Hey guys. Hope the weather has been good for you and you have been beating some lipos . So, I'm going to be putting my quad together soon, just waiting for the frame. My first quad was the Eachine EC250, which I quickly added on fpv gear and have proceeded to thrash the hell out of it. Have totally rebuilt it a couple times and decided to start a new build.

The frame will be an Emax Nighthawk 200. I have looked at tons of frames and kept coming back to this one. Really like it. A local shop had a Chinese New Year sale so I grabbed some motors and esc's kinda impulsively. SunnySky 2207 2100kv and ZTW 20a spider pro's. 

When I bought these a month ago I didn't know really anything about motor sizes. Now I'm hoping it will put out like I hope. It will be a 4s build, (picked up 6 1800mah 40c Zippy's for $10.50 a piece!) so from the limited info I found on these motors I think a 5040 or even 5045bn should put me in the sweet spot. A 6" prop would be ideal, but obviously my frame won't allow and I think it will be too much for these esc's. AUW should be around 570g. 

I'll update once I get it together and share some pics. Big shout out to Oscar. I kept stumbling into your Blog when I was researching. Seemed like every question I came up with, you already had the answer. Get out of my head! 

Hey Bandook thanks for the shout out LOL
yea it's a shame that you can't run 6" on that motor, which it's kind of designed for.

But I am sure it will run well with 5045 or even 5045BN Check thrust data though make sure it's not too much for your ESC

Good news is, when you upgrade frames, you can consider 6" and 5"... more freedom!

Only thrust test I have seen for these motors is this one.


Here was the results.
4s fc6x4.5: 1076g 27a 411w 15.22v
4s hq5x4: 832g 15.8a 245w 15.55v
4s fc 5x4.5x3: 903g 23a 333w 15.16v

Looks pretty respectable for a 5x4 prop I think. I have a bunch of Kingkong 5040 props I'll start with. Should be fine with a 5040bn prop, it will just depend on flight times/efficiency for which ones I'll fly with most. I don't do a lot of full throttle runs, so I'm hoping the extra torque of the bigger motors will make things a little more fun flying around obstacles

She's in the air! Such a nice feeling to see my first build take flight. Sadly, just basement hovering for now, 50mph gusts outside . Sounds like an angry beast on 4s though. Maybe its just the bn props, they have a deeper tone.

Couple issues still need sorting out. I installed a openlog logger, and having issues. If I make the config file that Oscar said to make in the blog, it gets overwritten with a different one. And when looking at the log in the viewer its a bunch of points but no line graph.

And I can't figure out how to tune level mode. I've been flying acro but wanted to have horizon as an option for some LoS. On default PIDs it flies seemingly fine (in a basement). I changed to the values Boris recommended for mw23, and now have serious wobble in level mode. How the heck do you tune level mode? I've read that the CLI settings are proportional changes to what pid controller you are using. But I can't find any good info on how to tune level separate from across.

(03-Apr-2016, 12:39 AM)Bandook Wrote: If I make the config file that Oscar said to make in the blog, it gets overwritten with a different one. And when looking at the log in the viewer its a bunch of points but no line graph.

did you flash the Openlog firmware written for Blackbox? it sounds like it won't allow you to set higher baud rate thus you are missing data in the log
https://github.com/cleanflight/blackbox-firmware

as for level mode, you should only be tuning P gains i think that's how strong you want the self correct to be...

I thought the openlog had the firmware since I bought it from a recommended place. Must not have. So I flashed it...took it for a test...landed a little hard...SD card popped out...prop hit SD card which was still slightly in logger...logger went flying to pieces .

Sheesh. So I glued the pieces back up best I could, and I stuck a new card in. Now I get a config file that only has baud 250000, so it should be good. I tried to play a small log it made but it said something about the "file was paused" and can't play. Anyways, I'll mess around with it later.


I think I understand the level tuning more. But I think Boris has changed the way it is affected in mw23, as the CLI changes I make don't seem to work as they should-as suggested in the cleanflight wiki. I switched to lux and have much better level tune, might as well try lux out since Boris is focusing on it now, and since I finally have an f3 board. The way I understand it, lux doesn't use the "set level P =" values, but uses the proportional values in the GUI.

Edit: Boris just just told me he's gonna look into level modes on next patch. Understandable that acro is the main focus, its just nice to flip into level and play around LoS once in awhile. Also great for discharging a pack quickly when done flying.

   
And here is my buzzer/ led setup. I found these Matek combo boards and thought they looked pretty cool. Couldn't figure out a way to only mount 1 so I mounted both . Wired up both buzzers, not positive its the best idea, but I don't know how much current these use so I could be fine. Working OK for now.

That's good to know! yea i heard selflevel hasn't been working in the latest betaflight i forgot to ask you what FC firmware you are using...

oh well maybe time to disable ACC haha

Just wanted to update. I had my first real session yesterday and it was mind blowing! I love this quad. For the first time everything just worked. Seems like since I startednthis hobby every time I go out I'm chasing some gremlin that kills the experience. Its either been bad video reception, crappy camera image, bad tune etc etc. Or if everything is working, I get too daring and crash and break something on the first or second battery haha. Well, last night all the stars aligned. I flew 5 packs and had a blast. I've got a good tune and the latest bf is just locked in. Had a smile on my face for 2 hours afterwards. This is onlyy second quad, so not a lot to compare, but these motors have a load of torque. I can take it 200ft up, cut the throttle and fall (airmode) and snap the throttle just before I hit the ground and it responds instantly. Love it.

I know that feeling !!
After all the challenges it will only get better and easier ! Enjoy mate!

Just a little update...
   

Fly hard or go home is what I say. Sadly the pavilion was much harder than my 4mm frame.

Ahh that's a pity! It's a downside of the uni-body design.

Hopefully you will find a replacement main plate to save having to buy a whole new frame!!

Yup got one on the way. 34 bucks not terrible. But unfortunately I couldn't find the arm so I have to get an ESC and motor too. 60 dollar crash...ouch.

So, I knew my new bottom plate was gonna arrive today. But they didn't send me what I ordered (banggood). Instead of a bottom plate, I got the whole frame kit .    

So looks like I'll be packing up everything I don't need and shipping it back.... Ha. I'm sure they would tell me to keep it if I asked, so far I've been very impressed with their customer service. My first quad was an ec250 rtf. They advertised that it came with Emax motors. The ones I got were obvious clones. I simply asked them to replace 2 faulty ones...pointing out I knew they were fakes. Couple weeks later I received 4 genuine emax motors. They'll keep getting my money when I can't find something at my local shop.

(26-Apr-2016, 12:40 AM)Bandook Wrote: So, I knew my new bottom plate was gonna arrive today. But they didn't send me what I ordered (banggood). Instead of a bottom plate, I got the whole frame kit .

So looks like I'll be packing up everything I don't need and shipping it back.... Ha. I'm sure they would tell me to keep it if I asked, so far I've been very impressed with their customer service. My first quad was an ec250 rtf. They advertised that it came with Emax motors. The ones I got were obvious clones. I simply asked them to replace 2 faulty ones...pointing out I knew they were fakes. Couple weeks later I received 4 genuine emax motors. They'll keep getting my money when I can't find something at my local shop.

Banggood are great, the delivery time is also good from the China warehouse to the UK.