(16-Feb-2023, 12:12 AM)Pathfinder075 Wrote: Don't tell cst3x6 that, he just bought four of them from below.

I mean, to be fair- that is dirt cheap. I’d consider getting 8 for $20, and even if 4 broke, it’d still be a deal.

I'm looking at these 1106's, same company, just a bit more in price, but still under £10, in fact when I set currency to USD they are exactly $10. The downside is according to some YT vids, they are a bit power hungry.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003386013275.html

Or these random looking 1306's at $15 for 4, the design seems to be a generic one used across many manufacturers, roughly 3-4 years back.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003386013275.html

In fact, from what i can tell, all of these motors are basically 6 year old designs. The 1104's were made by Emax around 6 years ago (seen in a Nurk video) and the 1106 were possibly the Emax motors before the RS1106 (on a YT video from 4 years back someone talked about them being the same motors Emax used 3 years prior to the video). The 1306's are used on a couple of older drones.

But as you say, for the price, if they turn out to not be the best motors ever, you still have some cheap motors that you probably keep running by doing better maintenance on them, bearing grease or teflon lubricant, wd-40 from time to time to clean the crap out, etc.

That’s my kind of prices.

My only concern is that the bell design doesn’t seem like it would allow for any airflow over the coils for cooling- but that may not be as important as it seems in my head.

Honestly at those prices, i wouldn't be unhappy to take a pillar drill and poke some more holes in it. But on a serious note, the evidence suggest that the Emax RS1106 runs fairly hot and those 1108's I have aren't much better. So I would expect those two motors to get pretty hot as well.

One thing I didn't realise at the time, was that Emax RS motors are for racing (guessing it means Racing Spec or something similar). Still I finally found a YT vid of someone who actually used the ones I got, in a build and it seems to fly ok on his vid.

Those Emax rs1106 and rs1108 look like my kind of motor.

Apparently the RS1108 6000kv will run on 3S as well as 2S, although they are only rated as 2S compatible. For my usage case, it will be 2S only. I got mine for about $8 each from HobbyRC. They will end up on a 2" or 2.5" frame eventually, probably 2" though, i'm trying to keep the 2.5's for the 1202.5 builds.

From my experience, I think those 1108's would be better suited for 2.5" than the 1202.5's. 1108 should be able to spin *any* 2.5" prop regardless of pitch. 1202.5's might struggle with high pitch 2.5" props. If you're not going for all out power, 1202.5's will be fine on some lower pitch tri-blade 2.5" props.

I'm wrong often though, so, y'know. Grain of salt, your experience may vary, etc.

Okay! I really wanted to get this thing in the air for a proper flight during the 45 minutes of daylight flying time I have before the sun goes down, but, that didn't work out.

That crash on the maiden flight knocked my vtx antenna loose. Hopefully it didn't also overheat my vtx. I knew that damn antenna was going to be a problem.
It's lead was too short for me to do any kind of strain relief- and that's just bad form. I should know better. That little antenna is better suited for a vtx that includes a little nub right off of the u.fl jack so that you can put some heatshrink on it.

Anyhow, for now, I switched to a longer antenna that will allow me to heat shrink it to a zip tie. It's kinda ridiculously tall, but, I'm not expecting this canopy to last too long, and I'll sort out more suitable antenna when I get around to 3d printing a canopy.



The props I had on it got a bit jacked up from me arming upside down, so I've switched to Azure Power 2x3.5x3.
I know, I said I was gonna slowly step up in pitch. I lied.
I mean, come on, the back of the package on these Azure props says, "more than fast", and that's what I built this for, so, screw the baby steps.


I increased my camera angle a little bit.

I went back into the Quicksilver configurator and set turtle mode to "on"- this will make it automatically enable turtle mode when I arm upside down, so I can avoid properly arming upside down and chewing up my props.

I calibrated my voltage sensor (I think?). I still need to calibrate my current sensor- I'll do that after a couple flights if I remember to make a note of what my goggles are reporting as current used vs what I put back into the battery during charging.

I reconfigured my osd.
If you look at the bottom left of my screen in whatever video I post below, the top two rows are two different things. The top row is the "fuel gauge". Quicksilver has a feature where you can tell it what you want your resting voltage to be, and it'll do a little math, and tell you when to land so that your resting voltage is near where you want it to be. I have my resting voltage set to 3.4v/cell.
The row below that is the average filtered cell voltage, same as we get in betaflight.

Alright! It's time for this thing's first proper flight.
My goals for this flight are:
To not crash.
Also, to get a feel for this quad, to zip around things a bit, to see if I get any wobbles or shakes on throttle punch outs or throttle chops, to see if I get any prop wash, to see how it handles some quick movements like snap rolls or flips.

Let's see how it goes! Video will probably start out slow, and slowly progress to more enthusiastic flying. (In case you haven't noticed, I usually type up these notes throughout the night, so it's more of a real time commentary than a after-the-fact kind of thing.)
Time to send this thing. Exciting!
I should probably go pee first. This could get a little wild. I'm a little nervous. 3s 450mah CNHL battery.

Turn your sound off, I haven't managed to figure out a good video compression format (I haven't actually tried) so I straight uploaded the .avi from my fatshark dvr to youtube. There's audio buzz.


Technically that was its third flight. Its second flight ending in it eating gravel about 15 seconds after takeoff.
It's hard to tell in the dark, but I don't think I noticed any shakes on punch outs, wobble on throttle chops, or prop wash.
I think I *might* have heard the tiniest bit of bounceback on snap rolls and flips. It could have just been my hands shaking or a car driving by.
It *definitely* has some serious acceleration with these props. Except for the couple vertical punch outs, I don't think I went over 65% throttle. When I make a turn and then pitch forward and give it some throttle, it freaking moves.

It took me a while to find it after that crash. It buried itself in the snow. At least I don't have to worry about anything overheating, right?



Hooray for conformal coating and Corrosion-X.
We should probably take it for another flight to blow all that snow off the boards and out of the motors, right? Yeah.
Let's try a preset. My attempts at proper tuning will come sometime in the next week or two. I'm not a tuner yet, so that could all go horribly wrong. It'll be fun.
I loaded the "Thrust to Weight ratio <8:1 2in" preset, which matches this bird pretty well. It's probably got a thrust to weight ratio of less than 8:1, and it's a 2".
I brought the cam angle back down a wee bit for this next flight. I kinda felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants on that last one.
Another 3s 450mah CNHL battery.



I accidently left my goggles plugged in for an hour+ while I made and ate some food before that flight, and now they smell kinda funny and the video is super glaringly white. Hopefully I didn't damage anything. But as far as the flight goes...

Oooh. That one felt pretty damn good until I got stuck in the grass and weeds. I need to mow again, but I can't do that until it stops raining or snowing every single damn day.
I'm gonna slightly increase the camera angle and leave everything else as it is- Saturday evening I'll try to get a flight in while the sun is still up. I may not have to try to tune this thing.

That'd be cool, given that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing when it comes to tuning.
I can't really say if my motors are coming down hot or anything when it's freezing out and I'm crashing into snow. I can say it feels pretty damn locked in.

On both of those videos my control is a bit jerky- I'm gonna go ahead and blame that on getting to know how this bird flies, rather than on my piloting skillz.

Dude, it's so freaking cold out that I've gone from beanie to balaclava.

(The sunglasses are just for that proper look.)

(16-Feb-2023, 12:41 AM)Lemonyleprosy Wrote: I mean, to be fair- that is dirt cheap. I’d consider getting 8 for $20, and even if 4 broke, it’d still be a deal.

That was my thought process as well. Hopefully they'll work as intended.  Just have to wait for who knows how long now for them to arrive and test it out..

(16-Feb-2023, 11:07 AM)cst3x6 Wrote: That was my thought process as well. Hopefully they'll work as intended.  Just have to wait for who knows how long now for them to arrive and test it out..

I think they’ll serve you well for the price, kinda hard to go wrong. I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on them and their durability once they arrive.

it looks like special force, but its just how a true fpv enthusiast looks like in winter xD

(16-Feb-2023, 01:09 PM)hugnosed_bat Wrote: it looks like special force, but its just how a true fpv enthusiast looks like in winter xD

When you live somewhere where it gets cold.

(16-Feb-2023, 08:04 AM)Lemonyleprosy Wrote: Okay! I really wanted to get this thing in the air for a proper flight during the 45 minutes of daylight flying time I have before the sun goes down, but, that didn't work out.

That crash on the maiden flight knocked my vtx antenna loose. Hopefully it didn't also overheat my vtx. I knew that damn antenna was going to be a problem.
It's lead was too short for me to do any kind of strain relief- and that's just bad form. I should know better. That little antenna is better suited for a vtx that includes a little nub right off of the u.fl jack so that you can put some heatshrink on it.

Anyhow, for now, I switched to a longer antenna that will allow me to heat shrink it to a zip tie. It's kinda ridiculously tall, but, I'm not expecting this canopy to last too long, and I'll sort out more suitable antenna when I get around to 3d printing a canopy.



The props I had on it got a bit jacked up from me arming upside down, so I've switched to Azure Power 2x3.5x3.
I know, I said I was gonna slowly step up in pitch. I lied.
I mean, come on, the back of the package on these Azure props says, "more than fast", and that's what I built this for, so, screw the baby steps.


I increased my camera angle a little bit.

I went back into the Quicksilver configurator and set turtle mode to "on"- this will make it automatically enable turtle mode when I arm upside down, so I can avoid properly arming upside down and chewing up my props.

I calibrated my voltage sensor (I think?). I still need to calibrate my current sensor- I'll do that after a couple flights if I remember to make a note of what my goggles are reporting as current used vs what I put back into the battery during charging.

I reconfigured my osd.
If you look at the bottom left of my screen in whatever video I post below, the top two rows are two different things. The top row is the "fuel gauge". Quicksilver has a feature where you can tell it what you want your resting voltage to be, and it'll do a little math, and tell you when to land so that your resting voltage is near where you want it to be. I have my resting voltage set to 3.4v/cell.
The row below that is the average filtered cell voltage, same as we get in betaflight.

Alright! It's time for this thing's first proper flight.
My goals for this flight are:
To not crash.
Also, to get a feel for this quad, to zip around things a bit, to see if I get any wobbles or shakes on throttle punch outs or throttle chops, to see if I get any prop wash, to see how it handles some quick movements like snap rolls or flips.

Let's see how it goes! Video will probably start out slow, and slowly progress to more enthusiastic flying. (In case you haven't noticed, I usually type up these notes throughout the night, so it's more of a real time commentary than a after-the-fact kind of thing.)
Time to send this thing. Exciting!
I should probably go pee first. This could get a little wild. I'm a little nervous. 3s 450mah CNHL battery.

Turn your sound off, I haven't managed to figure out a good video compression format (I haven't actually tried) so I straight uploaded the .avi from my fatshark dvr to youtube. There's audio buzz.


Technically that was its third flight. Its second flight ending in it eating gravel about 15 seconds after takeoff.
It's hard to tell in the dark, but I don't think I noticed any shakes on punch outs, wobble on throttle chops, or prop wash.
I think I *might* have heard the tiniest bit of bounceback on snap rolls and flips. It could have just been my hands shaking or a car driving by.
It *definitely* has some serious acceleration with these props. Except for the couple vertical punch outs, I don't think I went over 65% throttle. When I make a turn and then pitch forward and give it some throttle, it freaking moves.

It took me a while to find it after that crash. It buried itself in the snow. At least I don't have to worry about anything overheating, right?



Hooray for conformal coating and Corrosion-X.
We should probably take it for another flight to blow all that snow off the boards and out of the motors, right? Yeah.
Let's try a preset. My attempts at proper tuning will come sometime in the next week or two. I'm not a tuner yet, so that could all go horribly wrong. It'll be fun.
I loaded the "Thrust to Weight ratio <8:1 2in" preset, which matches this bird pretty well. It's probably got a thrust to weight ratio of less than 8:1, and it's a 2".
I brought the cam angle back down a wee bit for this next flight. I kinda felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants on that last one.
Another 3s 450mah CNHL battery.



I accidently left my goggles plugged in for an hour+ while I made and ate some food before that flight, and now they smell kinda funny and the video is super glaringly white. Hopefully I didn't damage anything. But as far as the flight goes...

Oooh. That one felt pretty damn good until I got stuck in the grass and weeds. I need to mow again, but I can't do that until it stops raining or snowing every single damn day.
I'm gonna slightly increase the camera angle and leave everything else as it is- Saturday evening I'll try to get a flight in while the sun is still up. I may not have to try to tune this thing.

That'd be cool, given that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing when it comes to tuning.
I can't really say if my motors are coming down hot or anything when it's freezing out and I'm crashing into snow. I can say it feels pretty damn locked in.

On both of those videos my control is a bit jerky- I'm gonna go ahead and blame that on getting to know how this bird flies, rather than on my piloting skillz.

Dude, it's so freaking cold out that I've gone from beanie to balaclava.

(The sunglasses are just for that proper look.)

And the winner for the 2nd  longest ash post I've ever seen on a forum on the internet since I first got on in '95 is . . . . 8^}

 If I have to go outside dressed like that . . . I really don't need to go outside . . . especially to fly my flying machines, Whoops and cold don't get along real well anyway . . .  that's really hard core there, and looks like bordering on addiction . . . and no, I'm not addicted, I can quit building Whoops any time I want to . . . it's just not time, and I don't want to yet . . .

You know Lemony, you have a car. You could sit in the car with the heater on while you fly, or sit in the car with a fan heater on (and an extension cable from your house). If I lived somewhere cold like that i would probably plumb in an electric hookup, like you get for camper vans and caravans, so you can plug the car into the house to charge the battery and in your case, sit in the car with a heater inside, while you fly. Something like this (which is what I use in my van).



Or at least that seems the almost sane way to run things.

Flying in the house isn’t an option for me- with the way I fly, I’d destroy everything. If I didn’t, my giant puppies chasing after it certainly would.

Building and flying is my therapy, so I’ll bundle up and head outside regardless of the weather. It’s not miserable when you’re having a ridiculous amount of fun.

The only downside is having to do a walk of shame over frozen ground when I crash.