Hello and welcome to my build. 

Okay not a real death machine, I just saw LemonyLeprosy call it that and thought it was hilarious.

I realized I wouldn't scratch a certain itch until I built a quad form the ground up. In order, I've flown: the DRL simulator, then the E-MAX TinyhawkIII, and finally the Cinebot30 before taking this on but still feel the need for more. 
I did a little searching around on IntoFPV along with Oscar's site and made decisions based on what I found so hopefully I'm doing this right.

Here's the materials I'm using, all RDQ links, no affiliation (though I'm totally down to be lol), but I prefer them as they're close to home and they've been nothing but good to me with 3D printing, veteran discounts, and ultra fast shipping.

FlyFishRC Volador II VX5 O3 5" Freestyle Frame - This was honestly a toss-up between True X and Deadcat but reviews said they performed similar and I'm sure there's a deadcat long range in my future 

SpeedyBee F405 V3 BLS 3-6S 30x30 Stack/Combo (F405 FC / 8Bit 50A 4in1 ESC) - I wanted something cheap to start with in case I fried it. Oscar said "Cheapest worth having"

iFlight Xing2 2306 1755Kv Motor - Seems popular for 5" builds and Oscar said it's "tried and true". No gambles on the first build lol

RadioMaster RP3 2.4GHz ELRS Diversity Receiver - Should pair well with my Radiomaster Boxer Tx w/ ELRS

Gemfan Hurricane 51477 Tri-Blade 5" Prop - They fit, and I don't know a lot about blades yet so I bought a ton of these.

DJI O3 Air unit because the video is just unreal for me going from analog to O3 on the Cinebot30

Debating adding GPS since I'll have long range hardware everywhere else. If I do it'll be this: TBS M8.2 GPS Glonass because I bought it and never used it on my Cinebot30. (surprisingly not sold at RDQ)

NOTE: I'm awful at taking pictures when I'm focused on something and I'm starting this thread half through the build.

Finished the build of most of the frame by following this video:
   

The kid knows his stuff. Then just tossed the motors on, pretty straight forward.




After that I started on the ESC, then tossed the capacitor and battery leads on. Had to search a bit to figure out that the negative terminal sucks a lot of heat and makes soldering more difficult. Used blue tack to hold the capacitor in place and wrapped both that and the battery joints in electrical tape just as a precautionary step since the DJI JST basically touches both when the FC is put on.

I tested all the ESCs to the battery leads for continuity since I'm doing the same on the side with my Cinebot repair (thanks again Lemony I really owe you one)

Flight controller installed. Then I flashed Betaflight, and switched the ESCs to Bluejay as it seems to be recommended more? But I don't really know why so if anyone wants to explain please do!

Plugged back into Betaflight and connected a battery to test motors and everything is spinning the right way! Great success.

Tomorrow I'll attach my ELRS receiver and find a home for that, then I'm just waiting on my new O3 unit.

Looking good! We’re definitely gonna need video of the maiden flight of your death machine.

That’s gonna be a massive increase in power from your Cinebot. It should be quite fun.

Good start that is a beefy frame and I like what they did for the xt60 wires.

I must need to try this 51477 prop, I keep seeing it brought up over and over lately. I ended up with so many 51433 a while back but I'm starting to see the bottom of the pile.

Quite the beefy frame indeed. In fact I'm kind of worried about the day I break one of the arms as it'll be a tough replacement. But the reviews rave about how strong and robust it is so hopefully that holds true.

In regards to the props... check out this video on Reddit. I'm beginning to wonder I maybe I would like the 51433 more as I tend to prefer a little more float. Seems like the 51477 is snappier based on that race footage. I am by no means a racing flyer lol.

Yeah snappier isn't really an adjective that I want my quad to necessarily have more of. Now I'm recalling Bardwell bringing up that Gemfan really screwed up with their naming convention and 51477 is a prop that a lot of the resale sites are listing incorrectly as a 4.7" pitch prop.

But in reality per Gemfan's site:
51433 = 3.5"
51466 = 3.6"
51477 = 3.7"

But if you go look those up on GetFPV or some other sites you'll get some incorrect specs. But even in FPV we can't always rely on the manufacturer to have good info either.

I have the deadcat version of the same frame. It's an absolute tank from a durability perspective but also probably one of the heaviest 5" quads you can end up building (see another post HERE) so just go careful with it around people and properties. I see no reason not to put a GPS module on a 5" quad these days for a few extra grams of additional weight even if it's a close proximity basher. Even if you don't use GPS Rescue for a failsafe, as long as you have the GPS co-ordinates in your OSD and/or you log them to your transmitter it can make finding your quad easier if it goes down. I think of it as an additional insurance policy. The TPU mount already comes with the quad so you may as well just fill it with a module

Ooh! It's aggressive! I like it!

Nice! Full send it!!!!!

(30-Jun-2023, 01:56 AM)skamtastik Wrote: Then I flashed Betaflight, and switched the ESCs to Bluejay as it seems to be recommended more? But I don't really know why so if anyone wants to explain please do!

The subject is better discussed by Oscar but in short… it brings bi-directional d-shot to 8bit esc’s. The reason bi-directional is great to have, is it allows you to enable rpm filtering in betaflight, and disable low pass gyro filters for better propwash performance.

Nice build btw!

Bad luck with U.FL connectors...
One of the U.FL connectors was accidentally ripped off when I was trying to find the right position for the ERLS Receiver. It was the circular piece that attaches to the board so I'm going to run that with just a single antenna now.

I also managed to rip the DJI O3 antenna U.FL connector off the wire. I tried seeing if I could figure out how it gets back into the connector and crimp it but I was not able to. I couldn't find anywhere online that said if it's okay to run O3 with one U.FL, so I ordered the FlyFish 145mm replacement antenna. Longer range and almost guaranteed I'll tear it up in a crash lol.

I also decided I have no idea how anyone could add GPS this unless I run the wire along the side of the air unit which I think is a little sketchy. Might add it in the future but for now I'm just looking to get it in the air.

Receiver and new O3 antenna installed. On to the software side of things!

Here's how she looks at the moment. Last pic before full assembly

Software notes: 

Noticed that UART2 was already activated and remembered something from the SpeedyBee F405 manual that says "it is necessary to disconnect the SBUS wire from the Air Unit or connect the external receiver to the Rx3 pad on the UART3 port." So I pulled the yellow wire from the JST as I already had the receiver on UART2 and I'm not moving it.

Ran through the ELRS configurator and didn't have any issues following along cookbook style flashed the receiver and bound no problem.

Onto Modes:  
Setting a pre-arm on this build since I don't want the death blades attacking me if I accidentally flip the Arm switch when retrieving. The Boxer has the perfect button for this. Basically L1 on a video game controller.
I don't exactly trust turtle mode after frying some motors on my Cinebot30... but that was also my fault for running the wrong battery so I'm going to activate that as well.

After that I set the SupaFly 5" freestyle preset with Medium/Smooth freestyle rates.

Updated O3 unit using the DJI Assistant, interestingly I had to activate the unit before being able to use it... this was not the case for the BNF Cinebot30.

Couldn't get the OSD again in my V2 goggles - same issue I had with the Cinebot30. But a little different. I'm going to try to write this to make it as searchable as possible: The SpeedyBee F405 V3 stack with DJI O3 Air unit needs to enable UART1 and then do the canvas mode setting in Betaflight CLI. Which assigns displayport_msp_serial = 0. Search my other threads for more on that. 

Finally putting the finishing touches on!

We’re not going to talk about how many times I’ve had my radio bounce off of my stomach, turn, and arm a quad while I was holding it. I should probably set up prearm as well…

OH SHE CHONKY!

Chonky Death Machine weighing in at 666 grams is the epitome of this build for me. How fitting.

Maiden flight planned for 4th of July.