue on the weight, probably about time to buy a scale. The frame itself is 61g and the canopy is another 19g, feels very light in the air.
Flight dynamic surprised me. Hard to describe but it turns in very quick and the pitch is so stable that you end up using much less yaw. Felt extremely comfortable on that tight global qualifier track right away. Lots more lap time in it after I nail the setup and how to fly it
frameweight 80g, motors 16gx6=96g, props about 4g? 24g, fc esc fpv gear about 50g? = about 250g
about 700g thrust per motor will give 4200g
250g and 190g battery means 440g uaw would give nearly 1:10 power to weight ratio x-D
buy the scale! ;-) crazy nice hex!
Here's a little LOS vid from practice today: https://imgur.com/r609uax
awesome, thanks alot!
it looks fantastic! very good los pilot and flydynamics :-o
hoping for your next post, more video and impressions about the future version with bh1606 :-)
i need a 4inch-hex x-D
probably i did missunderstand, only the video was lineofside and you fly it fpv?
I phrased that poorly: the flying is FPV, the footage is LOS. I can hover without my goggles on and that's about it!