The Bfpv Pavo Pico has options to mount the O3, Vista, or WS V2 VTX on a tiny 45mm prop pusher. It's a cute little drone, but a heavy 70g sub 2" carrying a $220 VTX doesn't really sound all that attractive. However the kit is sold without VTX, and the parts are kind of attractive and comes a little cheaper than the parts purchased separately. It comes with their new digital only F405 1-2S whoop AIO that has enough BEC to power the WS Lite VTX using the 5v pad on both 1S and 2S, comes with the new 1102-14000kv motors which seem to be quite efficient, plus you get a 2S 450 (non-hv) pack, props, dipole antenna, and a frame. I ordered the kit for the parts, thinking to put together something like a 2S version of the Meteor75 Pro WS, but the frame looked interesting enough to give it a try first.

The AIO comes wired with a VTX cable for the O3 that needs to be swapped out for the WS Lite (plus the lite runs on 5v instead of vbat).



The WS Lite annoyingly comes with a female SH1.0 connector, and the only mating male connector I can find is for smd. I have not seen any FC or adaptor that will work plug-n-play with the WS so not sure what they were thinking. Also they glue down the wires on the VTX so it is not easy to solder on a different connect unless splicing the wires.

I have resorted to soldering the SMD connectors into plugs to allow the VTX to be easily swapped, but sometimes its a real pain to do.



The frame is made for mounting the O3, and for the WS/Vista they've added a 20x20 carbon plate adapter, but the Lite VTX is 25x25 so a mount adapter is needed. Tried to make one with press fit tabs, but not well executed, two tabs snapped off and had to put in some screws.



VTX and camera mounted in its cage. The whole cage rests on 4 silicone gummies for clean/dirty separation. But with the low weight of the Lite VTX/camera, not sure if that really makes any difference unlike the heavier VTX/cams.



Weighs in at 46g, a little lighter than my 2S WS 85 whoop with larger 1103 motors.






Some thoughts on the setup:

- The AIO USB connector is recessed and not easy to reach. The AIO has 16M blackbox that would be nice for getting gyro data for gyroflow.

- The camera sticks out front without any protection, although props are out of view.

- The top of the cage is not all that sturdy, not a lot of protection for the VTX board, but certainly good cooling.

- The ducts seem to be molded from very stiff plastic, not sure if that will be good or bad for durability.

- The 1S Meteor 75 Pro WS weighs in at 10g less, essentially the same motors, just different kv, so thinking that lighter frame will fly much better.

- Board comes with a single enamel wire for the ELRS antenna, definitely not great for range but soldering on a T-antenna or at least a longer whip is possible.

That thing is adorable. Looking forward to hearing how it flies.

those jst-sh1.0 connectors must be a pain to solder well done looks great!

(11-Jun-2023, 12:33 PM)Oscar Wrote: those jst-sh1.0 connectors must be a pain to solder well done looks great!

Thanks, yeah I'd much rather buy some premade ones if they exist. I imagine though, if you can lay the four wires on the plug without them moving then a quick one pass swipe with the iron and lots of flux would work. Maybe strip the wires in the middle and hold down the two insulated ends around the plug?

The Pico flies alright, the motors are a little amp hungry, all packs came down very warm. The battery holder is stiff plastic and quite narrow, so I was not able to fit anything besides my 350mah packs and BFpv 450 pack. Not great flight times, only 2.5 min with the smaller pack and 3.5-4 with the larger pack. There is enough power, but definitely flies like a heavy quad, can't imagine flying it with an O3. Might try some biblades.

The camera mounting was not good though, the flimsy cage and TPU mount for the lite camera led to a lot of jello, tightening down the cage suspension improved it a little, but completely defeats the clean/dirty setup. The cage weight is too light with the lite VTX, if the battery could be mounted on it, that might work better, but it is too flimsy. Guess it was designed mainly for the O3 which gives the cage both its needed mass and rigidity. There is plenty of jello/stutters in the footage, I get much better results with just a simple TPU mount for the lite camera on other setups.

And the RX failsafed just a 100m away, although with some houses and tress in between it typically is a weak spot. It crashed down onto asphalt, but not a terrible hard crash and there was no damage so that was a good thing, although the camera image did temporarily go to black after the crash. Definitely need to change out that antenna.

Gyroflow worked well enough using the blackbox log, but as FC and camera are mounted separately you can see some shakes in the footage. This is the footage run through gf, and the failsafe at the end.



Probably moving everything over to a Meteor75 pro frame after soldering in a better antenna, but might just try a beefier TPU camera mount first.

ELRS? Weird failsafe given how far I've seen you fly in other videos. You could jack the rx power up to compensate for now. A couple hundred mW would probably do it.

Yes ELRS, but Betafpv likes to use the single enamel wire on all their new ELRS AIOs and they have terrible reception in my experience. On this setup there is a gap between FC and battery, that is where the antenna sticks out. I already saw LQ dip just nearby, but did not expect a failsafe especially not within 100m. My tx module maxes out at 250mw, always felt this was enough, but was just looking at the Radiomaster 1W module, seems they have a nice combo deal that includes 3 RXs (but too bad seems the nano module is not in stock).

(12-Jun-2023, 10:34 PM)mstc Wrote: Yes ELRS, but Betafpv likes to use the single enamel wire on all their new ELRS AIOs and they have terrible reception in my experience. On this setup there is a gap between FC and battery, that is where the antenna sticks out. I already saw LQ dip just nearby, but did not expect a failsafe especially not within 100m. My tx module maxes out at 250mw, always felt this was enough, but was just looking at the Radiomaster 1W module, seems they have a nice combo deal that includes 3 RXs (but too bad seems the nano module is not in stock).

shhh, pssst, shhh:

https://graysonhobby.com/radiomaster-ran...odule.html

Awesome build! Considering how challenging it is to build this peculair frame you did well to maintain access to the various ports.   Loved the video edit, I like the effects you did with the lens correction void and the lighting/soundtrack was serene. 

Thanks @ph2t. All those effects were done in Gyroflow itself. For the void filling, you can select this in the background setting under advanced - there is mirroring, copying the edges, or "margin with feather" which is what I used. For the lens distortion/zooming I varied that to show the difference with/without stabilization/correction - also done in GF using keyframes. On any setting just right click it to enable keyframes, and you can set different values at different points in the clip, just like your video editors. As GF allows you to change playback speed, guess you could do speed ramping too, but I haven't tried that.

cool, I will try those settings out mate, thank you!

@mstc Can you please share your 3D stl files?
I'm having the same struggle and your solution seems a good start.

Thx!

Hi sponge, I never managed to completely get rid of the jello. I think the cage is just too flimsy without the mass/rigidity of a bulky VTX. I thought of mounting the battery in the cage instead, and started to redesign a cage for that, but never got to testing it. I ended up moving the Pico guts to a Draknight 2" frame, and like it a lot there, and no issues with jello.
https://intofpv.com/t-draknight-2-walksn...=draknight

I apologize I am not very organized with my prints, however if you are familiar with Tinkercad (also very easy to learn) I have the various experimental prints I tried. You would have to sort through and see what you like and they may need some tweaking, but it will get you started. Just select the print you want and click the export button to get an .stl.
https://www.tinkercad.com/things/6dh0hAx...E1CiVBWz60
Edit: this should be the correct link

I added the blockier camera mounts thinking it would help keep the camera more stable, but it didn't seem to improve, I think it was the flex of the overall cage frame. It was fun to fly though, and jello was not so apparent in darker lights. Do post back if you have any success.

I just received a Pavo20 from the recent sales, also plan to put in a WS Lite and get rid of the cage...

Thx!
Very happy with the Tinkercad stuff.
My guess is you used the Tinkercad yellow cam holder, which you printed in purple, shown in the above photo.

Gonna ask my buddy, who has a 3D printer, to print a base and cam holder for me.
Also found this one which might be a solution for mounting the VTX.
https://www.printables.com/model/663061-...for-1s-vtx
Seems like an idea to use petg, except for the cam holder, that needs tpu because the camera locknut is a bit bulky.

I'll report back the final solution.

Yes, I think the orange one is the one in the photo. It is a little narrower to have the Pico frame pinch in, if you want it to match the O3's 20mm width you can stretch the model.
That VTX mount you found looks like it might work better and add more rigidity in PETG. Even for the cam holder, maybe it would be good to use a PETG/TPU combo. Something like a PETG frame for screwing to the cage, and a TPU sleeve to slip on the camera. I added a concept print (red/pink) if you wanted to try, but probably would need a few prints to get it right. The prints are for the Lite camera by the way, the version without mounting holes.

The orange one? That sure looks different.

This is the yellow one I think you used on the photo.

Which is 20mm wide like I also measure the frame to be.
So it will not stretch the frame as far as I can tell.

This one is a little smaller.

It's 16mm wide.
Which will pinch the frame a bit as you say.

Seems the yellow one would fit the best?

Problem I have is I can't print myself, have to ask a buddy which I don't want to give to much work on this...
(And yes, I also have the Lite camera without mounting holes.)