Armattan Tadpole 2.5" Ultralight Micro

By outcastfpv on Dec 21, 2019

33  5,275  20

While in the middle of building i just connected the flight controller and spun up the motors for correct motor direction, im running reverse motor direction on this as i usually do with small builds. One of the motors i found to be very noisy so as i purchased 5 motors i just quickly swapped it in; videos listed below.

I thought it would be tidier to run the vtx wires under the flight controller, bring them up the back and then just stick the vtx down on the flight controller. For the XM Plus receiver i wanted a lot of slack in the wires if i later needed to add the capacitor after the first flight so i left them a little long and then looped them up on top of the receiver. I also decided to just snip the runcam nano2's wires and just direct solder them to the FC instead of soldering a corresponding connector as the distance is so short and the runcam's harness is pretty long.

For the hover test i was just going to use the HQ 2.5 3 Blades and even maiden with them, then afterwards i would try the HQ T65mm 2 blades and the Avan Rush 2.5
I added pics of the Black and Red colours, the red stands out but i think i would stick with the black.

Props to eventually Test:
Emax Avan Rush 2.5
HQ TX2.5X2.5X3 3-Blade
HQ T65MM 2-Blade

According to my cheap digital scale:
Dry Weight: 69.4 grams
Flight Weight: 109.8 grams (w/ 3S 450mAh Battery)

First Flights:

First motor test where i found a really noisy motor:

Here i connected another motor quickly without routing the cables just to see if it was good, which was not noisy:

Photos

Part List

Frame

Tadpole (30 builds)
Armattanquads.com
$35.00

Flight Controller

MAMBA STACK F411 /134 Dshot600 4S NANO (17 builds)
Diatone.us
$39.99

Motors

4 x T-Motor F1103 FPV Motor, 2-3S, anthrazit (3 builds)
Shop.rc-hangar15.de
See Site

FPV Camera

RunCam Nano 2 (184 builds)
Shop.runcam.com
$19.99

FPV Transmitter

TBS Unify Pro32 Nano 5G8 V1.1 VTx Video Transmitter (395 builds)
Pyrodrone.com
$29.95

Antenna

Micro U.FL RHCP Antenna (5 builds)
Armattanquads.com
$4.00

Receiver

FrSky XM+ 2.4GHz Micro ReceiverDefault Title (1149 builds)
Racedayquads.com
$15.99

Batteries

ACE Tattu 11.1V 450mAh 75C 3S1P Lipo Battery XT30 Plug (7 builds)
Banggood.com
$12.35
Show stores (7)

Discussion

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SquishinStix   Oct 25, 2020  
3

This is easily the cleanest build I've ever seen. I absolutely love how you wired the motor wires and signal wires from underneath and around the boards.

Show 8 more comments
wmcewan   Apr 22, 2021 
1

cool - yhanks!
I'm so excited to get started building

outcastfpv   Apr 22, 2021 
1

yeah its a great build, the diatone stack works nicely and is very cheap, when i get a chance to fly its mainly this, the limitless prototype i built or the recent babytooth 1S i added here which is surprisingly fun, its powerful and quite and takes a 1S battery, couldnt believe how it performs, its impressive

wmcewan   Apr 22, 2021 
1

id love to build a babytooth if those damn fpv cycle motors were ever in stock!

calebwg   May 28, 2020  

For a first quad, do I buy a Tinyhawk Freestyle 2 or do a build with this frame? could the Tadpole run 2s for longer flight times with less power? Thanks for any input y'all

outcastfpv   May 28, 2020 

That's hard to say. These small quads can be a pain to build for even regular builders. For someone that never assembled one before it could be extremely difficult. You can always just purchase one, Armattan sell this as BNF on their website. And you would have to have a larger 2S over a 3S to get more flight time. Which may further hurt efficiency. The Tadpole is not a light build. If its low power long flights you are after maybe the Freestyle 2 is a better choice for you.

HK-AERIAL VTOL   Jan 06, 2020  
1

Oh snap! I am gonna have to build one of these Tadpoles. The 2.5" VS1's are my absolute favorite prop and this frame looks PERFECT to fly 'em. Nice build!

outcastfpv   Jan 07, 2020 
1

Thanks, im not sure why but i seem to have completely forgotten about the box full of gemfans i have. Never occured to me to test them and i still have 10 bags of 8 2.5 inch props in varying colours. Although that sharp tip does get extremely irritating after a crash or bump as i like to check props when straightening them by spinning the motor with my finger and making sure its tracking correctly, I have lost count of the amount of times my finger has been pricked or scraped by one

Sabre   Feb 24, 2020 
1

did you decide which of the 3 props were best.  the hq or the avan rush?

outcastfpv   Feb 24, 2020 
1

I can't really tell much of a difference between them, so i put back on the HQ's for now, my plan was to leave them on for a while and then switch over to the avan's later once i was used to the HQ's, if there was a noticable difference i should notice after being used to one first. However weather has been terrible for a while now, i havent got much flight time. i have been tryin to test Tattu's new r-line 550 since they are approx the same weight. The Tattu 3S 450's are 43g. the Tattu 3S 450 long's are 40g and the new R-line 3S 550 longs are only 45.8. i can say so far they are defintely much better. i consistently dont get low voltage warnings on punchouts

CollinBrix   Feb 04, 2020  

Do the ESCs in this stack run any version of blheli?

outcastfpv   Feb 04, 2020 
1

If your refering to the custom firmware's like JESC or JazzMavericks, Yes. I tried JazzMavericks and had a motor desync in less than 2 minutes into the first flight, i then used JESC's and experienced no desyncs.

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