Spartan Twig (Black)

By Samw85 on Feb 15, 2020

25  1,892  14

This build was inspired by two things - the Diatone GT R349 which I think looks badass, and zip tie frames which fascinate me.
I wanted a bare minimum, spartan look to it, but with components I like.

The frame is a Twig racerX frame, and the top is made out of 4 zip ties and heat shrink. A lot of the inspiration comes from Youtube: Quad 66 - who also has a great video series on it.

Since you will see all the guts of the quad, I wanted a clean look. A big help was the tbs toothpick mounting board, which keeps wires short and tidy.
Also, I tried to reduce the weight with a mini immortal T and the tbs micro race antenna - sacrificing a little range (but not much)

The build is intended for 2-3S, I think it will perform light & nimble around a 2S 350mAh

Weight without battery is 50g

Photos

Part List

Frame

Racer X FPV Speed Racer TWIG Ultralight FPV Frame (12 builds)
Heli-nation.com
$21.99

Flight Controller

Flywoo Goku GNF413 13A AIO V2.1 (MPU6000) Flight Controller (20 builds)
Pyrodrone.com
$54.99

Motors

1103 Brushless Motors (32 builds)
Betafpv.com
$39.99

Propellers

AVAN Rush 2.5 Inch Prop - RED (34 builds)
Emax-usa.com
$1.59

FPV Camera

RunCam Nano2 (184 builds)
Pyrodrone.com
$19.99

FPV Transmitter

TBS Unify Pro Nano 5G8 (97 builds)
Team-blacksheep.com
$19.95

Antenna

TBS 5G8 Micro Antenna (2 builds)
Impulserc.com
$6.95

Antenna

TBS FPVCycle Mini Immortal T Antenna (9 builds)
Phaserfpv.com.au
See Site

Receiver

TBS Crossfire Nano Rx - FPV LONG RANGE DRONE RECEIVER (1498 builds)
Team-blacksheep.com
$24.95

Hardware

TBS Toothpick Mounting Board (2 builds)
Team-blacksheep.com
$2.50
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Discussion

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bigalusmc   Apr 23, 2020  
2

Any chance you have a wiring schematic for the Toothpick mounting board? Looking for the wiring for the vtx and rx to the fc as manufactures seem to leave this out. Love the build and have a few frames laying around that I may do like this. Awesome build!

Show 5 more comments
PixelPikey   May 19, 2020 

You're welcome! And thank you for validating the findings :). It's a neat little board.
Regarding your question; I'm referring to page 8 of this manual: https://www.team-blacksheep.com/tbs-unify-pro32-manual.pdf.

It says that the Unify PRO32 has a full serial interface which has extended functionality compared to Smartaudio. This interface needs two connections:
Crossfire Nano pad named channel #3 ← Unify PRO32 (CRSF TX = big long one marked as 'B')
Crossfire Nano pad named channel #4 → Unify PRO32 (CRSF RX = regular smart audio signal wire)

If all solder pads are connected to the mounting board, the connection between Unify and CSRF Nano works out of the box. I'm not sure what the 'extended functionality compared to SmartAudio' exactly entails, but I use it for switching channel, band and powerlevel on the Unify without any flight controller connected. To do this, you can use the Crossfire LUA script on the controller. It will automatically show 'Unify Pro32 Nano' in the tbs-devices menu after binding/updating.

Abonacci   May 19, 2020 
1

Thats awesome . I have the normal lua working so far, but I may try this additional functionality on my next build. TBS cloud is sounding like the glue that is going to tie all this functionality together. It will have the ability if you use the TBS fusion fatshark module, to automatically change vtx/module channels in sync via wifi, among other things. Not sure what the current state of affairs is with regards to functionality, but heres one basic setup walk thru.
https://madmikefpv.com/article/configuring-tbs-cloud

bigalusmc   May 22, 2020 

Thank you!

Samiel2d   Feb 16, 2020  

for a couple of zip ties and some heat shrink tubing this thing is clean as hell. curious to know how sturdy the camera mount is though. any noticeable jello?

Samw85   Feb 17, 2020 

I have no jello, really happy with the result (make sure you tighten the zip ties good)

not sure about crash resistance, we will see, or hopefully not ;)

Samiel2d   Feb 17, 2020 
1

some sort of weatherproofing would be a good idea. clear nail polish works for me, a lot cheaper than conformal coating. I'll be getting a twig xl in a few weeks, may end up doing something similar as this looks badass.

EzRacerツ   Feb 16, 2020  

This is really cool! Very good use of the zipties while keeping the build clean!

Samw85   Feb 16, 2020 
1

thank you! I'm really happy how it turned out.

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