A Little Histroy
Here is the full lifecycle of different variations of the Shendrone Squirt V2 that I have built over the years.
- Squirt v2 Analog with 1407 motors and full ducts: https://rotorbuilds.com/build/17215
- Squirt v2 HD DJI Air Unit with 1407 motors and full ducts: https://rotorbuilds.com/build/22407
- Squirt v2 HD Caddix Vista with 1407 motors and mini ducts: https://rotorbuilds.com/build/24647
- Squirt v2 HD Caddix Vista with 2203 motors and Slammed ducts: https://rotorbuilds.com/build/19875
- Squirt v2 HD Caddix Vista with 2205 motors 6s and Slammed ducts: https://rotorbuilds.com/build/28038
I am a big fan of the Squirt v2 with 4s motors because of the long flight times, especially with an 18650 Lithium-Ion battery pack. But the performance of the 2205 2300kv 6s motors just blew all the other versions of the squirt out of the water. However, the main drawback is the shorter flight times. Depending on how your fly you can get up to 5 minutes of flight time with the 6s 1000mah lipo. Whereas the smaller 4s 1407 motors can get up to 9 minutes on a 1300mah 4s lipo.
That is why I am here now with this new Squirt v2 build. Seeing if I can get better flight times with a smaller 6s motors. After this build, I plan to build another Squirt with 1507 2800kv motors to compare the flight performance verses the flight time.
The Build
The first problem I had to overcome was the Diatone Mamba Toka 2203.5 2650kv motors. I failed to notice the motor’s mounting holed are M3 holes with 16x16mm spacing. The Squirt v2 frame only supports 12x12mm. I do not plan to get another set of motors, so I need to make these motors fit this frame. At first, I thought about drilling 2 new holes, but it will significantly reduce the strength of the tiny arms. That is how I came up with the 3D printed 12x12 to 16x16 adapter; however, there might be a few issues to thinking about. First is the added height of the motor when using the adapter. Next is the position of the wires because the motor will be turned 45 degrees from the designed mounting points.
This build is very similar to all the other Slammed Squirts that I built in the past, with a 20x20 stack, Caddx Vista, Crossfire RX and HQProp Ducted Hexa-blade 6 Blade 75mm Propellers. Other than color differences of the 3D printed parts, the main notable changes are the motors. As I mentioned earlier, I will be using Diatone Mamba Toka 2203.5 2650kv motors. I also found a different antenna mount that also includes a XT60 connector. After my recent incident, where the XT60 connector made contact with the props midflight. I opted to use a XT60 mount to make sure this does not happen again. And finally, I blinged out the Capacitor with a NOS bottle sticker. Now I can gain a few extra seconds of flight time with it, just kidding!
This is the first time trying out EmuFlight and I am very happy how it turned out. I ended up using the 3/3.5" 2203 Cinewhoop preset and the Rates from my other Squirt builds. With the 2 combo, it seems be working well.
Videos
Maiden flight with GoPro 10 with Max Lens and Horizon Lock ON. Had to stop the test flight early because it started to rain again.
Both videos are the same flight footage, one is the GoPro 10 and the other is the DJI DVR recording:
GoPro 10 with Max Lens and Horizon Lock ON.
DJI DVR
Photos
Part List
Show stores (6)
Question: I am printing the same rear XT60/Immortal T/Vista antenna mount. How in the heck did you get the Immortal T antenna in there? I can't spread those arms wide enough to get the antenna in. Driving me nuts.... lol...
awesome build! may I know what battery are you using? as I have a 1507 motor and running 1300mah and my motors are very hot and only have 2.5mins flight time
Do not give up on those motors yet. Ideally you should use a 4s lipos and up to 1300mah with the 1507 3600kv motors. In the past, I was able to get about 10 minutes flight time with 1300mah 4s lipo and 1407 3600kv motors. Please keep in mind this it base on slow cruising speeds, and I had kept the quad as light as possible. What you should try first is different PIDs. Check out this build I have, Look in the image gallery, and on the bottom are 3 screen shots of the PIDs and ESC settings I did. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.... you have to use Betaflight 4.1.5!!!! I know it is an older firmware version but these PIDs are specific to that version of betaflight. Give that a try first, and see how it does. You can still use a motor output limit, but you might have to set that up on CLI. I do not recall if betaflight 4.1.5 had that in the GUI.
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 got inspired by your builds and made my own 6S 2203.5 Tmotor 2850kv slammed build with Droneco parts. It's pretty acrobatic and flies really well, but I hit this issue where the quad sometimes wants to keep floating even if I drop throttle to zero. I took some advice to lower my I-term... but I've halved it (like master multiplier = 0.5) and still see the same.
Have you ever run into this with any of your ducted builds? Maybe this is why you run BF 4.1 instead of BF4.2?
What props are you using?
Gemfan 75mm ducted 3-blade
I personally do not like those props and I would suggest using the HQProp Ducted Hexa-blade 6 Blade 75MM. However, that should not cause the problem you are talking about. Try using the PIDs and setting I have on this build. https://rotorbuilds.com/build/24647
I want you to try those PIDs to see if it is your tune or something else. Because BF4.2 is not the problem, it is most likely the tune. Another option is trying EMUFLIGHT. But I did not have too much luck with the presets when using 2203 size motors.
I'll give that a try. I only have BLS on this quad, so I can't use motor timing = auto. Would you recommed medium-high?
Yes, I would start with Medium-High.
I tried the PIDs values exactly with the same PID control settings (except FF transition set to 0). Still reproduce the same issue. Seems not too sensitive to PIDs because I can roll back to my test PIDS (around 4x/4x/3x) and it behaves the same.
I sorry to hear it did not help. Are you using Bidirectional Dshot with RPM filtering?
trying disabling AIR Mode. the down side is never drop your throttle all thr way down to zero. The props will stop spinning.