Build H8 board on 'wisp' frame

[Tom BD Bad]

Doubt this actually qualifies as a build but anyway..!

So I bought 3 H8 mini's from BG which I got beginning of Dec (and 7 E010's (Inductrix clone) which have been in the country for 6 weeks though have yet to arrive at my door!) and just yesterday received the brushless micro bundle from Oscars 'house moving giveaway' (Massive thanks, again Oscar!) which included the wisp frame, and some 8x15mm motors with props, among some other cool bits...

So it has taken me less than a month to bust all the spare props that came with the H8's so thought I would try to get something in the air with the bits I have to hand, also to try my hand at soldering on such a tiny scale, for the 1st time...

So 1st things 1st, I am not going to have an easy time of connecting the battery to the connector attached to the board, so de-solder that... Only to find out that the connector is glued onto the board, so ripped it to shreds trying to take it off! Successfully managed to solder the wired connector on, the wire is probably a bit long but anyway...
   
Successfully de-soldered the old motors and soldered the new 8x15mm ones on, again long wires but anyway...
   
A few blobs of hot glue on the frame, under the board to, keep it from shorting through the carbon fiber...
   
Rubber band to hold the (Aliexpress cheapass special (Despite warnings from experienced heads)) batteries in place...
   
A touch of electrical tape to stop the motors from sliding out of the grommets and here is the finished article...
   

This is not a perfect flier by any means, I don't think that the board is properly level or straight for that matter! The props are a touch too long and so the front and back touch, I have pushed the motors all the way down at the front and left the back protruding slightly so the back blades pass over the front, (not sure if this might be causing some stability issues?) I think that the gyro on the H8 board is not equipped for dealing with so much extra thrust so any aggressive maneuvers get over corrected which lend to a very unstable craft. Sharp turns often end up with the quad inverting itself through over correction, and the tiny batteries I have go off very quickly with the larger motors, also looks like I should have taken the advice about NOT buying cheap batteries, voltage sag seems to be a real problem...

Mrs Thriftyass took some video clips but she is not a particularly talented videographer, so I have to take some time editing my 'maiden battery'

[Tom BD Bad]

I just tried some smaller 3 blade props and they make it much more stable, actually behaves like an H8 is supposed to now! After this change I had another theory as to why the balance was so bad with the bigger props, weight. I think the bigger props weigh quite a lot more than the others and inertia keeps them rotating faster than the smaller ones and it takes longer for the motors to get them spinning faster, thus the corrections being made by the gyro take a split second longer to affect the craft adding to instability..?

Still, I think that the QR Ladybird props are likely the way to go, the 3 blade props are too small and the high RPM seem to flatten the batteries very quickly, the big ones are more efficient but require more torque and make the motors very warm, I'm guessing the ladybirds should be somewhere in between?

[CesiumSalami]

SWEET!! nice work!

Yeah. I've used those props! They kinda turn quads like this into a drunk mess - you really have to change the PIDs to get them to work. And you will certainly toast those motors fast with the big props. I'm pretty sure those props are for a micro brushless setup.  You could cut them down but that's a lot of work  but prop overlap will cause major problems :/ 

The lady birds are perfect for that setup. The biggest prop I'd use are the 65mm gemfans (or 65mm king kongs). They do add some pep .. but honestly ... the ladybird are really nice.

8mm motors will draw a decent amount of power.  I run mine mostly on 500 or 750mah batteries. When I did fly on 260s the battery got crazy hot ... probably would've hurt the battery overtime....

Also, the one draw back of the ladybirds is described in the video below.  I never really bothered with this ... but I did blow out one motor this was when I was flying in my house (and another when I pushed one of the lady bird props on too hard and popped the bottom off) ::derp::

[Tom BD Bad]

Yeah. I've used those props! They kinda turn quads like this into a drunk mess - you really have to change the PIDs to get them to work. And you will certainly toast those motors fast with the big props. I'm pretty sure those props are for a micro brushless setup.  You could cut them down but that's a lot of work  but prop overlap will cause major problems :/

I did trim them down a little, Im lazy and just sanded 2mm off, so not that much work! still a drunk mess, but hey everyone is a drunk mess,  IT'S CHRIIISTMAAAS!

The 8mm motors came with the props from BG (IF Oscar is to be believed !) sadly BG are not to be believed as they advertised 8x20mm's and delivered 8x15mm's with these 75mm props. I guess the missing 5mm from the motors might account for them getting so warm?

So thought I would try to hack the setup onto the whoopee to give it a shot, after trimming the props down further...

   

Just in case anyone else is infected with my particular brand of madness don't try to get an H8 board onto Oscars amazing frame, it really doesn't fit, I am bloody minded however and refused to allow this  to dissuade me!

I trimmed the props before moving the setup from the wisp to the whoopee, even with the blades shortened to 55ish-mm(!) they were still making the wisp very twitchy but now it was struggling even to get off the ground. Once fitted to the whoopee they were quite capable of getting it in the air even though the setup was about a gram heavier all up. The ducts on the whoopee very much calmed the drunken-ness of the props and definitely focussed airflow providing increased lift, even with the H8 still in low rates it felt like the pitch and roll was similar to the high rate setting but without the ridiculous yaw..! I was celebrating with a 'whoopee!' until I went to change the battery and saw that the motors were at slightly odd angles, they got so hot they melted the housings and the support spars slightly, I hadn't thought the heat would be this extreme, damn (and other expletives!) I managed to 'straighten' it all up a bit before the motors cooled while the PLA was still pliable, but it wasn't till it was cool that I noticed this -

   

Wobbly wisp video, just for laughs. Please excuse Mrs Thriftyass' foul mouth, she lived with me in London for 7 years!

[CesiumSalami]

Lololo crushing it with those wobbly props!
Those props are so nice and quiet! The lady birds are like a swarm of bees.

[Tom BD Bad]

The lady birds are like a swarm of bees.

Lol!

[Oscar]

Haha yea the biggest problem with 3D printed frame is getting melted by hot components..

[Tom BD Bad]

Just got the ladybirds props and the RacerStar 8.5x20mm onto the H8 board with the wisp frame, not so wobbly anymore!
Feels very locked in and very punchy, and very quiet too, no angry swarm of bees round my ladybirds! More info and full comparison review to come soon, just got to quickly build a house..! Casa del Thriftyass also coming soon!