Airmode is pretty important if you want to have any control at zero throttle.

(23-Mar-2023, 02:57 AM)mstc Wrote: I did take my Walksnail out for a stroll in a large field where I was testing RTH on some analog setups. Boy when the VTX signal degrades, you get some really trippy smeary image. This was probably only 200m out, but maybe with some hill blockage. 100mw analog had a lot of static in the same spots, but was somewhat flyable. WS's trippy smeary image not so much, looks like I will mat need some better antennas after all.

This is one of the slightly disappointing things with the Walksnail Avatar 1S VTX. The range appears to be generally quite poor for some reason. It seems best suited to flying within close proximity to the pilot. The crappy antennas they supply certainly don't help so an upgrade might yield some slightly better results. Out of interest, were you running it on 350mW?

No good point, it was only set to 200mw. Also this setup has the XT30 next to the antenna so it is partially blocked, and already had the worst reception of the three around the house. But I guess I was kind of hoping that mw for mw, WS would provide similar range as analog, but guess that is a wrong expectation.

Another thing to note is that 50Mbps mode on the Walksnail Avatar HD gear seems to work no better than 25Mbps (in fact the bitrate ends up being much more erratic in 50Mbps mode) but it eats up twice the bandwidth, so you might get better results by switching to 25Mbps. That's assuming of course that you have been running it in the 50Mbps mode.

(06-Mar-2023, 04:14 AM)mstc Wrote: Nice, do you have the non-lite version, the camera looks a little different, but guess it is just the case. It seems I would need to push forward the camera quite a lot. How do you like the 1102 motors? And how do you find the range of the VTX, have you flown it out far?

I couldn't find the USB cable, so this is the DVR footage from the VRX. This was the second flight, flying with 850 battery in calm conditions.

LOL!  I'm skimming through this thread, I like your gazebo You should power loop it !
Going to read it in detail now.
I get "Zoinks, you've taken a wrong turn" when trying to view your pics (?)

(27-Mar-2023, 10:36 PM)QuadFlyer68 Wrote: LOL!  I'm skimming through this thread, I like your gazebo You should power loop it !
Going to read it in detail now.
I get "Zoinks, you've taken a wrong turn" when trying to view your pics (?)

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't end up well. Maybe when the ground dries up, I'll give it a try with the whoop.
Not sure what's up with that message, I am guessing its an imgur server issue, I sometimes see that too.

I was not very happy with the way the 3" setup flew, so I mostly flew the 2.5" and this stayed on the shelf. I was ready to take the WS off this build and try something else, but thought I would give it one last spin now that I got my goggles situation sorted out. I don't know what I thought was wrong, these 1202.5 motors fly great, smooth, good power for this setup, and ridiculous flight time. Maybe because it was windy last time I tested it?

12 minutes of gorgeous HD cruising on a brand new 2S 650 mah battery, and landing at 3.7v per cell!!! That has to be crazy flight times considering the power hungry VTX was on full power. I think I need to eat my words about the 1103s being better with the 3" biblades. Also this build using the stock dipole has much better reception than the 2.5" which has a larger vista antenna, but maybe 2.5" top mount battery is blocking the signal. Not great on propwash handling, but agile, punchy, and smooth otherwise. My new favorite cruiser, I should probably cut off the extra top battery holder.

Despite having built out a fleet of micros, there are always a few that become the favorites, go-to, or ones that would put you in a very dark place if somehow you lost or destroyed it. Well the 3" cruiser is one of those setups for me, so I decided to clone it (mostly). Using a different AIO and slightly different motors, but the expectation is the same, a smooth flying, agile, long flight time, hassle-free, pocket-sized, 2S cruiser.

Parts list:
Betafpv HX115LR frame $13 (too bad its hard to find these in stock anymore)
Betafpv AT32 digital 1-2S 20A ELRS AIO $40 
Happymodel EX1202.5 8000kv motors $32
Walksnail 1S Lite VTX/cam $90
Gemfan 3018 Biblades $4

(not bad, a bit of savings compared to any digital BNF).

The AIO actually came off another build, where it froze after 10s of flight, and had all kinds of weird connection issues, but somehow seems to be working normally now, at least on the bench. We'll see... The onboard 5v BEC is actually rated with enough current to power the WS VTX from both 1S and 2S voltage.

The motors are slightly higher kv than the RCinpower ones I used in the first build, we'll see if that cuts into the flight times. Testing on the bench, 3 of the 4 motors were very smooth (you had to look carefully to be sure they were spinning), but one of the motors had noticable vibrations. Out of balance or bad bearing? Probably the latter, but hey lets try to balance it anyways. Printed some TPU rings with different offset weights, and rotated it around the motor until the vibrations improved. The lightest ring worked best, wasn't able to eliminate the vibrations, but it was reduced. Motor gets a skin/bumper as a bonus.



These motors come plugged, so no worries about soldering to tiny cramped motor pads. The AIO does have downward facing plugs though (from the previous setup). Side facing plugs would have made for a slimmer profile, but fortunately the HX115 frame is open on the bottom so running the motor wires back up from the bottom worked. As battery will be bottom mounted, it doesn't matter that the wires stick out..



All the TPU fitments got some light tweaking, but basically reusing the exact same layout as the previous build which has proven to be reilaible. This AIO has the single enamel wire RX antenna, we'll see how it performs or otherwise may need to solder on a better antenna.



And the clone is ready for maiden.

(03-Sep-2023, 10:57 PM)mstc Wrote: ...
Parts list:
Betafpv HX115LR frame $13 (too bad its hard to find these in stock anymore)
Betafpv AT32 digital 1-2S 20A ELRS AIO $40 
Happymodel EX1202.5 8000kv motors $32
Walksnail 1S Lite VTX/cam $90
Gemfan 3018 Biblades $4

(not bad, a bit of savings compared to any digital BNF).
...

Awesome build! 
fwiw, I ran across this scan of the HX115 that someone posted up at thingiverse:
HX115 fpv frame (he included editable step files)
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5441889/files
...that anyone could get cut at cncdrones.
In fact I was thinking of doing just that but decided to check measurements/motor spacing etc when I realized that it might be a good idea to beef it up just a tad (not much but would survive 2S/larger motors better). Was thinking add .5 to .7mm on outside edges and the same on the inner frame/arm holes. Imagine it wouldn't be much more than 2-3g more in added weight?... Anyway, parked the idea and forgot about it til I saw your build post here. Like I said, fwiw and could possibly be made/delivered before they come back in stock? I dunno... 

I am beyond confused how yours ended up lighter than mine. The motors are lighter and the frame is equally heavier, so they should be the same. Where the heck am I getting these 5 extra grams from? I can eliminate 2g in screws. Maybe another 1-2 if the WS heatspreader is removed. It boggles the mind...

Edit: I'm reading from the first page, and haven't followed the changes. Still getting less weight with more goodies added. There must be a ghost pushing down on the scale!

(04-Sep-2023, 03:07 AM)skywanderer Wrote: Awesome build! 
fwiw, I ran across this scan of the HX115 that someone posted up at thingiverse:
HX115 fpv frame (he included editable step files)
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5441889/files
...that anyone could get cut at cncdrones.
In fact I was thinking of doing just that but decided to check measurements/motor spacing etc when I realized that it might be a good idea to beef it up just a tad (not much but would survive 2S/larger motors better). Was thinking add .5 to .7mm on outside edges and the same on the inner frame/arm holes. Imagine it wouldn't be much more than 2-3g more in added weight?... Anyway, parked the idea and forgot about it til I saw your build post here. Like I said, fwiw and could possibly be made/delivered before they come back in stock? I dunno... 

Nice that is useful to have, I think the frame is already EOL and probably not coming back in stock. I haven't found anywhere that sells the tiny M1.6 standoffs, so likely the plates would have to be resized to fit M2 as well. Despite its fragile look, this frame has held up and with a 90g AUW, I imagine its going take a very extreme crash to break it. Probably not cheap to custom cut, so hopefully another manufacture decides to release a similar school bus ultralight 3" frame, but seems thats already gone out of fashion.

(04-Sep-2023, 07:47 AM)Suros Wrote: I am beyond confused how yours ended up lighter than mine. The motors are lighter and the frame is equally heavier, so they should be the same. Where the heck am I getting these 5 extra grams from? I can eliminate 2g in screws. Maybe another 1-2 if the WS heatspreader is removed. It boggles the mind...

Edit: I'm reading from the first page, and haven't followed the changes. Still getting less weight with more goodies added. There must be a ghost pushing down on the scale!

Is that your T-motor build? Well your motors are a fraction of a gram heavier, so x4 there's around 3g already (but sure they are nicer and will be more durable). Did you get your BEC sorted out, that will add an extra gram or two. And the WS heatsink adds around 1.5g, but I have that on my second build too, it seems all the 1S VTX now ship with it. But for a 2S 3", I wouldn't worry about a few extra grams. Do you like how your setup flies?

(04-Sep-2023, 03:06 PM)mstc Wrote: Nice that is useful to have, I think the frame is already EOL and probably not coming back in stock. I haven't found anywhere that sells the tiny M1.6 standoffs, so likely the plates would have to be resized to fit M2 as well. Despite its fragile look, this frame has held up and with a 90g AUW, I imagine its going take a very extreme crash to break it. Probably not cheap to custom cut, so hopefully another manufacture decides to release a similar school bus ultralight 3" frame, but seems thats already gone out of fashion.

Was thinking too that the easier to break m1.6 screws should be replaced with m2s. Also, slight Toothpickish motor protection nubs on the end of the arms. I'll see what can be done and post the file back here if anyone has interest? I have not sent them a file for a quote on this yet, but similar sized (they generally go by area of carbon consumed), and carbon type. T700 was not that much more, but size-wise I've had 2/5"-3" frames out of T300 done for <$20 easy.

Also, perhaps another somewhat harder to find motor may be a good fit here: "LDARC FPVRACER MISS 1203 6500KV", via aliexpress (I'm not that patient/hopeful/trusting) or amazon... Anyway, reasonably in the same ball park as your 1202.5s weight and kv.

(04-Sep-2023, 04:37 PM)skywanderer Wrote: Also, perhaps another somewhat harder to find motor may be a good fit here: "LDARC FPVRACER MISS 1203 6500KV", via aliexpress (I'm not that patient/hopeful/trusting) or amazon... Anyway, reasonably in the same ball park as your 1202.5s weight and kv.

Those look like interesting motors and the wires may be just long enough. I've had reasonably good experience with Aliexpress, can't beat those prices and you get a much bigger selection, but it does take some time to arrive.
I wonder how @Suros is liking his 1203 motors?

I haven’t heard the best of things about LDARC motors, if you order some you might want to make sure you order a couple spares.

Could well be, maybe not, don't know but maybe not high quality bearings? Some are not even in good enough spec to be helped by even Liberty Oil, or similar... you have a favorite erl?