Thanks to this youtuber that found a lipo that fits PERFECTLY into the QX7 battery tray, I now have a claimed 6000mAh (5000mAh-ish actual) pack for my Taranis. Four 3000mAh cells wired up 2S2P. Now I just have to fix my balance charger to quit complaining about low voltage when charging 2S batteries so that I can charge it fully.

Taranis Q X7 LIPO battery upgrade 5000mAh (5 min 46 sec)

EDIT: I messed up the balance plug wiring. I blame the 2:00am lipo surgery. I stripped it all down and rebuilt it correctly, and while making it easier on the eyes too.

Holy cow! I love these props. Where have you been all my life! I was getting some nasty propwash that I neglected to tune out from some flimsy (but durable) KK 2840's. These things saved me from a few hours of tuning.

Kid1 wanted to go skiing, so we took the scenic route to the ski hill. Don't hate on my white pants after Labor Day. They're ski pants. Recorded with an Eachine EV800 with ProDVR mod.

Eachine VTX03 (set on 25mW)
Foxeer Arrow Micro

Leader120 in the canyon (2 min 37 sec)

My new VTX finally showed up. It took 18days to get from NJ to CO. What the heck, BG??? With this final component, I stripped her down and rebuilt it. The horrible horrible horrible FPV rig from Full Speed was yanked. So was the beeper. In went an Eachine VTX03, Foxeer Arrow Micro v2, a traditional button style beeper, and since I was in there anyways, I salvaged the 4-LED strip from my Eachine QX95 to help me with my LOS flying.

The cam was mounted into some new holes that I drilled forward of the existing cam holes. I gained about 1.5mm by scootching the camera forward. The power for the cam comes straight from the lipo, since it has a huge input voltage range. The VTX03 is powered from the original camera pads. The VTX lays down on top of the FC, and then the XM+ receiver lays down on top of the VTX.

...only to sit back on the bench two packs later. The first pack was spent on LOS flying during the shakedown after replacing the ESC board. On the second pack, I strapped on the goggles but forgot to turn on airmode. DOH! A hard crash upside down into some loose rocks resulted in some magnets rattling around inside motors 2 and 3. This is getting ridiculous.

After my Thanksgiving crash, it was time to see what all was salvageable. I didn't have much hope for the pyrofliprc 1299mah 4S graphene lipo that I really really love. After slicing off all the wrapping, it looks like I'm GOOD TO GO! The metallic stuff that I saw poking out was actually the armor plating doing it's job. The cell packs are all A-OK. A simple little squishing in my bench vise got her all nice and flat again. Now to order up some lipo shrink wrap. If anyone knows of a good source, and knows of a good technique to it, I'm all ears.

I "just" got my 210 back in the air, thanks to a replacement HGLRC F4 V5Pro FC from Pirofliprc. My wife signed us up to host Thanksgiving for her family this year, so we have a ton of people over. I decided to give them all a ridealong and tried to get too fancy or something. I think my battery slipped out after a front flip, and that may have dragged the whole thing down. Anyways, I broke an arm. 4mm 3k carbon doesn't break that easily, and I can attest that I was really moving at the time. And I may have killed a lipo. I have fiberglass poking out. The cells are all fine, but something tells me that she's not going to survive another crash. All this after I just got her back in the air too. With my Leader 120 being down, I'm now left with just brushed micros. I think it's time to start another build

Update: I have a theory. I think the battery strap may have broken, and that caused the lipo to flop around and bring the whole thing down. I just now noticed that the strap isn't on the frame.

I ordered this Leader 120 on 27-Oct, and got it today. I immediately flashed BF 3.2.2 and installed an XM+ receiver. On stock PIDs it's already feeling pretty locked in, though this is just from hovering in my living room. I'll find out more once I get it outside tomorrow. This thing is super quiet too, with the stock KK props. I have more KK props on the way as well as 2435 Pro props. I'm going to be flying with Zippy 500mah 3S 35C lipos.

tl;dr - It didn't end well.

Today was a day that I've been waiting for, ever since I started flying quadcopters. I've always wanted to launch into the fog, and punch it right out of the top into clear blue skies, (spoiler alert!) kind of like at the end of The Matrix - Part3. I burned a vacation day at work just to be able to do this. The stars weren't in perfect alignment though. My HawKeye Firefly Q6 wasn't fully charged. In fact, it ran out of juice a minute after I launched, but I was able to get some footage. The moisture or ice in the fog, I think, condensed on my HGLRC F4 V5Pro flight controller during the flight. Needless to say, she fell from the sky.

First thing to go was my FPV feed. After I was blinded, I ripped off my EV100 goggles to try to spot my X210, but the fog was too thick. I heard the general direction that it went down in, and so, the hunt was on. With no FC, I had no beeper. The field I fly in is overrun with native wild grass that grows to a meter high at its peak. I've had crashes where I'd flick on the buzzer and follow it all the way to within 1meter and still not see it until I was literally on top of it. I was mentally prepared to kiss her goodbye. Even if I had found her, there was the matter of the original source of the midflight outage. And then there was the small matter of falling 100' out of the sky and into 70mm of fresh snow. She was a worthy vessel, that's for sure. Definitely my favorite build. I was content...Continue Reading

I just got my EV100. It probably won't look this way for long. I'm pretty good at voiding warranties and this will not be an exception to that. My plans are to install a Realacc FS style diversity receiver, with remote secondary receiver. I'm going to try to use the existing antenna mounts, but I'll see how much room I have to work with, once I crack into the case. I might have to warm up the 3D printer for this job.

After attempting some acro moves while still in Horizon mode (duh) I crashed on top of my cam, the Firefly Q6. It still works but the OLED display was dead with spiderweb cracks all over it. Thankfully, spares are available. I tried to video the repair with a cell phone, but it kept maxing out the video and quitting the cam. I'll see if I managed to capture any useful footage. The experience certainly gave me new respect for the folks who make youtube build videos.

Still waiting on parts to complete my Kylin. The frame is assembled, so I just need to slap it all in there. I'm debating using the LEDs in the back or not, since now I'm thinking about a "murdered out" look and going all black thanks to a screwed up order by helidirect. I had ordered a blue cased Foxeer Night Wolf v.2 but got black instead. I have a bunch of older ESCs and motors I can slap in there just to get it flying while my permanent motors and ESCs arrive.

Notice from the pic below I'm giving soft-mounted motors a try. I'm using silicon Rescue Tap on the top and bottom motor mount surface of the arm. The motor will sit on the top surface. I made some plastic disks by cutting up a clear plastic disposable dinner plate. The screws will go through the plate, to lightly compress against the bottom layer of silicone, while drawing the motors lightly onto to top layer of silicon. The FC will be mounted on those standard rubber isolating 3mm mounts.

Speaking of FC, this AIO FC should make for a SUPER clean build. No external PDB, no external OSD, no external VTX. Smooooth.

Parts list:
-Realacc X210 Pro 4mm 3k carbon frame
-HGLRC F4 V5Pro FC with integrated VTX, OSD, PDB, BEC running BF 3.1.6
-Frsky XSR SBUS receiver
-Foxeer Night Wolf V3 IR sensitive camera
-RCX RS2206 2400kv V3 motors
-XRotor 30A ESCs
-King Kong 5x4x3 props

Temp parts:
-"Emax" MT2204 2300kv motors
-DYS 16A ESCs

I'm somewhat disappointed with this microquad. It looks great, if I do say so myself, but it's in need of some serious tuning that not even BF 3.1.6 stock PIDs can fix. It could also use some 65mm props instead of the Ladybirds that I have on there. I'm guessing one of the motors or props is out of balance and causing some serious vibration. I'm also running the AKK Technology BS2 cam/VTX power wires loosely across the FC to the battery pads so maybe they're banging around on the FC too. Anyways, it still flies, but will need some work. The frame certainly feels sturdy though, so it has that going for it.

Parts list:
-"DIY Micro FPV RC 100mm" carbon fiber frame from banggood
-Racerstar 8520 coreless motors (direct-soldered)
-Ladybird props
-FRF3_EVO_Brushed FC running BF 3.1.6 with integrated Frsky SBUS receiver
-AKK Technology BS2 AIO cam/VTX

So far, this QX95 is my best flying brushed micro. How's that for an opening statement? It's even on the stock Cleanflight 1.13 firmware that came on it. Thanks to a little diet to lose some weight (ditched the upper plate and stand-offs), and some beefier Racerstar 8520 brushed motors, this thing now really moves! The power to weight ratio is incredible for the size.

I was so confident in how I'm able to fly this craft, that I even attempted to do some cliff diving with it, but it ended in an epic fail due to two failsafes and two difficult walks-of-shame because of the steep mountain terrain while wearing flip-flops. It was a spur of the moment thing. The first failsafe was due to the location in the air that I had parked it, to line it up for the dive. It was behind and above me, so my radio that was in my lap had to go through me, as well as the FC due to where my antenna was pointed. I'm sure some boulders were probably in the way as well. I say "was pointed" because this crash ripped off my antenna, which I failed to notice before my second attempt. That explains the second failsafe, which happened about 30ft from the cliff edge that I was standing on, and resulted in a 100ft free fall.

Parts List:
-eachine QX95 frame (this is my third replacement frame)
-FRF3_EVO_Brushed FC (de-socketed) with integrated Frsky SBUS receiver running CF 1.13
-Racerstar 8520 coreless motors (black) direct soldered
-Ladybird props
-AKK Technology A3 AIO cam/VTX with selectable power

I had some spare parts laying around due to a destroyed Eachine QX90C frame, so I figured I'd cobble together something cheap and tough; something that I can let my friends and neighbors fly around and crash into things without any worries. But it still had to be fun and cool. A quick trip to thingiverse yielded this 90mm frame created by dschiedsch.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2169174

I took some liberties with the plans. I skipped on the battery tray, and opted for Velcro to hold the 600mah 1S lipo to the undercarriage. Rather than bending the camera platform down to attach the AIO VTX/Cam as per the instructions, I kept the shelf and adhered the cam using hot glue. After printing the main frame out of bright green ABS, I started the print for a second frame, except I stopped the print after the main body was finished (before the motor supports started to rise up out of the print). After reaming out the motor holes in the second lower profile frame, due to the stop-notch that's built into the motor mounts to keep them from falling straight through, I now had a dual-level micro frame that would always keep the motors perfectly square and upright, and has so far proven to be my most durable FPV. And as a bonus: it practically glows in the dark, just from the FC's LEDs shining through the ABS.

Parts list:
-3D printed ABS frame (see above)
-8520 motors from an eachine QX90C (direct soldered)
-eachine FRF3_EVO_BRUSHED FC from the same QX90C (de-socketted) with built-in Frsky SBUS receiver
-eachine TX03 AIO cam with switchable power VTX
-Ladybird props
-micro buzzer