I am only going to take 1 day to write this so if there's any spelling errors or if there's things that are grammatically incorrect, I don’t know what to tell you.

This is not a build guide, because I have the slightest clue of what I’m doing. Throughout this post you will have a documentation of my emotions transcribed into words. I am writing this after I have completed and successfully flown this drone. I know it would’ve been a better representation to have had journal my thoughts as they came but all I have is a few notes and pictures I took throughout the journey, not thinking I would use them in the near future, which I am, today. I am going to be relaying the condensed version of my thoughts and the process as I remember.

Let’s start out with my first fpv purchase, which happened 2 years ago. Before then I was interested in the RC concept, playing with cheap rc boats, cars, helicopters, etc. I probably would have set my intentions on making an rc drift car if I haven’t eventually branched my interest into fpv. I got to a point where I knew I wanted to build an fpv drone because I would always find myself thinking and researching about it. If I had watched a few videos on it, liked it, and have it fade out of my memory like how painting did then I would have known it was a temporary interest but it kept coming back to me. From what I know, the fpv hobby is going to be pricey which made me hesitant to start. After a while of contemplating and annoying my family by telling them I want to build an fpv drone in the middle of conversations, I decided to buy components/parts one at a time when I catch them on sale. I knew I couldn’t start if I didn’t spend any money, so I bit the bullet and made my first purchase which was the aomway commander v1s.

The goggles was on banggood and it went for like $300 down to $240 and they were pricey in my opinion, but I had the fear of missing out. I thought if I don’t buy it at this price, it will shoot back up and I would have to settle for box style goggles, which was in my price range. I bought the Goggles... and to my surprise, the price dropped like $20 further 2 weeks later. I was hurt because I emailed the site asking if they could refund me the difference, but they said they couldn’t. (Knowing what I know now, I should’ve hit up my credit card company and have them price match the difference for me). When my goggles arrived (2018), I stuffed them into my drawer and didn’t touch them until maybe a year later. When I rediscovered them (2019), after that year of the initial purchase, I searched the item, it was discontinued and for the price, turns out the lowest it dropped to was like $180… ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS. I SPEND $240 FOR IT TO DROP TO $180? My plans of buying items at the best price possible was obviously not working, so this discouraged me, and the goggles went back in my drawer and never to be seen again till the following year (2020).

Throughout the time, I was still occasionally watching youtube videos on fpv drones and playing the free drone simulators. As you see, the interest has not died down but grown bigger. I’ve looked at other people’s builds on rotorbuilds and Mr. Whiffles builds stood out so I wouldn’t have mind copying what he did for a 5in 6s build. I personally liked the Eachine Wizard x220 (which came out in 2016), so if I was to build a drone, I would want it to, of course, be better but kinda look similar...? Well, not look similar but being 5in and a x configuration frame.

The holidays was approaching and I was ready to buy all the parts for a drone. At this time, Whiffles latest 5in build was a little dated and some components was no longer being sold, so I hoped for him to release another 5in 6s build before holiday sales began. Holiday sale began, and I did not want to be left behind so I decided to build it without a post and with parts of my choosing. Whiffles helped me through direct messaging to make sure the parts I picked were compatible with each other and I am thankful for that. I then joined a couple of discord groups to ask small questions so I wouldn’t have to bombard Whiffles with the small questions, only the important ones haha.

What I have come to realize is that this hobby comes with a lot of hidden costs. I was expecting to spend around $500-600 but ended up spending close to $1000 and would have been more if I didn’t coupon and deals hunt. Some of the unexpecting costs: I bought the soldering iron, just for the power supply not to be included. Where did they want me to plug it into, my head? No, but for real, I thought it was common practice to come with the wall cord if it needs one to power the device. I learned you must read the description to make sure of what comes in the box and not just assume. Same thing with the battery charger, was I foolish to think it would come with the cord to use the charger? You would probably have to buy the cord separate. I had to search high and low to find a charger that came with the power supply at a reasonable price. I don’t understand why they just don’t include everything in the box. I also have to buy a battery pack for the goggles to work. Good thing my goggles came with antennas because some goggles you would have to buy that separate, along with a module. Small stuff like extra batteries, different size screws, screw gummies, desoldering pump, locktite, smoke stopper, battery checker, parallel charging board, etc. does adds up.

Quick rant,
I did not buy custom 3d printed parts ( like arm protectors, skids, tango 2 gimbal protectors, etc.) because a reliable 3d printing service wanted $5 for each print so like if I wanted 4 skids, 4 arm protectors that’s already $40, literally cost more than the frame.

I would like to start this off and say, banggood shipping for my battery charger took ages. I was worried my lipo would fall below storage charge and be critically low. My battery went a month and a half without being charged and thankfully, it was a little below storage charge but not enough to damage it. The reason I got this charger from banggood is because It came with the power supply in the package for the low.

Now on to building, because this is not a kit and I was not following a recipe, this became a cycle of building, missing a part, ordering, waiting for the part to arrive - and repeat. A lot of useful information is on youtube and google and I am thankful for finding a picture of the flight controller wiring diagram that I used because it shows where I am supposed to solder the wires of my components. After I came close to almost cutting one of my motor wires too short, I was scared to cut the wires for my other components, so I left it at its original length and tucked it. I had more trouble soldering the motor wires than the flight controller wires. I would’ve assumed the opposite because the motor wire pads are bigger. It was hard at first to solder because it was as if the solder wasn’t sticking to anything but after repetition and youtube help, it got slightly easier.

(Oh yeah, the source one v4 frame fits 20mm camera for the side plate. I had to return 2 fpv camera orders before figuring that out. Both cameras were too big. The camera I ended up sticking with is 19mm, so 4 m2 gummies (2 on each side) and 2 6mm m2 screws filled the camera gap for me. And for this frame, 35mm m3 screws works fine for the stack)

Building is one thing, betaflight and blheli is another. I followed youtube betaflight videos which lead me to different prerequisite videos to watch and follow. There was times where I would be 3 minutes into the video and I thought I did everything exactly, but I got an error on my end, so I would spend like 30 minutes researching and trying to fix the error I receive and once I do fix the error and get back to the video I was following, I’m still at 3 minutes to the 40 minute video. When I was pretty much at the end of the video, I ran into a problem that I could not find the solution on google or youtube. It was time to test the motors and 2 of them didn’t move at all and the other 2 was extremely slow and fidgety. I knew my motor wire soldering skills was lacking so I watched Whiffles video on his tbs 6s fpv build and he gave good soldering tips. I followed the tips and resoldered my motor wires, which was well needed. I also remembered to put the emf blocker on my esc board. He had it on his board during the video which reminded me. With the motor wires resoldered, the problem still persists but when I changed from dshot600 to dshot300, all the motors could spin, but now all was fidgety. I messaged Whiffles and he recommended trying out multishot and it worked! We changed it back to dshot600 and that worked as well. Turns out, I must’ve had bidirectional on which caused my motor problem. After a few finishing touches, the drone is now complete.

It’s a great feeling, to accomplish something you set out to do. I have flown it line of sight, yesterday Infront of my home for my first flight. The happiness I felt when it lifted off the ground, no money can buy. The drone could cost 1k, 2k, 5k, I don’t care, the feeling of looking at it and saying I did that is priceless. Don’t let anyone talk you out of doing something that means something to you and is good. I can’t wait to go to an open field and have my first fpv flight

(For the parts list, I did not add every part below, i cannot edit the price to how much i paid, and i did not feel like choosing the accurate store, sorry)

edit 1**
( THIS IS HOW TO DISABLE PIT MODE )
If your pit mode is stubborn like how mine was, your VTX Table on betaflight might be slightly off. you have to google your exact VTX table for betaflight instead of using one you find on a website that says works on most VTXs'. When i did that, all i had to do was change my vtxtable powervalues from 0 1 2 3 to 14 20 26 36 and save and the permanent pitmode problem was gone