HD Tadpole

By alexnesteruk on Jan 06, 2020

24  3,431  11

Decided to see if I could build an HD tadpole. It's flying great for the most part, but there is a small amount of jello on high throttle and some washout/jello when dropping throttle to 0 then raising it back up. This seems to be a common issue with the split-cam setup. I'm still working on improving the tune. The props pictured are actually 2" props but I'm currently flying it with 2.5" props and it does very well. I've had much better luck with the 3 blade props than the 2 blades. I have some more 3 blade props with different pitches(1.5,2.5,3.5) on the way to test. I will update this with my findings.

Side Notes :
-For the stack, I had to use longer 16mm M2 screws. The included 10mm/12mm M2 screws were not long enough. I also used 2 stacked nylon hex nuts on each 16mm screw to prop up the AIO board enough so that the RX and VTX could fit underneath(each of which are conformal coated/heatshrinked for isolation). This made for a very clean look.
-The Mamba AIO board is 25.5mm x 25.5mm and the Runcam Split3 Nano Whoop is 25mmx x 25mm. This made it a tight fit and the screws angle in ever so slightly. It doesn't seem to have any effect on performance or durability though. I would recommend metal hardware becuase of this though.
-The runcam split 3 nano lens sticks out past the cage a few milimeters, so there isnt full protection of the lens on this build.

Motor KV: 6000
Dry weight: 82 grams
Flight time is around 3 minutes of hard ripping with a 450mah 3s pack. Currently testing flight times with 550mah and 650mah packs.

Videos:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6b5ts9n2K9/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B69HtHcn0E4/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7vzGGbH_7K/

Update(1/28/2020):
After trying 1.5 pitch(65mm) and 3.5 pitch(2.5 in) 3-Blade HQ Props , I can say that the 65mm 1.5 pitch are going to be the best for smooth, jello-free HD video and battery efficiency.
The 2.5in 3.5 pitch are fast and fun, but there will need to be more tuning to get them to fly smoothly with no jello, especially with the split HD cam.
So far I've been testing with the stock tune and only adjusted the rates.

Photos

Discussion

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moron   Aug 25, 2020  

Thank you for the tips and going to build similar ones. Few Question on flight times and battery:
1) Did you manage to get the flight times with 550mah and 650mah?
2) Have you tried 4s?

Diggah   Aug 06, 2020  

I attempted a similar build but with a Rush Tiny Tank but i couldn't quite fit it all in. I noticed that you squeezed your unify inbetween the FC and the HD board. Is there any heat issue doing it that way?

Diggah   Aug 06, 2020 

On closer inspection I see my mistake, and they're underneath. Ive also uncovered that the Tiny Tank is 2mm thicker than the Unify so looks like I'm getting a Unify then.

parrotfpv   Feb 23, 2020  

do you have any hd footage u can upload, about to build one. are the props in view?

alexnesteruk   Mar 04, 2020 

links to videos are posted in the description,props are barely in view. with the grey 65mm triblades, they're virtually invisible

jromang   Jan 20, 2020  
1

Very nice ! I think about building a similar setup, and I have few questions :
-Why did you choose the RunCam Split 3 NANO ? I saw there is a Caddx Baby turtle whoop version, maybe it could solve the lens size problem ; but I couldn't find the caddx camera size to see if it's shorter than the runcam.
-Would you recommend another AIO FC to solve the size en screw angle ?

alexnesteruk   Jan 20, 2020 

No reason to go with the runcam over the Caddx. I may try the Caddx split cam on a future build if there is a 16x16 or whoop size.
I had to go with the toothpick style FC because as far as I know, there are no split cams in 16x16 stack size. If you don't care about hd, then I'd go with a mamba nano stack.

MakeitHappen   Jan 08, 2020  
1

Once I seen the AIO mamba I had the same idea. Then Bam! You got it done. Nice job, looks like a good flyer.

alexnesteruk   Jan 09, 2020 
1

It's great! I'd highly recommend this setup.

DoubleJackOnTap   Jan 06, 2020  
1

Looks great!  What Kv motors are you running?

alexnesteruk   Jan 07, 2020 
1

6000 KV. I'll add it to the description. Didn't realize it didn't say.

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