With life getting in the way of picking up motor spacers for the Trifecta, and the parts needed to complete this build AWOL I probably should be focusing on flying my Cheap250 Quad, but instead I thought I'd do a little dry-fit testing.

         

As you can see I'm going for a control "cube" in the central location.  Instead of using the sizeable spacer/mount on the bottom I'm using nylon screws and nuts.  This keeps the bottom of the PDB very tight to the frame.  The ESC will stack next, followed by the F/C and lastly the Receiver at the top.  

This is one of the reasons why I decided to go for the i6X type receiver, it has a 30.5mm mount setup making for a very neat build.

The VTX tucks under the top deck at the tail, the control button and display visible/useable through a small "port" in the deck.  

Because this particular PDB has a horizontal XT60 outlet I'm facing it rearward, it's going to help in keeping battery leads out of the props, and thanks to the clean stack design it's still fairly easy to plug/unplug.  Battery can be up top (normal designed location I believe) or underslung with basically zero effort to switch around.

Unfortunately the F/C is going to be rotated 90 degrees to allow easy access to the USB and SD slot, but it's not the end of the world.  

I left the motors sitting on my office desk so can't be 100% sure but it does seem like their leads will be too short to direct solder to the ESC, so there will need to be joins.  Overall I'm very happy that for the most part everything will fit neatly and really I can't see why it won't be my neatest build to-date.

Coming along really great Aaron! I am enjoying watching your progress on this because of how much this video influence me in my build.

If you stuck with the ESCs in the video you'll be fine on motor wires since you can just splice to the existing wires... It's one thing I actually sort of which I had done... I went with the ones with the pads thinking "it'll be cleaner" but instead I ended up cutting 1.5-2 inch wires to bridge the gap leading to addition potential points of failure.

The rotation of the FC on mine was determined by the connector to the ESCs. When I lined mine up with the frame so that the motors were in the right order and my FC connector lined up with the ESC connector I had 180 degree rotation. Luckily this was the easiest thing to correct in betaflight.

I kind of like the XT60 connector but it seems like it's taking up valuable space in the frame, although I think your frame has the space to handle it though.

Coming together nicely! I like what you did with horizontal xt60

This is a neat project you've got going on. When I skimmed the original video, it was clear that the quad was built to a price. The camera he chose for the budget build is a joke. It's a decent enough camera, but it has no place in a full size quad.

I'm excited to see how you end up, and the final tally of everything. I love bargain hunting, too. My second quad was built out of the cheapest stuff I could find at the time; 5 dollar motors, 3 dollar escs, etc. . . This was before all the racerstar stuff existed, so it was crazy cheap at the time.

A word of advice, though. If you haven't already bought the goggles, I would advise against the VR007. They are fine goggles for slow, open air flying. But if you ever want to fly around anything, that's where they fall short. The resolution is too low to see fine details. You can't see any branches or sticks or wires with them. It really shakes my confidence to fly like that (I have the VR008).

Instead, go for the EV800, they're only $55 right now - https://www.banggood.com/Eachine-EV800-5...53357.html?

It's only 10 dollars more, but I think it's a worthwhile place to spend your money. The goggles are more critical than anything else, they have to be comfortable and you have to completely rely on them. If you can budget even more, the updated version has a DVR and Diversity for $85 right now - https://www.banggood.com/Eachine-EV800D-...50119.html?

really does surprise me at the performance you can get for your money..

I'm temped to recommend a build like this to my friend but worried if once he gets hooked he will regret it and will wish he had just built a full spec quad to begin with..

same with high and end low end budget goggles/transmitter..

(17-May-2017, 10:00 PM)ZERONEST Wrote: really does surprise me at the performance you can get for your money..

I'm temped to recommend a build like this to my friend but worried if once he gets hooked he will regret it and will wish he had just built a full spec quad to begin with..

same with high and end low end budget goggles/transmitter..

You just have to find out his wants and needs. After that he will get board or the obsession will take over. His problem after that

(17-May-2017, 10:00 PM)ZERONEST Wrote: really does surprise me at the performance you can get for your money..

I'm temped to recommend a build like this to my friend but worried if once he gets hooked he will regret it and will wish he had just built a full spec quad to begin with..

same with high and end low end budget goggles/transmitter..

I doubt he'd regret it. There's nothing wrong with having a cheap quad to bash around. I fly my cheap quad more often than my fancy one since I don't have much attachment to it.

With the parts that have been turning up I'm pretty happy to recommend it as the basis of a beginner or first build. Nothing has been badly made or looking like it'd pose trouble with assembly - ie it will go together like it does in the original video easy enough.

I definitely don't regret paying up my extra tweaks as it seems like the extra USD14 is nothing compared to the total spent with goggles and batteries included.

As for arrivals, Props, FPV Camera and ESC have arrived. Just radio RX to go.

The ESC, FC, PDB and (when it arrives) receiver are all going into the central control stack, and since the camera and props arrived I decided to do a little more dry-fit testing.

               

So far it's looking like ESC to the "bottom", then the PDB, FC and RX on the top.  FC is rotated 90' for access to the USB and uSD.  

The motor wires will need extending to the ESC, but because I want to use braid over the wires I've de-shrinked the ESC.  I've aligned the "input" connector of the ESC with the PWM outputs of the FC and will do a direct solder at the F/C.  Likewise the receiver will come with onboard connectors so the looms will be cut down and soldered direct to the F/C.  Once again it will make almost everything removeable as individual parts.

The power wires for the Cam and VTX will be soldered direct as part of a custom FPV loom with the video/ground pair being a direct un-cut run.  

On the underside instead of stick-on feet or using alloy spacers I've used a set of feet mounted via the motor mount screws.  I tend to fly where theres either grass, dirt or concrete so the undersides take a pounding without solid feet.

Should be quite a robust build to fly with everything mounted inside the frame.

Looking good Aaron!

Coming together very well. nice and clean

With my brain still hurting from yesterdays escapade with the Trifecta I thought Id do something meaningful this morning and start building my "stack".  I have got some very "set" ideas about neatness with this build because I really thought old mate "Stew" at UAVFutures built the sloppiest looking editions he could.

I'm not Stew.

As I've already pointed out I have done the dry fitting of the stack, I know in what order and rotation I want my parts, right down to the spacers and screws. The other thing is that while I really like direct soldering the entire build needs to be able to be opened up for maintenance and repair without requiring complete re-engineering.

So I started to make it reality.

The PDB
                     

As you can see the PDB I'm using has a lay flat XT-60 input.  In my plans this works great as it will be aligned inside the frame pointing to the rear of the quad.  You can also see the pins of the XT-60 don't protrude below the PCB.  This makes soldering an interesting affair.  First I soldered the two small mounting lugs.  These were filled flush with solder at high temperature.  

Once the XT-60 was held in place by these I started adding heat to the main connectors.  I'm not going to lie, the iron was turned right up, and the tip laid flat across the pads and the end of the terminals.  Using fine solder I started to fill in around the tip first letting the solder flow around until flush.  Then very carefully repeat again.  

It took a lot of heat because the Matek PDB has great heat sinking ability, but in the end I'm pretty happy with the flush finish.

PDB to ESC and FC
               

Seems pretty easy doesn't it.  For a start I've chosen to align the ESC so that the power input is to the front of the frame, the ESC motor Outputs therefore also are all in-line with the frame and the PWM input connector is on the side.  
The FC alignment puts the motor outputs above the ESC input connector, and the PDB resides in the middle of the sandwich.  So first I connected the main Input power between the ESC and the PDB.  These are arranged in a generous turn and go out to the corners of the PDB.  It leaves the wiring paths very clear and with the heavier gauge wire allows for a lot of flex during the build and maintenance.

As with my Tricopter build I am trying to use minimal above FC wiring.  So I have picked up the 5v & GND to power the FC from pads on the PDB using a simple paired cable.  (red/black) 

I then used a Silicone jacketed yellow wire to pass the current sensor output up to the flight controller.  The PDB has neat pads for the VCC (Battery) voltage and Current Sensor outputs.  I made a twisted pairing of silicone jacket wire (white/black) to carry the battery voltage to the FC Battery voltage input.  In all cases the lengths are enough to allow movement and operation, the two boards "opening" up at 90 degrees just fine.  When mounted together though all the wires remain trapped between the boards.  As I'm not expecting to use LEDs or any other "fancy" features on this build that's about the extent of the wiring except for the receiver input and the motor outputs.

Motor Outputs, ESC Inputs and Mistakes!
                     

By now the keen eyed will have seen my mistake, but I'll start from the top.

The Racerstar ESC came with a really nice silicone wire harness with JST connector which I promptly cut up to a shorter length.  They'd be soldered direct to the FC - coming from the underside of the board instead of the top.  Once again that's me trying to make things "neat".  In reality this only needs to be long enough to let the connector be plugged in and removed from the ESC without overly straining anything.

To avoid rework I grabbed the motor layout for Cleanflight, the Racerstar connector diagrams and mapped the colours between them.  This is a great example of why you see me doing builds on an open notebook or paper.  Plenty of space to scribble notes or draw a circle and label parts sitting within etc.

Those with keen eyes will see where somehow I had a transposition of wires.  Easy fix, just slip the inserts out of the JST connector and swap.  Likewise if the motor layout doesn't end up working as expected that's going to be how I address correcting it.

Finally the whole bundle is gently twisted up and plugged in.  When twisting Im very mindful of not torquing inserts out of the connector or introducing breakages in the wiring at the board.

Stacko Finito

               

With the stack reassembled a bit (using temporary stand-offs on the bottom) you can see the "naked quad" layout that is comping together.  The next step in the plan will be great the harness to link the FPV Camera, 5v for a HD Cam, 12v for the VTX and the video link between the Cam and VTX.  I really want that to be set up pretty much in one piece with a small interconnect to the PDB.

Very clean indeed! really looking good so far...

Looking good Mr. A!

I can't help wondering about the logical disconnect with these 4-in-1 ESCs though...

The RacerStar 4-in-1 you are using is described as being able to deliver 20A constant and 25A burst per motor. So in theory, it's capable of pulling 80A constant current, yet the power wires are 18AWG - which is rated for 22A, maybe 45A burst. Then we have the PDB which is rated for 25A constant, 30A burst per ESC connection.

So, even though the components should, in theory, be able to handle 80A constant current, only connecting the 4-in-1 to one set of ESC pads would exceed the rated load for those pads by nearly three times. The fact that this would also exceed the current rating of the 4-in-1's power wires by nearly four times tells me that this configuration would never be able to pull anything over about 40A as a constant load.

I've not seen a 4-in-1 ESC yet which has power wires that are even close to supporting what the device might actually draw. If there was such a thing, it would have power wires which are at least 14AWG, backed up by PCB traces to match.