The Big Cat...Bronson the Unbreakable!!!

By Pairadime on Jun 06, 2020

14  649  5

Lapu Lapu is my 4 inch dead cat park flyer that could almost do everything.  This is my big dead cat frame with 6mm thick arms.  Tuning this cat has been quite the Challenge.  I had to replace the FC and ESC once already, because no matter what I did it would do death rolls.  After the ESC finally killed itself, I replaced both the FC and ESC with the mini Iflight F7 Dual Gyro 40amp stack....but my headaches continued.  Thank goodness I bought this combo from RDQ.  After doing one of best soldering jobs that I have ever performed and going through all the preflight tests of changing motor locations, motor directions and setting up my Transmitter and VTX.  I took it out to my backyard plug in a lipo and nothing....FC dies. wtf?  After contacting RDQ they immediately sent me a replacement.  After waiting for a couple more weeks I cross my fingers and try to take it flying and strange throttle.  While doing spirals to reduce altitude, the throttle would stick and not go down even at zero on my sticks.  Nothing in PID tune would reduce the strangeness.  I was using BF 4.2, and decided that downgrading.  4.1.2 seems ok but still doing it sometimes.  Sent an email to Iflight.  Hopefully they got something they can suggest.  I guess we all have to have a troubled child in the Family.  Thats why this quad is called Bronson, after the toughest criminal in Britain.  Multiple Crashes no physical damage, but perhaps the brain didn't survive completely intact.  

Edit June 8,2020 - its weird when you fix a tune by changing the stack screws.  but thats what has seemed to fix my throttle issue.  It still happens, but now when I drop the throttle it actually drops so its controllable.  i think its a flying characteristic of a dead cat frame
Tuning Video:

Edit June 13,2020
With the help of the gurus at Betaflight Blackbox Facebook Page, they pointed out that the quad was fighting against the COT.  I had the battery on the bottom near the front, but this quad is actually designed  to have the battery on top near the back.  As soon as I put the battery on top near the back the quad started flying the way it should. I am super happy with this Quad.  
Bronson the Unbreakable, one tough mo743rfuc&er!!!

Building Hint: GPS sensor does not work well on the tail of this frame design.  If you place the gps sensor on the arm it works 10 Times better!  Don't let any wires touch the gyros!

Photos

Part List

Frame

The Bando Bastard (5 & 6 Inch Freestyle & Long Range) by Dave_C_FPV (2 builds)
Thingiverse.com
See Site

Flight Controller

20x20 Mini Drone Stacks/Combos for - RaceDayQuads (25 builds)
Racedayquads.com
$89.99

Motors

4 x AMAX WM 2306 1950Kv Motor (2 builds)
Racedayquads.com
$71.16

FPV Camera

CADDXFPV Vista Kit\ Air Unit Lite (44 builds)
Caddxfpv.com
See Site
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Discussion

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surfmor   Jun 19, 2020  

I'm playing around with a deadcat from as well. Did you apply custom motor mix ?

Pairadime   Jun 19, 2020 

I did try it, but it made no difference. The biggest problem with a dead cat style frame is its sensitivity to where you place the battery (weight). Make sure its as close to the center of gravity and./or thrust as possible.

Yinka_Brasil   Jun 15, 2020  

The same GPS tail problem was made by another person as well.....The question is, how do you place it on the arm without throwing off the quad's balance and efficiency, expecially of 4/5 inch arms?

Pairadime   Jun 16, 2020 

with over 8000 grams of thrust, 597 grams AUW ....a gram of extra weight on one arm doesn't make a difference

Yinka_Brasil   Jun 18, 2020 

Cool

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