After "retiring" my NanoLongRange build I salvaged most of the parts and built this on the 3" Sanchez Air toothpick style frame.
AUW is 60g +/- 1g, depending on the battery used.
Dry weight is just under 46g.
I really can't overstate how fun this little thing is to fly!
It's very agile and has plenty of power.
I love that I can just fly outside my house whenever I feel like it, so in addition to just being a lot of fun it's also a great way to practice and add stick time.
On the 500/520mAh batteries I get around 4.5 - 5min of flight time and that's charging to 4.2V. I've never tried charging to 4.35V.
I switched all the battery connectors to XT30 per Kabab's recommendation, which is supposed to improve flight time and reduce voltage sag.
This is my first toothpick frame and at first I was worried about durability, but I have run at least 30 packs and crashed lot's on hard surfaces and haven't broken anything yet. The thing is so light, that it just doesn't seem to have the mass to do much damage to itself. Due to this, it's also pretty kind to props as well.
I started flying it with Betaflight and it took a while to get it tuned to fly decent. Eventually I found the baby tooth build log on FPV Cycles website and I used those PID's and filters and that pretty much dialed it in.
Just recently I decided to give Emuflight a try and that is what I'm now using.
It was way easier to setup "out of the box", because they actually have a tuning preset for a 3" 1S toothpick with these exact motor specs (see photos below). All I did was select that preset and it flew as good, if not better, than it did on Betaflight. Super simple.
It was also a bonus for me that Ghost RX is already supported in the current version of Emuflight, whereas to get Ghost protocol in Betaflight I had to use the developement version 4.3.
Highly recommend the Sanchez Air frame. So far, for 5.2g, it's proven very durable and it's only $8 for the 2mm thick plate (that's what I'm using)
I also bought a 1.5mm plate, because I was considering doing a superlight Li-Ion build, but changed my mind. So at least I've got the 1.5mm plate as a backup now.
Flight footage:
Photos
Part List
Show stores (7)
Hows that FC been for you? I haven't seen that one yet. Just getting back into FPV, bout a year ago I built 2 babytooths, babyteeth? lol - one with jhemcu board which has a weak esc and then with bobs boards. One of them failed and one was good it seemed, but my crossfire wouldn't work. Year later turns out the heatshrink on the nano rx was pushing the bind button it seems. I have other hobbies that needed attention though so its the way she goes. Hopefully fly this weekend
Guides & Reviews
AirbladeUAV has done it again and this time they've brought long range to the 5" class! Based on the popular Transformer Mini, the new Transformer 5" Ultralight adopts a lot of the same design philosophies with larger props and more payload capacity. It can fly upwards of 20 minutes on a 4 cell Li-Ion battery pack and in ideal conditions it's got a range of over 4 to 5 miles. In this guide I'll walk..
Read more
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 more
Hi, I'm planning to build something similar (yes, I've also tried nanolongrange.. didn't like it). I was thinking to use 2S 550mah lipo (I have bunch of them and I want to make use of them) with very similar setup, maybe a bit heavier - AUW 83g, without 2S battery 51g. Do you think that such build could benefit from 2S?
For me, there's just something about it being 1S and super lightweight that I like. I think its partly the fact that I have confidence to fling it around outside in tight spaces and not worry too much about damaging it or something else. So personally I wouldn't change it. That said, if I had a bunch of 2S batteries, like you, I'd probably want to find a way to use them! Are you planning to use the same 11500kv motors though? Because that will likely be too high of an RPM on 2S.
The parts are the same (FC, motors, props, rx/antenna) except vtx (eachine nano 400mW), frame (3mm fonster apro, 10g) and cam (caddx turbo eos2). I could feed it using 1S, but I have only 250-350mah with GNB connector which I'm using for tiny whoop. I've visited several sites advertising RCINPOWER 11500kV as 2S friendly.. do you think it's not a good idea? I guess the motors may overheat a bit, maybe I will have to fiddle with filters/PIDs
I just had someone comment on my YouTube channel that they were burning these motors up on 2S. It may have been others factors as well, but that would be enough for me to avoid it. Just my opinion.