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RotorX Atom 122 Rebuild
#1
The Atom 122 from RotorX was the third quad I ever built and was the quad where I finally 'got it' about flying line of sight.

My original build was based on the Naze32 rev 5 with the custom designed Genix PDB. This served me well for two seasons until one day the Pololu regulator failed as I was flying and brought my poor little Atom down from a significant height. As testimony to the quality of the Atom frame (which is cut by Armattan), the only things that broke in the crash were all the nylon parts that hold the stack and frame together. I was left with a dead quad though and it's been sitting there looking accusingly at me over the winter saying "Rebuild me!!".

Now I have and the goal was to slim the build down and cut as much weight as I could. New flight controllers and 4-in-1 ESCs based on the 20mm mounting pattern offered attractive weight savings, so that's the way I went. My first step was to print an adapter that would let me use the 30.5mm mounting holes in the frame with my new 20mm hardware and get the ESC mounted.

[Image: IMG_20170625_114951_zpss1zpuwap.jpg]

Mounting the XT30 connector directly to the ESC was a great idea to save weight and the power input tabs on the ESC matched perfectly.

[Image: IMG_20170625_114931_zps0kvtx4bz.jpg]

The ESC is the Cicada 10A 4-in-1. Plenty of power to drive my RCX 1105 4000kv motors.

While I was there, I sealed the edges of the frame with cyanoacrylate glue and painted them yellow with a paint pen. I know it won't last long, but it looks so nice before it gets messed up.

[Image: IMG_20170625_114922_zps8pcjrme2.jpg]

Then it was time to get the flight controller and all the associated peripherals attached, starting with some micro surgery to replace the stiff wires on the tiny little FPV camera with some nice flexy silicone ones...

[Image: IMG_20170625_132632_zps0o0541ie.jpg]

I went for the Eachine minicube flight controller as an F3 processor, 1A 5V BEC and Betaflight OSD was hard to resist. I added a tiny FD800 Frsky D8 receiver, a micro VTX03 video transmitter and a micro sized beeper.

[Image: IMG_20170625_142435_zpsqmwbkdfk.jpg]

Then is was time to get it all fitted into the frame! I used a 3D printed camera mount, along with a set of armour for the frame and a few 2mm wide tie wraps to hold the VTX onto the upper plate. There's a perfectly sized cut-out for the VTX's LED display in the top plate.

I'll take some better pictures of the final result when I have a bit more time, but the rebuild was completely worth the effort. I managed to slim the all up weight down from 144g to:

[Image: IMG_20170625_183343_zpsssx4x4qy.jpg]

I had a problem on the maiden flight with the motors desyncing on a punch out and then, after changing the BLHeli settings to better match the motors, I punched out and saw something fly off the quad as it hit about 30 metres up!! It turned out that I'd damaged one of the props on the first flight but didn't notice it. Once I'd changed the BLHeli settings, the motors were so powerful that what I saw fly off was one half of a propeller!

The resulting crash was painful to watch, but all it did was break the rest of the props and the nylon parts holding the upper plate on. At least this time the flight electronics didn't have to endure the stress of the crash.

So I put it all back together this morning and after the rain stopped went out again. Now I remember why I love this tiny little quad so much! I use Turnigy 450mA/h 65-130C 3S batteries with 3020 propellers and the handling is just amazing. There were strong winds when I was out and it was hard to fly with sudden jumps in height when the quad caught the wind but the Atom handled it with aplomb as always. The beeper was very handy when the wind blew me into a bed of bushes and nettles. Smile


After today's flight testing, I'll be taking off the plastic props and replacing them with my Maytech carbon fibre 3020 props. I've yet to quantify how much more thrust these tiny little CF props make, but I can feel the difference in power and handling quite clearly. They're far from cheap though and are the last thing I'll use for testing an unknown build as even though they're incredibly strong, they'll still break in a crash and most likely bend the tiny shaft in the motor at the same time.

[Image: IMG_20170626_200341_zpskb0ocgtl.jpg]

Shame this quad won't take an HD camera as it's going in my hand luggage on my trip to Greece!
[-] The following 4 users Like unseen's post:
  • Drone0fPrey, jimbo_wa, Oscar, sloscotty
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