So after screwing up the OSD pad on the BetaFPV 12A AIO FC the other week I decided to put it into a build anyway.  It allows me to learn how to do telemetry based voltage readings via the radio and signal strength not that I intend to fly this very far.  Maybe a couple hundred metres tops.

So the spec is this:


So i've had some issues with video.  Obviously I can't send video to the FC due to the pad incident and I don't have the skill set for soldering to the trace.  So I joined Video Out and In on the VTX to get video working.  I originally wanted to use the Diamond with DVR, but the SD Card holder sits on top of the FC USB port and everything was at a weird angle so I swapped back to the non DVR version.  

Beyond that it flies, although it's heavier than i intended, but a lot of steel screws, bolts and nuts probably caused that. Yes I could shave some off it and maybe I will after I fly it tomorrow, but I also might not.  I like the security you get with steel bolts and nyloc nuts.  Another  annoyance is I put the vertical connectors on the FC, so now the plugs are up against the frame instead of running off the side.

The BetaFPV Micro Canopy Light is pretty sweet, but getting the nyloc nut on the back bolt was seriously hard.  It's bad enough on the non-light version.  on the Light version you struggle to get the nut on.  But the nice thing was the Ant nano just screw mounted to the canopy.

Known issues:  The video is weird.  i think it's the Video In/Out joint, but could be the wires.  If it goes out again, the hacky way of fixing it would be to drop a blob of solder across two of the pins on the back of the connector to permanently bridge them.

So no video yet, I will be flying tomorrow, but i do have some pictures.

Initial LoS flight test stage - (Last Night)


Finished Build


Weigh In

Based on my experience with my RCinPower 1003 2" build, for acro flying.. flips, and whirly birds.. its VERY sensitive to weight.

Im at 44g, rebuilding trying to get 39g.

1202.5 11500kv are probably better than my 1003 10,000kv. Ideally even higher 12,000kv.
Flatter better cooled 1202.5 with high quality winding should still be OK with 2023*3.

Nice little ripper there mate.  I see you've got the new betafpv micro canopy, the one that is for 25.5/25.5mm mount as opposed to the previous one that had the enlarged footprint and only fit the wider mounting holes.   How does it feel? 

Also congratulations on not shorting out any motors pads what is prolly the worst implementation of them on any AIO board I have every used! lol.

(26-Dec-2023, 06:43 AM)ph2t Wrote: Nice little ripper there mate.  I see you've got the new betafpv micro canopy, the one that is for 25.5/25.5mm mount as opposed to the previous one that had the enlarged footprint and only fit the wider mounting holes.   How does it feel? 

Also congratulations on not shorting out any motors pads what is prolly the worst implementation of them on any AIO board I have every used! lol.

Lets just say that I had to reflow the solder on the motor pads many times before I got the desired result.  I had stuttering motors many times and went back and refluxed and tried to tidy them up.  After about 6-8 goes I got all the motors to spin uniformly without juddering.  My testing was to just push motor speed up to 1% for a second, so probably not damaged any fets, but who knows on this board.

I will let you know how it feels later tonight.  Going to go fly in an hour or so.

As to canopies, it's ok but the back nut is a real PITA.  You have no clearance for a socket driver or screwdriver with mini socket on it.  You have to get the nut on with your fingers and crank the bolt up to get it to stay on, then get some needle nose pliers to hold it in place.  It took me 30 mins to get that one bolt on. :/  Beyond that, as a canopy it's nice enough.  I bought four of them when they came out, so have some spares, but they are some sort of flexible plastic, but not TPU, so probably harder wearing than the original ones.

It has the ICM20689 drift issue, I know that much.  When i did the hover test it was drifting right, just like on my Meteor85.  i will live with it.  Also angle mode is b0rked in some way.  i recalibrated the accelerometer a few times, but it's no better, but air mode seems reasonably fine, but still twitchy.  it might be the QS that's doing it.  I will probably try BF 4.3.1 as well and see if that runs any better.  But that's down the line.

So I have 10 packs now charged, time to go test fly (and hopefully it doesn't just fall out of the sky).  i also don't think the telemetry sound triggers on the radio are working, so will fly using a timer on my phone.

Glad you finally got it setup
Did you loop back the VTX dipole into the canopY? Curious how the video transmission quality will be.

Observations.

The gyro is twitchy as FK!!!
The software/firmware is glitchy.  I flew out on one pack in Angle and did a powerloop after which it started to enforce the 65 degree angle. :/
To get it to fly well in Angle mode you have to arm, let it twitch for 3 secs, then take off, otherwise the flight is like disjointed.
Air mode is a no go, it wobbles and jitters and is hard to impossible to fly.
On battery plug in, there is a gap between the first set of beeps and the second set of about 10 secs.  It has to be the firmware.

Probable fixes.

Install Betaflight 4.3.1 and see if that improves things.

So to the videos.  In the end I managed to get three reasonable flights and seven test flights, but mostly in angle mode.  But a good flight is a good flight.








My next plan is to put Betaflight on it and see where that goes.

(26-Dec-2023, 05:53 PM)mstc Wrote: Glad you finally got it setup
Did you loop back the VTX dipole into the canopY? Curious how the video transmission quality will be.

Not the VTX. I looped back the ELRS dipole, because the shortest one I had was too long and I couldn't be bothered sending it every which way around the frame. The VTX is a linear antenna. It's cable tied on the back left. It gives ok video.

It looks as the FC is loose or something is hitting it? Assume you have RPM filter enabled and bumped up the filter slider, with the thinner frames that helps. I would also double-check the HM motors, 1 of my 4 came with just enough vibrations to throw off the FC.

OH man, I've seen that twitch too many times as well. Those 12A boards can be hit and miss at times. From the pics you have the 2022 version is that right? There have been a few version of this AIO it has been so popular. The v1 would die, the v2 (2022 I think) would twitch, the v3 I'm yet to try out but I know mstc had some issues with his?

Version 1, ie, the v2.0, the one after the 1S only. It's been sat in my parts drawers for a year. Seemed a good point to use it.

Yes I know they aren't quite good. But mstc is also not wrong. I didn't tighten it right down. It may be loose. Maybe it will work (or maybe I have no clue).

So I tried to install betaflight and failed. I can't get the board into DFU mode. i tried both the boot button and from within the configurator and neither worked. But flashing within Quicksilver Configurator wasn't an issue. So no idea. But I managed to get QS 0.9.1 installed and it made zero difference to the gyro twitch issue. So I am going to mothball it. I might try and get the other BFPV 12A AIO soldered up. It's the version with the BMI270 gyro and Serial ELRS (but with the crappy enamel wire that mstc hates).

Failing that I could potentially build the 1303. Either way i need something to fly.

So I am having a go at fixing this one with the hope of getting some flights in this weekend.  So I soldered up the other BetaFPV 12A AIO I own and that one took next to no time to do, I just need to put the video wires on it and I will be ready.  Best thing was using the side connectors, so i can plug in/out without having to take it apart.

I also started soldering up the DarwinFPV 15A AIO and that is much harder to do than the BetaFPV 12A AIO.  The BetaFPV connectors you can dump a bunch of solder on the pads, add a load of flux and do a wipe across all the pads, then add more flux and lay the iron flat to get that nice finish and ensure a gap between the pads.  On the Darwin FC, the pads are so small the iron tip was bridging multiple pads.  I put it back in it's box until i can work out some way to solder those connectors on without it becoming one big clusterfk.

So five wires left and then I only need to disassemble the old build and replace the FC.

Pictures

So what's the best way to solder up these pads/pins on the Darwin.  Is there a trick to it?




The easier one to solder up - BetaFPV 2S 12A AIO v2.2

For the bridged pads, if you have a fine tip, blob on the flux and swipe the tip down the middle. A slight angle may help but you want to be sure the tip drags against the pcb as you slide past, so that it parts the pool of solder and allows the flux to bring it back to their respective pads. There looks like enough space on the Darwin board that you can safely swipe in an outward direction. It may take a few swipes, but that should break the bridge otherwise you can wick off some of the solder and try the swipe again.



For plugs I would solder them without tinning.
- put plug in place, you can hold it with some putty from the other side and then apply flux
- place the fine tip first, so that its sides is pressing against both the pad and pin (maybe wedging it in that position will also help you steady the iron)
- then bring in your solder aiming for any part of the pad near the pin (or even touching the tip if you need help to get the solder flowing) 
- you want enough solder to cover most of the pad and form a cone with the pine (like a stalactite) depending on how thick your solder is, you may need to push in the solder for a brief second or two
(the ones in your photo did not have enough solder on the pads)
- if the joint is not good, reapply flux and touch up before starting the next one
- if you have trouble with the middle pad, you can try starting with that first

I usually prefer chisel tips, what do you folks use?

This is the way that I do it. Use a lot of flux, solder on one side of the pin/hole pad 
joint and iron on the other side of the pin/hole pad joint. I prefer to touch the solder 
first, then the iron which helps to minimize the amount of time the iron is on the 
connection. When the temperature of the material (pin and pad together) reaches 
183 C degrees, the solder will melt and flow. Since the iron is on the opposite side 
the solder will tend to flow towards it and encircle the pin. I do NOT pre-tin the pad 
NOR the pins. 



When removing the 3-pin motor connector, I first apply flux, then grip the connector 
with pliers and apply slight pulling pressure, lay the tip sideways so that it can touch 
all three pins and touch all three pins at the same time. When the solder begins to 
melt (on all three pins at the same time), the joints will loosen and the connector 
pulls out. 

A wick might be used first to remove excess solder, however, I generally don't. 
I also use caution when trying to "fling" solder from a pad or joint. Yes, it works,
but always a risk that the solder ends up some place that you would rather that
it didn't. 

After the connector is removed, clean up the holes if you intend to use them again.
Cleaning a through hole pad can be a bit...interesting. I generally use a wick to 
clean off most of the solder and sometimes the hole clears with it. I have also
used a needle tip on the iron or just a wire that is heated by the iron and reamed
through the hole to remove excess solder. Anyway, that is how I do it. 

(06-Jan-2024, 04:36 AM)mstc Wrote: For the bridged pads, if you have a fine tip, blob on the flux and swipe the tip down the middle. A slight angle may help but you want to be sure the tip drags against the pcb as you slide past, so that it parts the pool of solder and allows the flux to bring it back to their respective pads. There looks like enough space on the Darwin board that you can safely swipe in an outward direction. It may take a few swipes, but that should break the bridge otherwise you can wick off some of the solder and try the swipe again.



For plugs I would solder them without tinning.
- put plug in place, you can hold it with some putty from the other side and then apply flux
- place the fine tip first, so that its sides is pressing against both the pad and pin (maybe wedging it in that position will also help you steady the iron)
- then bring in your solder aiming for any part of the pad near the pin (or even touching the tip if you need help to get the solder flowing) 
- you want enough solder to cover most of the pad and form a cone with the pine (like a stalactite) depending on how thick your solder is, you may need to push in the solder for a brief second or two
(the ones in your photo did not have enough solder on the pads)
- if the joint is not good, reapply flux and touch up before starting the next one
- if you have trouble with the middle pad, you can try starting with that first

So I will try heating the pin instead. i will also try and strip the solder out with a thin tip, but worst case I will use the solder syringe sucker thing.

But for the BetaFPV FC I put a load of flux down on the pads, then put the iron tip on the first copper pad with the solder poked in the hole next to the pin and then backed out and let it cool down, then repeated for each pin/pad, then tons of flux and applied the tip sideways on to separate out any solder and give that creamy oxidised finish. Then moved on to the next set. It appears I haven't overly screwed up since it powers up ok. Just need to redo one of the power wires which is obstructing the bolt hole.

---------

So tonight it's been testing time and I have that one wire to fix tomorrow. i also spent three hours trying to work out how to use a soft serial in Betaflight, until I worked it out. So now the VTX works as well. Will I fly tomorrow, no idea. It will probably take me a couple of hours to finalise everything and get it all built and setup. One thing I didn't realise initially is this board uses SPI ELRS. So i spent ages trying to work out how to update ELRS only to find i didn't need to. As soon as I set my bind phrase in CLI it was up and running. :/

So tomorrow, more than likely i will just finalise everything and then go test fly on Monday. hoping it doesn't have any twitching gyro issues. That would suck. but i would maybe try swapping out the motors if it does. Thinking about it I have a set of 1002 and 1102 motors I could test the other FC on. More projects.