the esc is included in the AIO flight controller

It's 25 degrees. I recommend a wrapping 10 degree camera mount instead.

Thanks for your advice! One of the antennas actually touched already props. That seems to happen with bigger 1500mah batteries that are so wide that they push the antennas down. I have been thinking to get something 3d printed for them. And for the tbs antenna too.

I was having trouble uploading pictures but I will try again. Check out Mr Steele's youtube- Step By Step Build Video | ImpulseRC APEX 6S- it is the same for the 4S build except for the motors.

Nope sorry- damn iphone takes photos in a .heic format (high efficiency image compression) and stores somewhere on my macbook where it's very hard to find and convert to a jpeg format for uploading here- frustrating. From now on I'll have to take photos for documentation on my nikon so I can actually use them! Apple has become more and more frustrating over time.

ok- figured thatv out- here's a few

wow G4Z thanks a lot- really appreciated

Interesting. So it seems to be a software error causing recording problems. The card I had problems with is also a SanDisk U3 A2 card.

I don't think I'd try 6S on a 3" rig. It probably won't increase the flight time over using a larger 4S battery. Since these aren't designed to be fast or nimble you can usually get away with the extra weight.

Thanks! It does pretty well considering how heavy it is. I settled on 7x3.5x3 which provided a good balance of handling and efficiency. I would probably have dropped to the 1700kV if I were to do anything different. Also this frame is quite heavy on its own.

So far, I am truly loving this motor, props and lipo combo (BH 2507 1850kv motors with HQ 7X4X3 props and 1800mah 6s Lipo). I have not really pushed the freestyle side of it, but it has lots of power. When I want to cruise for long range flights, I well get about 12 minutes. My previous build I was using Xing 2208 2150kv motors on a 5s 1300mah lipo and it flew well but when I pushed it hard it felt like it was lacking some at the top end. And when I tried to long range cruising I would get about 5 minutes.

I just did a build with the same frame and motors, and I'm debating what batteries to go with. I was thinking about going 5s since I though 6s would be too amp hungry with the 1850kv motors. Have you tried it on 5s as well?

I actually have a few charged up, so let me try a 5s 1300mah lipo and see.

I think 6s will be more efficient because for the higher voltage and lower amp draw, especially if you are going for long range cruising. I did a test flight with the a 5s lipo and if feels good too. Maybe the 5s would be a good freestyle lipo because its smaller and lighter. I need to test it at a park to get a better feel of the 5s lipo.

I am indeed, and yes, without that filtering it would be way worse I am sure. But that's not the real problem. I know what's happening but I don't know what's causing it or how to stop it. When my throttle gets above 1500, the yaw D-value starts to show big oscillations, that feeds into the P, and the resultant yaw oscillations cause the machine to shimmy - you can see it in the video and it shows up in the yaw gyro trace. As soon as the throttle drops below 1500, it's smooth sailing once more.

At least I think it's working that way around. Maybe the gyro just goes bonkers abvove that throttle because of frame harmonics, but I doubt it as this has happened to two of my small, powerful 3" machines with the iFlight Twin-G FC, but different frames. It could be P spiking that the D is fighting? I really don't confess to understand this stuff in detail. But it feels like software, because it's just the yaw-D, yaw-P, and yaw-gyro traces that show osciallation, if it were excessive motor noise or other vibration, I would expect to see something in the other axes, but the Pitch and Roll traces all remain nice and clean. But what to do? More TPA perhaps?

So maybe I'll take the plunge and give 4.2 a go. I've never felt that 4.1.x was great for 3" machines, but perhaps I have just been unlucky? If you get 4.2 onto your Gecko, please let me know how it goes!

I put 4.2 on three machines yesterday.  They all fly superb on defaults.   The Gecko is definitely next.   I dont have blackbox logging on mine, so I cant tell if it does the same as yours on the traces, but it sounds similar.   I know that 2.5" - 3" seems to be the most difficult for me to get smooth and my Gecko is the worst.  I will keep you updated.

Brilliant! Yes, please let me know how it goes with your Gecko. Fingers crossed that 4.2 is the cure for 3" ills...!

Hi , still having throttle issues ? try changing the motor frequency in bl32 if you can.
Cheers

Yeah, it's so strange, this machine is doing pretty much the same thing as the 3" DJI-F5; that high throttle shimmy-thing on the yaw axis. So currently the PWM Frequency is 24kHz; what would you suggest? This is something I have never done. Instruct me, oh guru! :-)

In bl heli 32 the esc operaiting speed , for want of a better name, can be altered.
Increasing it on micros can X2 the flight time. changing it on bigger craft can stop or reduce bad vid, and sometimes the motor esc frequency combo can cause issues, a problem that shows only above 50% t has to have a mechanical and electrical problem , a resonance between the magnetic hysteresis of the windings the magnets and the operaiting frequency of the esc..
Please let me know if it helps
Cheers

Interesting! Alrighty, I will give this a go as I'm certainly seeing this above 50% throttle. Also, I have learned an excellent new word today; "hysteresis" - thank you. Yeah, totally makes sense, I can see how fiddling with the fequency could affect issues of that nature. Definitely something I will try. I'll let you know what happens!

So I tried a more basic route to start, I upgraded to 4.1.6 (I was trying to go back to 3.5.7 just to see, but that... didn't work out so well). Same initial tune and suddenly the yaw oscillations at 1500 have moved up to 1800+ throttle and are way better, which I can live with for sure. Interesting. I guess something or other was refines in 4.1.6 which has helped. But still, I'll keep the PWM frequency in my back pocket as I still have more tuning to do!

I installed 4.2.0 on mine today. Huge improvement. Default pids and cut / pasted the CLI from the HD quick settings from the Tuning Notes (https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight/wiki/4.2-Tuning-Notes). I also adjusted the notch filter settings as recommended for rpm filtering. This is the best my Gecko has ever flown. I ran without a ND filter and pretty low jello. I was even running some pretty beat up props. More testing tomorrow, but this was very exciting for me.

Excellent news. Alrighty, that's where I go next. Thanks for the update!

I may also try emuflight.  The new release is getting great reviews for cinewhoops and micros.   Seems like the Gecko is pretty finicky, maybe it is more like a micro for tuning than a 5"?

Thank you so much. Apart from the prop wash it flies very well. I have not had any notable issues with oscillations at higher throttle, both for RPM filtering on and off. I have only been flying it with Betaflight 4.1.6, so I don't know if it would behave worse with earlier versions. Nice to hear your build flies better with Beftaflight 4.1.6. I am looking forward to Betaflight 4.2 which seems to improve flight performance even further.

Yes, I suspect you would see worse preformance with early versions; I am impressed with 4.1.6 - and as such very interested to see what 4.2 has to offer! :-)

Thanks! I've actually shortened the bottom standoff rubbers so the stack fits better. Putting the screws in from the top I also won some space because that buttonhead is much flatter than the nut. Plus I cut as much hairs off the battery strap as I could (using diagonal cutters) so the VTX still gets some room to breathe.

I agree that the frame transmits too much vibration to the stack, I'm seeing quite some D-term noise in the Blackbox logs: https://intofpv.com/t-armattan-tadpole--11710 . I like how you modified your frame to soft mount the entire stack, that's exactly how it is on the GepRC Phantom.

I have a bunch of extra standoff rubbers and rings on the way from China, when I get them I hope to figure out a good way to reduce vibrations as much as possible...

I have now improved the vibration damping of the flight stack quite a bit simply by using longer screws and using the pieces of the standoff rubbers that I cut short. Full details and info about the PID tuning here: https://intofpv.com/t-armattan-tadpole--11710

i just got these motors 2 days ago. there is still a lot i need to learn about them. like trying out different 3" and 2.5" props, 2" should be good too. you could just treat them like 1103 motors. these motors should do better with tri-blade props than 1103.

sometimes you see people running 1102/1103 with 3" props. so these motors should do fine with 3" props. but you ask about hot motors, my guess is, because of the KV. for high KV motors you should worry about high amp draw more. as you can see in the video i keep the throttle low and only raise the throttle when needed and for a brief moment.

this is 1s KV motors on 2s. it's not ideal. you shouldn't put 2s on 1s motors. but if you already have them and you don't like the 1s setup then why not.

i think it needs 16awg wires for the pigtail ( battery lead ) but i'm not sure until i've tried it.

Thanks for the suggestion, actually I have an HMDVR-S on the way which I intend to uncase and fit in the Tadpole. Your video is awesome, nice quality and great flying!

My avatar is a glider from the game of life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life) - just a hacker/geek kind of thing :)

Oh excellent! Yes, you won't regret adding a DVR, it really adds a lot to the machine!
And haha, OK, yes of course. I haven't thought about Game of Life in a long time; I think the first time I saw it was on a TRS80 clone (which dates me rather). I didn't realise that the various stable and meta-stable forms had names and that there was a whole branch of research into them, although now I am not surprised. I have learnt something today, thank you! :)

You read my mind! Just days ago I upgraded the stock canopy to a TPU canopy to prevent the camera push back issue. Regarding Project Mockingbird for 0802 motors, I tried it and I didn't like how it flew as much as Betaflight 4.1.1 Performance Edition for F3 boards.

I have also updated a new picture of my UK65 now!

Cool thanks! Maybe you can add that TPU/3D printed camera mount to the list of parts? It's a must have i think.....i've been gluing my camera onto the standard canopy just to the two points, using Zhanlida E6000, but it still gets pushed but not as bad....i would rather use a new mount.

Sure, I have added it to the description! It's a design I got off Thingiverse. Really simple and works well!

It's 423g dry, and 610g with a 1300mAh 5S, my preferred battery. No GoPro or other HD camera obviously.

HD DVR is enought for casual flying :)