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
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