With the release of the DJI FPV Drone cinematic FPV has become a lot more accessible, but you certainly don't want to crash a $750 drone! The QAV-CINE Freybott is a compact, lightweight cinematic FPV drone that can take a hit and keep going. It's a lot safer to fly indoors and around people. With a naked GoPro or the SMO 4k you can capture some great stabilized footage. In this guide I'll show you how to build it, pair it to your DJI FPV goggles and remote and configure it.
This build requires some soldering experience as the pads are quite small. I highly recommend a flux pen, 63/37 leaded solder and a quality soldering iron. Here are the tools and supplies you'll need. My preferred tools are listed in the Gear section below.
The first thing you need to do is solder the plastic motor plugs to your flight controller. You can solder the motor wires directly to the board, but that'll make this build a little more tricky to assemble later. Solder one plug at a time and it's helpful to use some Fun Tak to hold the board in place while you do this. Apply a tiny bit of solder to the tip of your iron and tap the back-side of each prong under the board. Be careful not to use too much solder and have some solder wick handy in case you do. This is a little trickier than it seems so just be patient with it. I found it was most effective to slide iron tip across the pad into each prong to apply the solder.
Now let's mount it to the bottom plate. This is the one without the motor mounts. Use the longer M2 screws included in the frame kit as well as the red silicone dampeners to mount it. You can exclude the rear screw and dampener. They'll just get in the way of the battery lead. Three mounting points are enough. Hold it in place with the nylon nuts and get it nice and low so it just clears the frame.
Now let's prepare the battery lead. Always solder the wires to the XT30 plug before soldering to the flight controller. This makes it a lot easier. Use some Fun Tak to hold the connector face-down while you fill the wells with solder and slide the wires in. It's helpful to apply a dab of fresh solder to the pre-tinned tips to get them flowing again. Be sure to pay attention to the polarity. The red wire always goes to the flat side of the plug. Add some shrink tube to cover your joints.
Next, solder the battery lead to the flight controller. I trimmed about 2cm from the wires, but you can keep them full length if you want. This flight controller has holes for the battery leads, but the wire they include is too thick to fit those holes. Instead, cover the holes with solder to create a flat surface for the wires. Make sure your wires are properly tinned and push them horizontally against the pads with your iron. Wait until you see the solder run through the strands of the wire and make a solid connection to the board.
Now you can solder the capacitor directly on top. Add some shrink tube to the wires and bend them up and out over the joints. Apply a little solder and hold your iron until the solder flows into the entire joint. Snip the ends.
Next, screw all the standoffs to the frame. It's a lot easier to do this now. Use the longer M2 screws included in the frame kit and mount the rubber feet to the outer edges of the frame.
Now you can wire up the Caddx Vista.
Mount the camera to the side plates, but make sure you've got it right-side up. The cable should be on the bottom. Use the shortest M2 screws included in the Caddx Vista kit. Don't make it tight otherwise the side plates won't slot into the frame. You can even add a couple small washers as the camera is slightly more narrow than the gap.
Now here's where it gets a little tricky. If you send the antenna out the back of the frame it won't clear the battery which will affect reception. It's better to send it through the top plate to give it more height. To do this you need to unscrew the bracket from the Caddx Vista and pass the antenna through the top plate before you snap it in. The little bracket can be a fiddly and the top plate can get in the way, so just be patient with it.
Planning this out took quite a bit of forethought. The whole process is very particular and if you miss a step you might need to backtrack. Do your best to follow the steps and look closely at the photos.
Now we're ready to bind the DJI Goggles and Remote. Before you do that download DJI Assistant V2 (FPV) to activate and update the Caddx Vista firmware. Run DJI Assistant, plug a USB-C cable in to the Vista, plug a lipo into the quad and plug the cable into your computer. Follow the prompts to activate and update the firmware. This process takes several minutes, and it doesn't hurt to run a fan on the Vista to keep it cool.
Once that's complete unplug everything and turn on your DJI Goggles and DJI Remote. Put the goggles into bind mode by pressing the red button with your precision tweezers. Plug a lipo in and press the bind button on the Vista. The beeping will stop once it's bound. Double check that you've got a video feed in your goggles.
To bind the remote press the record button, right dial and C button all at once. Press the bind button again on the Vista and the beeping will stop when the bind is complete.
Now let's get the flight controller configured. If you don't already have them, you'll need to download Betaflight Configurator [Download] and BLHeli Configurator [Download] or JESC Configurator [Download]. Start by opening Betaflight Configurator.
This is optional, but it's usually a good idea to flash the latest version. Hold the boot button on the flight controller while you plug in to enter DFU mode.
I spent quite a bit of time toying with the PIDs. The motors can get quite hot, so you need relatively low D-term values, but too low and the flight characteristics suffer. I found these values to offer a fair middle ground. The motors still do get hot, but to an acceptable level. You might also want to have a look at Freybott's Settings, but proceed with caution. You don't want to paste his entire dump into the CLI. Study it and make the changes manually on your end.
You need to flash to an ESC firmware that supports a 48khz PWM rate. This is crucial for reducing motor temperatures. You can use either JESC or JazzMaverick. For JazzMaverick you can use the traditional BLHeli Configurator to flash the firmware you download from Github. To use JESC you need to download the JESC configurator. The only caveat is JESC requires you to purchase a license to use Bi-Directional DSHOT. You can use 48khz for free though.
For details on how to flash either of these firmwares please refer to this video:
BLheli-S Free RPM Filtering JazzMaverick vs. JESC (How-To) - Joshua Bardwell
JESC Configurator:
https://github.com/jflight-public/jesc-configurator/releases
JESC Bi-Directional DSHOT Licenses:
https://jflight.net
JazzMaverick Firmware:
https://github.com/JazzMaverick/BLHeli/tree/JazzMaverick-patch-1/BLHeli_S%20SiLabs
Finally, be sure to reverse any motors that need to be reversed.
Reconnect to BetaFlight Configurator
Ensure your pitch, roll, throttle and yaw are being applied correctly. Adjust your transmitter and Channel Map as needed.
Enable the motor test and check the rotation of each motor.
Finally, you'll want to configure the goggle settings. These are my preferred transmission settings:
Transmission Menu
Be sure to choose a Player Channel other than the public channel and you're good to go!
Mount the props to the motors using the longer M2 screws. I used the "props out" orientation so the front left and rear right props spin counter-clockwise. Make sure the props are mounted right-side up. That means the top of each prop should be touching the motors.
You might want to conduct a hover test indoors just to make sure it doesn't flip out. If it does then you've likely got your motors in the incorrect positions, the rotations aren't correct or the props are on wrong. Double check each of these.
Super nice build dude! I've been eyeing that frame. Mind if i ask about the weights? dry, with camera and fully loaded with battery+ cam?
thank you
keep up the sick builds
You forgot the most important part, haha! 😂 How to install the custom battery straps! So many post I see have them installed wrong. Down through the hole and up around the T.
I didn't even know that.. Not much documentation for this frame. I'll be sure to add that! This is a tricky one tune. I've been testing different props and different tunes. These 5 blade props are far too much prop for these motors. I'm having better luck with the HQProp and iFlight Nazgul props. I need to take some new photos without these props.
noob here, great guide! I'm hoping to make this my first build ever, some concerns I have are...
1) would it be okay to use a 4s 850mah battery on this build? if not what should i change? motors? (any parts recommendations?)
2) im also hoping to mount a gopro session 5 (74g) on top, it seems like this build might not be strong enough to support something like that, what can i change to make that happen?
Have you flown it with a camera at all?
I had no specific interest in the particular parts being assembled in this one, but I like looking at your guides for the guide itself. Great pics and layout every time! Plus I never installed a cap quite like that before. The way you used the leads to hold it in place before soldering. It may seem obvious, but I just installed a cap last night in the same position and did something...less clever. That's my favorite thing about rb, seeing what and how other people build. Thanks for keeping it awesome!
I appreciate the support! This was my first time installing the cap like that, but it just made sense at the time. I didn't want the power lead tugging on the cap. A lot of this comes from the comments. For example I mounted the cap above the power leads one time and got called out. Another time I didn't add shrink tube and got called out. We're all learning!
With the release of the DJI FPV Drone cinematic FPV has become a lot more accessible, but you certainly don't want to crash a $750 drone! The QAV-CINE Freybott is a compact, lightweight cinematic FPV drone that can take a hit and keep going. It's a lot safer to fly indoors and around people. With a naked GoPro or the SMO 4k you can capture some great stabilized footage. In this guide I'll show you..
Read moreFPV has had quite a journey. Just a few years ago we started racing drones around a track and doing flips over trees, but professional cinematic FPV is a more recent development. DJI has always owned the drone photography market, but smaller acrobatic drones are starting to enter the market. They have the advantage of close proximity flight indoors and around people. There's more artistic freedom and..
Read more
yoooo great build!
how come the YT channel is ded?
Thank you! I'm still working on the video. These just take a long time to edit.