My second quad I ever build suffered a terrible crash and I never bother to repair it.  It was an Emax Nighthawk X5.  It was poorly designed.  For those newbies looking for a frame, take my advice, don't buy a frame that uses a PCB for structural support.  I am calling this one the Frankenstein Quad because I am bring a once dead quad back to life.




I scrapped the frame and harvested the parts for my third build. The frame just sat in my broken pile for over a year.  One day, I was looking at it and notice the arms and bottom plate are still good.  I thought that if can find another center plate, I could build me a new quad with parts I had laying around.  At first, I thought I would cut the arm section from my broken Chameleon frame and use two piece as my center plate to sandwich the arms with the bottom plate.




Instead, I found someone on ebay that was selling the same frame kit for $15.  This frame has been discontinued for good reason.



So the only thing I needed from the kit was the bottom plate.  Which I used to sandwich the arms together.  Now I have a true X-frame and I just need to build my stack tower with long screw.

Parts list:

FC: JB F4
Motor: FVPModel Hurricane Dragonfly 2207 2500KV
ESC: X-racer Quandrant 35A BLHeli32
Camera: Foxeer Arrow Mini
VTX: Lumenier Stackable VTX 25, 200, 500mW
RX: R-XSR flashed with F.Port
Antenna: DIY Pagoda-2 Stubby
40mm M3 screw for stack






ESCs soldered together.  I used four nylon standoffs and mounted all the ESCs to solder them together.  You will need to sands the rough side of the PCB for a better fit.  Even though I sanded up to the components, all the ESCs did not perfectly fitted together.  Although all the ESCs are soldered together, I could not make them perfectly flat.  So, these ESCs mounting hole is connected to ground.  I used 40mm metal screw for the stack and tower.  I didn't know weather grounding ESCs to the carbon frame was ok or not.



http://intofpv.com/t-ground-esc-to-carbon-fiber

There was not a consensus on the grounding issue.  In the end, I did not want to take the risk of grounding the frame.  So, I widen the mounting holes from 3mm to 4mm and used soft mount grommets.

Grounded mounting


ESC before altered mounting holes


ESC after modification of mounting holes


ESCs mounted with grommets and wiring my FC to ESCs so I can get current sensor.  Alternatively, I could have just used ESC telemetry to get current sensor.



The FC mounted and wires for signal ran.  XT60 pigtail and capacitor soldered on.  Motors wires soldered to ESCs.


Beeper, VTX, camera and RX wired.  RX flashed to F. Port.  Camera wired for OSD camera control but I for the life of me can't get it to work.  JB FC already has a resistor.  But for the Foxeer Mini Arrow, you need an additional cap.  The only SMD cap I have is 4.7uF.  Tried it, but no go.  I could not bother to try different value cap.




Dry weight of 318 g (not as light as I thought)


AUW 490 g with 1300 mah 4S 75C pack

Great write-up!

It's alive!! Great write-up, I think it's important that we post these threads to show those new to the hobby that building their own quad isn't near as complicated as it seems, and to give them ideas on how they want to proceed with their own builds

I learned from others when I first started. Just trying to give back. I am really excited to fly this thing. I used to love flying an X-tower. Since it broke, I never got anything to replace it.

Nicely done!
Only thing I think you're missing... the diabolical mad scientist laugh

What about a "Bride of Frankenstein"?

I took it out for a maiden flight today. It took me a few packs to get used to the snappiness of the flight characteristics. Some PID tuning to reduce the looseness. Some Propwash on hard 180 turns but that was easily tuned out. I was using BF 3.3 with activation of the BQRC+FIR2 filter and all notch filter removed. It flew very nice. Also, I am trying the Gemfan Hulkie props. Worth a try. I should get a YouTube account one of these days.

(06-Apr-2018, 12:20 AM)RENOV8R Wrote: What about a "Bride of Frankenstein"?

Unfortunately, I don't have another broken quad to resurrect. So the Bride just has to wait.

(06-Apr-2018, 12:59 AM)voodoo614 Wrote:  I should get a YouTube account one of these days.

Damn right you should!!

If you already have a G-mail or other Google account, you can just "join" and sign in with google.

You'll get a sub from me for sure if you do Voodoo

(06-Apr-2018, 08:22 PM)sloscotty Wrote: If you already have a G-mail or other Google account, you can just "join" and sign in with google.

Yeah, I know. I am just hesitant because I will end up spending more time editing and messing with video. As is, I don't have much time for flying.

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(06-Apr-2018, 09:46 PM)Drone0fPrey Wrote: You'll get a sub from me for sure if you do Voodoo

Thanks for your support.

BTW, the budget Hurricane Dragonfly motors are so smooth. Plenty of power. I think they are great for those that don't want to spend $25 a motor but want the same performance. The question remains, whether they will hold up over time.

If they are any relation to the MC1105's...they should hold up really well! I have hundreds of flights on the ones installed on The Bug and they are still flying perfectly. I look forward to hearing your experience with these!

Please do a Youtube account, we all want to see your flying and flight videos from your new quad
I've been flying those Dragonfly motors too and can confirm they have tons of power and really snappy, I have to put my rates down a fair bit to match the feel I have from the previous setup