Important Points - Readme First

• Do not use official BetaFPV hex files to upgrade Betaflight or you will break the Gyro on this drone. 
  
• Use the latest (as of writing) 4.3.1 firmware.  See this thread about the gyro issues. Target is: BETAFPVF4SX1280
  

• Battery wise.  This drone will happily fly on any 2S Lipo or LiHV from 300MAh to 660mAh.  It might also run on 1S, but i haven't tested this so far (charging XT30 1S Lipos is a PITA).  I use GNB and I get a good 2-4 mins depending on the battery.
  

• Check all the soldered joints.  My camera lost power due to a bad solder on the camera power wire.
  

• ELRS can not be upgraded on this drone beyond v2.0.  Also it comes as part of Betaflight.  The situation is irksome.  Read this page at the ELRS site for more details.
  

• Use throttle scaling and capping to smooth the control out and lessen the twitchiness of the throttle.  This will make it easier to fly initially.  Also consider Angle Mode if you are starting out and set the max angle in BF to 30 degrees (which is still pretty fast).  Fly it like that for about 2-3 hours, then up the angle to 45 degrees and fly for a further 2-3 hours and finally take it back to the default of 60 degrees.  60 degrees is very fast if you have never flown before.
  

• If you need another Caddx Ant camera, its the one without the mounting screw holes, the Lite version.
  

• The 1103 11000kv motors are hard to source and not rated well, so if you lose a motor, consider swapping to a different brand with similar characteristics.  On paper, the iFlight Xing E Nano 10000kv motors have similar characteristics and could be used as an alternative or the GEP-GR1103 10000kv are also a possibility.
  

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I thought about the stuff I had mentioned on the Crux 3 thread and how I should probably get something that requires no soldering for now, until i'm happy with the basics.  With that in mind I have bought the 2S Meteor85 and a set of cheap VR02 goggles.  I now have the basic kit.  Still missing a couple of other things like a lipo charger and some more batteries and maybe props although it does come with some spares.

Next thing I guess is to get Betaflight installed and work out how to get the ELRS to work between the drone and controller ready for when it arrives.

For the future, I would like to work out how this guy on YT, did this antenna mod.  It looks like he removed the patch antenna and I'm guessing soldered the external antenna mount in it's place.  How much extra range/signal quality he got from it isn't mentioned, but it looks like an interesting hack.

Congratulations on your first gear setup. Flying is fun.

Are LiHV and LiPo batteries interchangeable?

I have been searching for more batteries. The BetaFPV 300mah LiPo's are £15 for two. The GNB LiHV 300mah are less than £5 each. Weight wise the GNB batteries are 6g heavier. It seems their is a bit of a shortage of batteries in the UK at present (after looking at a bunch of different shops). Hard to find any of the smaller size batteries. From reviews on YT it seems the 450mah Tattu or GNB is the sweet spot, but I could find neither at the 7 or so UK shops I checked. The best I could do was the 300mah GNB LiHV.

Current Options:

https://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/gnb-300mah-2s-...ttery-xt30
https://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/gnb-380mah-2s-...ttery-xt30

If they are interchangeable then I will buy a few of them, so I can have enough to fly for 15-20 mins (several youtubers stated they got just under 3 mins on the BetaFPV LiPo).

Yes, they are interchangeable, however, make sure you don’t accidentally charge a non-HV lipo to HV voltage. You’ll have to remember to change the setting on your charger.

I don’t know what all they have in stock in their UK warehouse, but I’m a fan of CNHL batteries.

https://chinahobbyline.com/

Only found one place that has those batteries, and only has them in sizes which are useless to me, such as 1000mah+. Also they are out of stock.

Honestly these bits are just going to get me up and running. I could see me having a new (better) set of batteries and probably better goggles within 6-9 months. This stuff will get me flying through until October/November. By then I will have more cash for upgrades and maybe new drones.

What I want within the next month is 6 batteries, a decent AC charger, a decent DC charger and some spares, like props. Possibly also an ammo can to use while charging so if I do have one explode i get some time to get it away from the house or van. That should enable me to fly fairly easily for the next couple of months, hopefully.

Great that ya got all set up! I just bet you will be finding all sorts of new ways to spend your cash.

Yes, almost got everything now. Still missing the spare batteries and the charger. Ordered 2x 18650's for the radio, so at the bare minimum, all I need is a charger now. The Imax B6 Evo is more than likely what I will get, since it can be run from DC, which means I can plug it into my camper leisure electric system and use the solar for charging power. Or plug it into one of the 12v AC adapters I have in my drawer. Though I would prefer to charge it via the solar if possible as its essentially free power at a time when electricity costs a lot.

With time I will buy better gear and advance up the upgrade path, although to what i couldn't tell you. Probably a 3" or 4" freestyle drone will come next, more likely to be 4" though. Something agile and still able to fit through small(ish) gaps. I'm also looking to get the A2CofC at some point, as I do plan to use these within a business setting, eventually.

Nice one dude! Enjoy the flying time now..

I was having some issues with finding batteries at first too, my case was the 1s 450 with bt2.0 connector, and I ended up buying a pack of four from the betafpv site. It took 3 weeks give or take to arrive, in the meantime they came back in stock at unmanned tech and I bought a pack of four from them too.. Now I'm holding 10 in total, which is more than enough for my sessions..

Point being, you can maybe order from an overseas site if you don't mind waiting a bit for them..

Regarding the charger, have you taken a look at some of the ISDT ones which are ac/dc ? A bit more expensive but might serve you for longer..

Hi Pathfinder,

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Quote from your original post: 

Next thing I guess is to get Betaflight installed and work out how to get the ELRS to work between the drone and controller ready for when it arrives.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Curious     Betaflight should already be installed. This is a Bind aNd Fly quad which 
should already have Betaflight installed and be ready to go. It might even be a newer 
version. Before you "DO" anything to it, plug the quad into a computer and use the 
Betaflight configurator to check the version and settings and do only what you need to 
do to just get ELRS working. Other than that and setting up an ARM switch, I would fly 
the thing before I went tinkering with things in Betaflight. The quad should fly fine even 
with the default settings.

Every BNF quad that I have bought flies fine right out of the box.

Before doing anything with it, I would plug the quad in to a computer and make backups 
of all of the settings using the CLI commands:  DIFF, DIFF ALL, DUMP, DUMP ALL, RESOURCE,
and RESOURCE SHOW ALL. Plus screen prints of the more important things like the PID 
settings. That way you will have resources should something go south if or when you
do a "flashing".

After trying most makes and sizes, I now try to stick to GNB batteries. Have had excellent results long term now.

Its more a Tiny Whoop size issue, but the life of the smaller packs (sub 650mAh) can definitely be extended by charging HV as Std packs.

There is frankly more hype than substance about HV, its 0.15 volt more. I have done tests of small 1S and 2S using a HV charged HV and then "only" charged standard. There is very little practical difference in use, but in theory (and as far as my use has gone) charging a HV only to 4.20 or so does reduce loss through swelling/age capacity reduction.

When many chargers sold actually charge beyond 4.20 anyway, 4.25/4.28 not being uncommon, its all a bit irrelevent!

I charge on average about 200-250 batteries a week from 150mAh 1S to 6000mAh 6S, I have roughly 30 chargers of various makes/types. Just don't relate price of a charger to its quality, I was given a £250 unit that has a terrible user interface and poor consistency. My favourite ones (I have three) were £40. No point in naming them as the maker has disappeared.

I second that ISDT chargers are pretty good, but one of mine claiming 4.20 volts shown for each cell was actually only charging cell 3 (if there was one!) to 4.17, traced to a slight HR on its balance port breakout board.

I've been looking at an AC ISDT charger for home, mainly for the fact it charges 2 batteries at once. The other (Imax B6) will probably end up being for when I'm in the van and not at home or on holiday, so I can charge batteries when I have no AC. For now I will probably just go with the B6 because it's flexible and would allow me to take it out with me if I decide to go for a weekend anywhere.

Charging HV to regular LiPo levels does intrigue me. I never considered it, but it would extend cell life. It would also allow me to charge via other methods that don't support LiHV. The whole LiHV batteries is more about availability than anything else. As cst3x6 mentioned getting hold of batteries seems to be a bit hit and miss, although 1S batteries don't seem to have the same shortages as 2S.

Is the 300ma charging rate on a 300mah battery a set in stone type limit? Or can you charge batteries at higher rates, like 400ma or 500ma?

(13-May-2022, 12:33 PM)iFly4rotors Wrote: Hi Pathfinder,

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote from your original post: 

Next thing I guess is to get Betaflight installed and work out how to get the ELRS to work between the drone and controller ready for when it arrives.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Curious     Betaflight should already be installed. This is a Bind aNd Fly quad which 
should already have Betaflight installed and be ready to go. It might even be a newer 
version. Before you "DO" anything to it, plug the quad into a computer and use the 
Betaflight configurator to check the version and settings and do only what you need to 
do to just get ELRS working. Other than that and setting up an ARM switch, I would fly 
the thing before I went tinkering with things in Betaflight. The quad should fly fine even 
with the default settings.

Every BNF quad that I have bought flies fine right out of the box.

Before doing anything with it, I would plug the quad in to a computer and make backups 
of all of the settings using the CLI commands:  DIFF, DIFF ALL, DUMP, DUMP ALL, RESOURCE,
and RESOURCE SHOW ALL. Plus screen prints of the more important things like the PID 
settings. That way you will have resources should something go south if or when you
do a "flashing".

Sorry I am probably misunderstanding things. Noob and all that.

As I understood things, Betaflight was a program you installed on a laptop and then a set of binary instructions would be built and flashed onto an eprom (or similar) on the drone to make it functional, based on the settings you provided. Are you saying the whole Betaflight software is contained on the drone, so you plug it into the laptop and never need to download and install anything? The laptop is basically the user interface for manipulating what is already installed on the drone? The screenshots I saw looked kind of like a full blown software program that would be installed to the laptop.

Betaflight CONFIGURATOR is the laptop program. Betaflight is what's loaded to the Flight Controller.

(13-May-2022, 01:58 PM)Pathfinder075 Wrote: Is the 300ma charging rate on a 300mah battery a set in stone type limit?  Or can you charge batteries at higher rates, like 400ma or 500ma?

A 300mAh charge rate on a 300mAh battery is called 1C.  (NOT to be confused with the DISCHARGE rate also named as xxxC, example 75C)

Most (BUT NOT ALL) batteries can withstand a higher charge rate, and some are quoted as OK for 5C.

For your example of a 300mAh battery, 1C charge is 0.3A for roughly an hour, 2C would be 0.6A for roughly 30 mins.

Charge current is not linear and there are other losses like heat, etc, also the charge current will typically fall away as the battery gets towards full charge.

There was a period when manufacturers raced to quote the highest charge rate (or the highest CLAIMED rate, as like discharge rates, not everything you will see is honest!)

I normally use 1C charge rate, or if really pushed for time "round up" say a 1500Mah (1.5A for 1C) to 2A.

(13-May-2022, 01:58 PM)Pathfinder075 Wrote: As I understood things, Betaflight was a program you installed on a laptop and then a set of binary instructions would be built and flashed onto an eprom (or similar) on the drone to make it functional, based on the settings you provided.  Are you saying the whole Betaflight software is contained on the drone, so you plug it into the laptop and never need to download and install anything?  The laptop is basically the user interface for manipulating what is already installed on the drone?  The screenshots I saw looked kind of like a full blown software program that would be installed to the laptop.

Hi Pathfinder,

Yes, the Betaflight Configurator is a full blown Windows application that gets installed on PC.
 
Yes, the Betaflight firmware comes already installed on the Flight Controller of the quad. 
The Betaflight CONFIGURATOR is the program that you install on your computer. You only
need to install it once, however, occasionally it might need to be updated. This Configurator
connects to the Betaflight firmware via a USB cable. The Configurator, as the name suggests,
allows you to "configure" the Betaflight firmware that is already on the quad. 

You generally need to set up the PORTS so that Betaflight "knows" what hardware you have
and where it is located. There are no "real" defaults. The RX receiver will be of a certain type
and need certain settings so you have to tell Betaflight what you are using.

Peripherals such as GPS also needs to be set up and it depends on which TX/RX pair that you
wired it to. 

Also, the ARM feature needs to be configured in the MODES tab. There is no "standard" 
switch. You set up the transmitter for the switch that is most comfortable. Then in Betaflight
configurator you set the ARM feature to use that switch and AUX channel. Generally, people
set ARM up on AUX1 because that is the first thing they set up, but you can technically use
what ever channel that you have configured on the transmitter. At this point, I set up channels
5...10 which corresponds to AUX1 through AUX6 so I could, potentially, use any of those to 
ARM the quad. Yeah, I like ARM on AUX1 which is transmitter channel 5. 
{NOTE: the transmitter channels 1 through 4 are reserved for the sticks}.

You might also want to give the quad a name and setup the OSD screen.