Overview

This build was all about durability and reliability. I had a bad experience with a pure X frame and killing motors, so I wanted something more reliable. The motors, ESCs, and frame were chosen for their durability and reliability. All the other components, like the vtx, fpv camera, omnibus f3, and receiver, I had on another build. Here are the details of why I chose each of these components.

• I wanted a frame that would protect the motors fairly well, was cheap, and didn't weigh a ton, like other frames of similar design.
• The escs were recommended by QuadMcFly as being reliable and bulletproof.
• The motors were also recommended by QuadMcFly for there durablility and price.
• The vtx isn't the best but you get what you pay for. It doesn't have very good filtering as far as power.
• The fpv camera is fine. A standard hs1177 but either the GoPro lens I ordered from banggood isn't the standard lens screw size or the "HS1177" doesn't have the standard lens size thread.
• The omnibusf3 is awesome. Highly recommend this flight controller, however not from the same vendor, as other people have said that they are not trustworthy.
• All of the full range flysky receivers are big so it is what it is. Luckily this frame has plenty of room

For the flight video, check out the video at the end of this article. Now lets get on with the build.

The Build

The Frame

First, I smoothed out the arms and bottom plate, similar to how the high end frames do. Please do it under running water while wearing gloves. Safety first. I then built the frame up how this video describes, however I have the arms underneath the bottom plate in order to save room for the flight controller/pdb stack.

PDB and ESCs

My procedure for soldering and mounting the ESCs was pretty simply and was as follows: pre-tin all of the pads on the pdb, measure and cut ESC power wires to length, strip and pre-tin esc power leads, and solder esc power leads to their respective pads on the pdb. I mounted the ESC according to the recommendations of Joshua Bardwell and the late Project Blue Falcon. I mounted the esc to the frame with foam tape, than mounted a piece of 5x4 propellor to the top of the esc with foam tape, and finally secure the ESC down with electrical tape.

FPV Wiring and Powering the Flight Controller

FPV Wiring

For wiring the FPV system, I went with Joshua Bardwell's recommendation of soldering all of the ground wires to the same pad as seen below. This will hopefully reduce noise. I then soldered the camera power line to the 5v regulator on the PDB and soldered the VTx power line to the 12v regulator. After that, I soldered the video wires to their corresponding pads on the flight controller as seen below. Here, I took AndyRC's advice of soldering the grounds of the video in and video out on the flight controller to the same ground as the power leads. This will stop the flickering and drop-outs experienced in-flight, which was something I struggled with with my last build using the omnibus.

Powering the Flight Controller

I used the vcc tab on the pdb to power the omnibus. This way, I don't have to solder a Vbat power wire to get voltage on my OSD. Thank you ominous!

ESC Signal Wires

Afterward, I cut the esc signal and ground wires to length ( longer than needed, just in case) and pre-tined them. I highly recommend soldering the ESC signal and ground wires straight up and down, so that you can push the wire almost through the pin hole. Originally, I soldered the esc wires On the pad, but you quickly run out of room, snd it becomes a real pain. I also recommend soldering the ground wire with the signal wire, as Joshua Bardwell advises in his video.

Receiver

I soldered my receiver wires where it says "sbus/ppm", next to the esc signal and ground leads. I then plugged it into my receiver's Ibus port and covered the receiver in heatshrink. After it cooled, I mounted it with foam tape and a ziptie behind the flight controller stack. I mounted the receiver antennas weird, because one of them got cut from a prop strike and is dwarfed compared to the other antenna. This made it impossible to mount symmetrically, so I mounted the big antenna sticking straight up on the top plate and the smaller one beneath the bottom plate at an angle.

Mounting VTx

I mounted the VTx with how Mr. Steele does it in his build video.

Motors

Mounting the motors was a bit of a pain in the butt. Because I am using both a TPU soft mount and a motor guard, I had to take 10mm screws and shave them down to 9mm. Than the escs were too close to the motor, so I had to back them up a few millimeters.

Betaflight and BLHeli Configurator

As of 9/14/17, I'm running BF 3.2 RC5 with the dynamic filter. I turned on dynamic filtering, setup osd, setup vbat, setup ibus, turned on dshot600, messed with the rates, and turned my pid loop and gyro update to 4k/4k. I'm pretty sure thats all of the changes I made. For a more thorough walkthrough, Joshua Bardwell recently made a video specifically on walking you through the setup of BF3.2. For BLHeli, I just changed the direction of the motors and beeper timer to three minutes. The ESCs already all had 16.6 flashed and didn't need to be calibrated because they are dshot escs.

GoPro Mounting

For mounting a GoPro, I had to take out the side plates that are used to mount the FPV camera and use the mounting bracket that almost all FPV camera come with. I used the one of the extra screws and locknuts that came with the frame for this. With the side plate out of the way I was able to strap the GoPro with one on of my battery straps. The material I used for the wedge of the GoPro came from some packing material. Its super spongy and works really well. There is a flight video at the endow this article.

Regrets/Problems

Overall, I'm very happy with this build, but if I were to do things differently, I would make the following changes:

The Frame

This frame is good for its price, but after building the frame, I tried bending it and it bends a lot. Especially after watching Kabab FPV's video on the best cheap frames, the (XH210)[https://www.banggood.com/XH210-210mm-Carbon-Fiber-3_5mm-Arm-Frame-Kit-for-Racing-Drone-p-1161966.html?rmmds=search] looks like a steal. Its light if you take out the aluminium hardware, 20g lighter than this frame, I believe.

Hot Motors

I don't know why yet, but on the last two builds I've had, the motors have been getting really warm. It might be the flight controller, as I stole it off my last build. Its not the tune or filters, its not vibrations, and its not the screws. I'm gonna use some different props and just test some things out. The only other flight controller I have is an old Naze :grimacing:. The reason for the hot motors on this build is because of the ambient temperature down here in Florida being 85-95 degrees (Fahrenheit). I don't know why I didn't think of that lol.

Flight Video