Armattan Tadpole "e n d u r a n c e"
By Fractalengineer on Nov 01, 2020
Back with another Armattan build -and still having fun with the title :P
Here's a pretty neat build that surprised me with it's up to 8mins flight time on HV 3S GNB 520mah.
It's an excellent daily flier I've been ripping every morning at my local park; it's size and stealth make it perfect for those smaller spots in bigger cities
What impressed me the most was the insane Thrust/weight; it hovers at about 25% throttle and boi does it accelerate fast; very forgiving coming off dives and low altitude spins.
Weighing at 115g operational weight this thing is also a leaf; airtime is loong :)
It's also running perfectly Emuflight 0.3.2 on STOCK pids/filter (3S 3" preset); incredibly locked in out of the box
And most notably Jazzmac's BLHeli_M with 48khz PWM - Certainly the largest contributor to the crazy flight time
Overall super happy with it; that's the build I have been waiting for
The build came with a couple challenges if you're looking to build one for yourself:
- The armattan motors come without plugs; so your best bet is to unsolder the connectors on the ESC. I did it by removing the plastic shroud, allowing me to unsolder the pins one by one
- The Iflight documentation suggest wiring smart audio to the LED pad and remapping in betaflight. It doesn't work. What does is soldering the vtx SA directly to the hard wired uart pin of the header (white cable)
- Generally all the pads are very tiny and frankly I now have ptsd from soldering all the wires. Best way I found was to tin the wire, blob the pads FAST, then melt the blob to introduce the wire. Very fast not to spend the flux.
And ther's that; here's a little edit, not mine; found the SD card ;)
Cheers!
Photos
Part List
Frame |
Tadpole 3 inch Special Edition
(6 builds)
Armattanquads.com
|
$37.00 |
Flight Controller |
iFlight SucceX Micro F4 15A ESC 16x16 stack
Armattanquads.com
|
$60.00 |
Motors |
4x Armattan 1204/5000kv Motors
(2 builds)
Armattanquads.com
|
$50.75 |
Propellers |
3 inch Triblade Gemfan Windancer 3028-3 (2x CW, 2x CCW - Clear)
(7 builds)
Armattanquads.com
|
$2.79 |
FPV Camera |
RunCam Updated Nano 4 Nano4 mini Camera 1/3
Aliexpress.com
|
$12.99 |
FPV Transmitter |
RUSH TINY TANK Nano VTX 48CH 350mW TBS SmartAudio FPV transmisor de Video de entrada de 5V para RC Drone FPV Racing
Aliexpress.com
|
$23.00 |
Receiver |
TBS Crossfire Nano Rx - FPV LONG RANGE DRONE RECEIVER
(1503 builds)
Team-blacksheep.com
|
$24.95 |
Batteries |
Gaoneng GNB 3S 11.4V HV 450mah LiPo Battery 80C XT30 LiHV
(19 builds)
Pyrodrone.com
|
$10.49 |
Hey, awesome build! I am a total newb and purchased a runcam racer nano 2 and noticed that the connector is too large to fit into the plug on the FC. How did you connect your Runcam into the FC? Adapter?
Hey just a word of caution: I have a super similar build (Tadpole 3", Gemfan Hurricane 3028 props, 1204 5000kv motors) and kept burning up the motors in crashes. I believe 5000kv is a bit too high. It's right on that edge where it's okay for quick punch outs and normal flying, but in crashes when PID loop freaks out and motors change direction crazy fast they eventually burned out. If I knew better beforehand I would have set an 85% or even 80% output limit to prevent them burning up in crashes.
Mine flew fantastic for about a month until they started burning out one by one. I've used up the two spares I ordered and decided to go to a lower KV instead of getting the same ones again. If I had thought about it before placing the order I would have set the output limit. I don't think you'd even notice it. Just a thought :)
So I don't have video of the 5000kv on 4S, but I posted DVR on my rebuild (3700kv) if you wanna check that out:
Lil Billy v2: https://rotorbuilds.com/build/25372
Nice build, I to was impressed with the flight time of my tadpole. build's here: https://rotorbuilds.com/build/25136
I was getting 8 mins. easy. I recently changed motor speed to 48khz and swapped my gemfan props for Emax avon 2.51.93 simitar props. it all added 1.5 mins. give and take .5 min. on flying type. I love these little tadpoles. Again, great job on the build.
I'm still doing alot of testing. So far I've found out that battery resistance goes up as the battery drains. If battery resistance exceeds motor resistance efficiency goes down. I've been matching dead cells resistance to motor resistance. So at full charge the battery resistance is low and working its way to motor resistance to keep efficiency as high as I can.
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can those 1204 5000kv run 4s?
will 12a esc be enough if run 4s?
thank!