Blackie QAV--R
By Briefly Flying FPV on Mar 14, 2017
This was my 3rd build. I aimed for the cleanest and more practical quad to service possible. Also wanted an all black build - always thought all the coloured wiring looked terrible. So all wiring is black, except the XSR and TBS wiring which both had hard to replace proprietary connectors so I covered them in black paracord.
The way the quad is built it's quite easy to service anything on the FC stack and camera, I only need to unscrew the top plate and since nothing is attached to it, like the vtx or rx, no need to unplug stuff. Quick and hassle free.
I used a different PDB then the provided by Lumenier with the frame cause I wanted to get rid of the extra clutter and weight of the XT60 pigtail and have it directly mounted on the side of the PDB. Also I tried to find one that would fit the build better. One thing I added after taking the photos was a Armattan connector saver with an very small 12AWG wire pigtail for relief. Placed a capacitor on the PDB just where I connect the FC and the VTX for cleaning up electrical noise and voltage spikes - it is placed facing forwards between the fc stack and the camera, well protected and off sight.
Added a ULX LOS carbon fiber plate on top of the FC stack to mount the TBS Vtx. Glued the vtx on it with termal paste which holds it very well and helps dissipate the heat trough a larger surface when using higher output powers that in normal conditions make the VTX pretty hot. I noticed this mount improved greatly it's cooling compared to a more tradicional approach using double sided tape or zip ties.
Used a RC PAPA side plate camera plate on one side to help secure the angle of the camera angle more easily.
Initially was thinking of using Lumenier's tail LED lights but for practical reasons I decided not to. It was either that or the XSR mount and the antena holders were so practical that it was a easy choice.
312 Grams
Here's one of Blackie's flights :
Photos
Part List
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Amazing build! How do you like the lumenier motors? Smooth i'm guessing! But what about power?
Thanks ReubeuX! The motors blew me away to be very honest. I've used the RX2206 2350kv for a while on other builds and loved their smoothness and efficiency. But eventually after trying some other more modern and more powerful motors like the ZMXs and Returners, etc... I felt them bit underwhelming and wanted more power... Bought some ZMX's and the power was there but they weren't smooth at all, the response was very different, tunning with them was a bit of a pain and they were like eating lipos alive. So these came out and after reading this very accurate review ( http://www.miniquadtestbench.com/lumenier-mx2206-2450kv.html ) I gave them a try and was amazed by the performance. They're very smooth, have the incredible efficiency of the the RX2206's on low and mid throttle, and have much more torque and top end. Take a look at Cody ripping them:
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I gotta commend you on going all black on the wiring. I wanted to do it on my last build, but just getting the thing together caused so much frustration that I cant even imagine how much worse it would have been. Quad looks great man.
Thanks man! Yeah, I know what you mean... I used some tricks to make it a bit simpler tough:
Soldered one type of connection a time on the two ends - for example - all the ground wires for the ESCS - finish - all Telemetry wires for the ESCs, etc... Marked all the + wires with a small piece of white tape to help out when stuff got tangled up, I removed that later when all done.
Also used a multimeter very often during the build an a smoke stopper on the first power up. Hope that helps you in your next build!
I didn't even notice the wires untill mentioned - that's an extremely nice touch. I just came to compliment the overall theme, and the quality of the photos. Very nice!
Thanks Sighkotik! I really appreciate it!