Lil Billy v2

Update: This little guy has been a ton of fun, but, now that I'm getting more confident and more aggressive with my flying, I think the 13amp ESC is struggling or degrading. It's burned up two different motors and will occasionally death roll at completely unexpected times. I just don't think 13amps is up for the beating I have been putting it through. So I'm doing a rebuild with a 25amp AIO whoop board and will see how that goes. It might be overkill, but it gives me some headroom. I've been looking at some 1207 motors that hardly weigh more than the 1204 BetaFPV ones I have now. Once parts come in I'll do a new build post.

First quad build!
Lil Billy
Armattan Tadpole 3"

Super fun to zip around my front yard! Already got this bad boy stuck in a big hedge that I had to climb through.
Have only had the evening to fly it round the yard, so I'll post DVR footage soon!

138g AUW
80g without battery

This build was HORRIBLY long and painful... but it was all worth it now that this baby flies!

I originally went with the Heli Nation Tiny Talon 16x16 stack and had tons of strange issues. I was troubleshooting for probably a week straight when I finally gave up and emailed getfpv.com customer support. They refunded me no questions asked!
I ordered the same stack and after 5 more days waiting it finally arrived. The 4-in-1 ESC was a 3-in-1 right out of the box. I got two duds back to back. GetFPV refunded me yet again. FANTASTIC customer support! This time I ordered a different stack, received it and got it working within a couple hours with no issues whatsoever.
The HLGRC stack is about half the price as the Heli Nation one I originally had, yet it comes with far better hardware, and MUCH better manual (the Tiny Talon didn't even have a manual...). It lacks a few features that the Tiny Talon has like F4 instead of F7, 13A BLS ESC instead of 20A BL32 ESC; but it makes up for this in the fact that it ACTUALLY WORKS and is HALF THE PRICE and HAS A MANUAL, plus MOUNTING HARDWARE THAT ACTUALLY FITS. Sorry I'm still salty about it, but I could have been flying literally weeks ago if I hadn't gone with Heli Nation!!!

All in all it was a fine build and I learned a lot.

Update #1: This thing is an absolute BLAST to fly. Full throttle with this baby rips. I've gotten about 5 min flight times depending on throttle usage.
The only thing I'm not yet sold on is the Minimortal T antenna. It's really convenient, but range is very limited and it switches to 50hz pretty often which is annoying; and my transmitter is outputting 250mw-500mw more often than I'd like it to for where I've been flying (around my yard). It even goes to 1000mw if I go around the corner of my house or behind the shed. I haven't failsafed yet, but it's annoying having to think about that with such close range.

Update #2: Cracked the bottom plate where a tiny piece of carbon seems to hold all the stress of the back arms (see photo). Still very flyable but the back arms are not nearly as rigid. Luckily it's an Armattan frame so hopefully they should replace it for me. Until then I'm going to put a drop of super glue on it and hopefully that holds! I also switched over to 3x2 bi-blades just to try them out, and they fly fantastic as well. Plus noticably longer flight times! Not sure if I like them more or less yet, but they're certainly a great option.

Update #3: I contacted Armattan about the small crack and they said it's not a structural piece and they'd like me to fly it until it's not flyable any more for them to warrenty it, which makes perfect sense. I don't want to waste anything. I put a drop of CA glue on it and it's been perfectly fine. Infact I think I was just exagerating the flexing of the back arms in my mind just because I saw a crack. I've also added a capacitor in there, not sure if there's any difference or not but It helps sandwich the VTX and RX down so now I don't need a zip tie LOL. It's really stuffed in there.

Update #4: I blew one of the ESCs in the 4-in-1 and it's out of stock everywhere. I might get a whoop AIO that can handle more than 13 amps but I really like how clean the 16x16 stack is. Turns out the crash also cracked the frame even more. Armattan is replacing it for me!