Alright!

With the Diatone Mamba aio on bf v4.4.2, this build is finally flying like it should.
On 3s with a motor output limit of 90%, even after flying it as hard as I'm capable of (lots and lots of throttle punches), the motors are coming down cool- so I could probably get rid off that motor output limit, but, I don't feel like I'm lacking power, so we'll keep it for safety for now. I'll remove it if I switch to lower pitch props, or if I decide I need more power.

Unfortunately, unlike the previous aio, this aio does not have a barometer or blackbox.

This thing has more power on 2s with this aio than it did on 3s with the NeutronRC aio, so that confirms that there is a power delivery issue with the NeutronRC aio's. Maybe it's an esc firmware issue, maybe it's an issue with the AT esc mcu's, I don't know- but there is an issue there.

I'm getting some jello- but it's not the same as the severe wobbles I was getting on throttle up with the NeutronRC aio. This jello is because I beat the hell out of this build trying to get it to fly right with that aio, and now the canopy is cracked to hell and probably close to 10% uv glue.
I'll need to dig through my parts bins to find another canopy that will fit and fully protect this walksnail cam, or 3d print something.

We went from a dry heatwave to off and on raining/misting, but still hot and humid as hell tonight- so I'm glad I took the time to put conformal coating on this build. I know myself well enough to know that a bit of water isn't going to stop me from flying, so I'm glad I prepared for it.

Bit of gusty wind tonight.

I need to play with camera settings to get the best balance of flying through light and shadows.

Below is one of my 3s flights from tonight. I love that I can clearly see twigs and things in front of me. It means that I can actually make use of my backyard- it also means that I need to work on my low speed movements to safely navigate it.

I've had a whole bunch of crashes because I keep trying to fly in and around trees and branches that I couldn't previously even see. Damn good fun, though. Hopefully my flying skillz will eventually catch up with the new digital cam clarity.

I had to make an extension cable so that I could put a larger capacity goggle battery in my pants pocket. My usual goggle batteries are only good for a few flights when they're powering my goggles and the walksnail vrx. I'd like to say that the unwrapped area a bit above the battery xt60 connector is because I wanted a bit that could twist around and bend, but, really, I just measured my wire lengths poorly.



Anyhow, video. This started out as a 2.3gb video. I tried to run it through the walksnail osd doo-hickey to add osd back to the video. I was missing some things and it wouldn't let me. It wants a font file and something else.
So.. yeah. I just uploaded the giant file to the youtube,
It's probably gonna compress the hell out of it and make it not look near as good as it did in flight, if I can even manage to upload this thing on dsl...
This is gonna take a real long time to upload.......
Screw it, I ain't got time for that. I'm gonna compress the hell out of it, and then youtube is gonna compress it even more, so, here's some super double compressed crappy video.
In flight, I can see every single leaf and twig and limb. I don't think that's gonna be reflected in the video below.
It's 11pm and this video says it still has 2 hours to upload, so, maybe by morning it'll be viewable. I’ve compressed it down to 661mb, and who knows what YouTube will do to it.


This poor thing has been beat to hell, but, it's flying pretty damn well now.

…looks like I need to mow my backyard.

Also, I swapped out the stock tips on my tx16s with some tiny tips from tinywhoop.com. My fingers are no longer slipping off the sticks, it’s a dirt cheap upgrade I wish I did a long time ago.

It looks like I need to dust my transmitter, it’s looking a little gross.

Awesome man. An often missed feature of digital with all the talk about latency this and latency that. The image quality!!! It brings more confidence than crazy arse low latency ever would. But we are old bastards so yeah.... lol.

Congrats on sorting thru that previous mess! Welcome to the world of digital video

Being able to see stuff now really made a difference in my flying, like ph2t mentioned.

Although, I think you got the last 1S VTx on the planet …

Ph2t- Maybe it’s because I’m old (I’ll officially be the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything this Friday- 42), or maybe it’s because I’m a crap pilot, but I honestly can’t tell a difference in latency between this and analog. But being able to actually see what’s in front of me? Yeah, that’s game changing.

Quadflyer- Thanks! Pyrodrone has both the 1s and 1s lite in stock. I’m pretty sure I lucked out and got the most durable one on the planet though, because I have beat the crap out of this thing and it’s still working great. Or maybe it took my threat seriously- I told it I have replacement parts on the way and that I won’t hesitate to take hot air to it if it gives me any problems.

My control looks smoother to me. That could be because my fingers aren’t slipping off the sticks anymore, or because I added some throttle expo, or because I was enjoying the scenery rather than flying full tilt the entire battery.

Nice smooth flying. Glad you finally got your setup flying right. Besides a little prop wash stutter (maybe try bumping up the pids?) it is looking sweet. And definitely your flying looks much smoother and flowy. It must be the digital magic

Happy 42, but I think you hardly qualify for old... maybe not young, but definitely not old...

Thanks! Yeah, there is a bit of prop wash. I could safely bump the master multiplier up a tad if you think it’d help.

I don’t know much about tuning yet, or how to tune out issues.

I certainly feel old. All of the stupid things I did as kid are making themselves known- hip and joint issues, arthritis. I didn’t expect to make it out of my teens or my 20’s, so I didn’t expect to have to deal with the consequences of treating my body as badly as I did.

Hey now that's looking way better with that aio! Cool motors means your filtering is fine along with your pids being conservative.

Just bump up the p and d gains to get rid of that prop wash. Add in a bit of i gain if the wind is causing it to bounce around too much.

Nicely done though. That was a rigorous build with that experimental aio. Glad you got it sorted out now. Gotta love that WS digital picture!

Well the day is coming, when you can just easily swap in a new motor or two, the frame, or maybe just a new set of props

Mate, so what do you think now with the digital experience? Think you can fly analog again?

(25-Jul-2023, 11:29 PM)mstc Wrote: Well the day is coming, when you can just easily swap in a new motor or two, the frame, or maybe just a new set of props  

Hi mstc,

For me, that day was years ago since my typical build has connectors for everything including the
motors even if they didn't come with connectors. Being an experimenter at heart and an all around
repair person, connectors make swapping parts pretty easy. For me, the reasons given for using
the direct solder method are the weight of the connectors and the "loss" of efficiency especially
for the motors. Thing is, both of these are minimal as far as I can tell. Let me explain.

Even though the connectors do add a few grams of weight, it is minimal in the grander scheme
of things. If connectors made that much difference in weight, why are they used a lot; on FC
boards, on motors, and on digital gear? I dare say that all of the TPU pieces weigh more than the 
connectors. So for me, the weight is negligible and has little if any impact on the finished quad. 
If the build is that tight for weight, then something (else) is simply too heavy.

Now, let's consider the loss of efficiency and the difference between connectors and direct solder
which, by the way, seems to be a factor for motors more than anything else. From a technical
standpoint, connectors are less efficient than direct solder. However, the real question is how much
loss difference and whether or not this loss is noticeable in the actual performance of the quad. 
This seems to be a bigger issue with motors rather than other components as they pull more current
than anything else. So, maybe that depends on both the goal of craft and the actual effect. 

Since motors are the biggest issue, let's focus on them. From an endurance perspective, what is the 
Fly Time difference? On a 10 minute flight, is it a matter of a few seconds? If so, it is negligible for me. 
On the other hand, if it were 2 minutes, well that would be a different story. Now, I seem to get quite 
a bit of air time with my builds; as much or more than many others. Perhaps one day, I will perform some 
actual tests to determine the practical difference between using connectors and direct solder in an
endurance build. 

That said, I can't speak to the hi-performance difference because I don't fly that way and have no point
of reference. At this point, I have not seen any actual data nor side-by-side comparisons that show the
precise amount of energy loss to the actual real world performance. 

In my case, I prefer the ability to swap out components over some insignificant difference in flight
performance. When something takes out a motor and it needs to be replaced, the use of connectors 
makes the swap relatively easy. I can swap out a motor without dismantling the quad. 

     Side Note:   I hate soldering on the FC when the board is mounted in the quad, so
                       all of the soldering is done on the bench, then the quad is assembled.
                       By using connectors, the assembly process goes better for me. 

                       In addition to motors, the FC can more easily be swapped out or just moved 
                       to another build without the need to solder a bunch of stuff.

                       Once you get the connectors soldered up, everything becomes plug-and-play.
                       Yes, the connectors do need to be soldered up, but that is a one time thing.
                       From that point on, any component or entire package can easily be changed.

Also consider that many small (tiny whoop) FC boards and motors all have connectors that are installed
at the factory. Hmmm. Yes, some folks cut off the connectors and direct solder them, but I don't. 

This picture shows an example where the JST 1.25 connectors were left intact on the FC board and the
corresponding mate used on the motors.


The following is an example where servo connectors were used for connecting the motors.


For larger motors, I used the MR30 connectors as shown below.



Also, I am not stingy with motor wire length. In fact, I like a little extra so that the motors can be used in
a variety of frames and configurations without the need to re-solder the connectors. 

To summarize, that day of easily swapping out components on a build or whole packages 
from one frame to another is already here. All we need to do is utilize it. 

Later, My Friend, iFly  

(26-Jul-2023, 01:17 PM)iFly4rotors Wrote: Hi mstc,

For me, that day was years ago since my typical build has connectors for everything including the
motors even if they didn't come with connectors. Being an experimenter at heart and an all around
repair person, connectors make swapping parts pretty easy. For me, the reasons given for using
the direct solder method are the weight of the connectors and the "loss" of efficiency especially
for the motors. Thing is, both of these are minimal as far as I can tell. Let me explain.

Hi iFly,
I think you caught my reply out of context. I was referring to replacing our body parts like the way we replace drone parts. I see your setup has lots of connectors!! Sometimes I wish I had a few connectors installed in my body for some hot swapping

(26-Jul-2023, 09:34 AM)ph2t Wrote: Mate, so what do you think now with the digital experience? Think you can fly analog again?

I’m going to find out tonight.
All I wanna fly is this digital build, but, the rest of my fleet is analog. I’m gonna tear up the sky with some of my overpowered analog builds in between digital flights this evening and see what I think. I’m hoping analog isn’t ruined for me, because digital is way too expensive to put in all of my current birds and use in every build going forward.

I’ve considered doing some sort of 3d printed tray where I can swap the whole vtx/cam unit between builds, but, I think that’d add a significant amount of weight- especially on a 2” to 3”.

I’m hoping that eventually I’ll be able to get my hands on some dirt cheap broken walksnail vtx’s, since I’ve got replacement components for all the most common failure points.

(26-Jul-2023, 06:34 PM)mstc Wrote: Hi iFly,
I think you caught my reply out of context. I was referring to replacing our body parts like the way we replace drone parts. I see your setup has lots of connectors!! Sometimes I wish I had a few connectors installed in my body for some hot swapping

I think I’ll start with sinuses, then lungs, liver, and heart. I could probably do with an upgraded mcu as well.

(26-Jul-2023, 06:34 PM)mstc Wrote: Hi iFly,
I think you caught my reply out of context. I was referring to replacing our body parts like the way we replace drone parts. I see your setup has lots of connectors!! Sometimes I wish I had a few connectors installed in my body for some hot swapping

Hi mstc,

Yeah, somehow I missed that. That's what happens when you get old like me;
sometimes you miss something.  Yes, hot swapping our body parts would really
be nice. How about getting an additional memory chip. That said, I think that 
having replacement human body parts might be closer than we realize. 
Maybe not today, but one day.

Later, My Friend, iFly  

Alright. I tried raising my master multiplier up a bit. I'm not getting flyaways, it's not being all floaty or not wanting to properly drop when I cut throttle, motors are coming down warm but not hot, and not making bad grinding noises. Cool.

Prop wash is gone, but, now I'm getting some minor shakes on every hard throttle up.

This tells me one of a few things:

-I've got a badly damaged prop.. Nope. Put new props on.
-I've got a broken arm.. Nope.
-I've got a bent motor shaft.. Nope.
-My seriously jacked up and broken canopy is causing jello.. Most likely.
-I don't know wtf I'm doing when it comes to tuning.. Yeah, also likely.

I'm not going to do it tonight, but I think I need to put a different canopy on this thing. Either a 3d printed one, or at least one that isn't cracked and glued within an inch of its life.

Anyhow. Here's some compressed flight video with a hv 550mah 3s battery. Let me know if you see any prop wash, or shakes on throttle up, and what you think might help those shakes or prop wash.

I added stick overlay to my osd. Most of my other builds have this, because it helps me when I'm reviewing my flight video, especially when I'm like, "How the hell did I do that?!" or, "WTF went wrong?!". Hopefully I can figure out how to actually add my osd back to my video. I wish I could make use of the entire digital walksnail screen, and push my osd elements to the edges. I dunno if that's possible, or if so, how to do that.

This is starting to get a little heavy on my head and ridiculous. I've definitely upped my nerd factor by at least 2x.


Totally worth it for the digital clarity, though.

I put some batteries through some analog builds tonight- I can definitely still happily fly analog. I push my analog builds significantly harder than this digital build. That might be because I'm not worried about destroying an expensive digital vtx, but, I think it's probably because most of my analog builds are overpowered high torque, high thrust builds. This digital build was not my usual- I used significantly smaller motors than I usually would, but still used higher pitch props. It doesn't have as much power on tap, and I think that shows in how I fly it.

If I pulled this digital vtx out of this build and put it in one of my usual overpowered heavy builds, I'm pretty sure I'd fly it just as hard as I would on analog- the main difference is that I can see fine detail if I want to dip in and out of branches and brambles, where I couldn't on analog. It also has significantly better range, and no breakup. I guess we'll find out for sure when I slap a digital vtx in one of my usual style of heavy overpowered builds.

Anyhow. Digital video. I don't have a clue what I'm doing with trying to add osd back to video, so, we'll see how this works out. I used the walksnail osd tool thingy, with the three files that get saved on an sd card on my vrx, plus a random hd osd font I downloaded from the osd tool site. Apparently it's gonna take 25+ minutes just to render it with osd. After that, I'm gonna have to potentially compress the hell out of it before I try to upload it to the youtube. If it's under 2gb, I'll try to just let it upload as is overnight and we'll see what happens. The last digital video I uploaded lost about half of its clarity and framerate due to my own compression and youtube's compression.

When I'm flying, my osd is more centered in the screen. As I said, I dunno what I'm doing with this adding osd back into video. Also, that bit that says, "Distance: xx" at the center bottom of the screen- I dunno if that's there in flight, I've never noticed it, but if it is, it could be super useful for finding my quad when I crash with no idea where it is- if that's a thing in my goggles, I can use it to walk in wide concentric circles to figure out where I am like I would with analog.

This video says it's gonna take 3 hours to upload. It's almost 11pm, so, maybe by 2am it'll be viewable. I didn't compress it, so, we'll see what youtube does to it. I'll let y'all know how it compares to goggle video tomorrow, and maybe upload some screenshots to compare.

In the meantime, I set up a nice little whoop race course in my shop- but, I don't think I should try uploading that video at the same time as the big digital file from this 2.5" build. Maybe I'll try uploading that tomorrow.