u/TrucksAndCigars

The last pack curse strikes again. Last flight I broke a camera, now my FC.

I bumped the ground trying a powerloop, flipped, and saw my voltage readout freak out as I was turtling back upright moments later. It rose to 36V within seconds and didn't budge after.

Once I got home, I first plugged it into Betaflight to inspect the voltage values. Strangely, the readout kept slowly rising to silly levels just plugged into USB. I then took the quad apart and gently cleaned the AIO with IPA and a brush, just to make sure nothing conductive was on there and ensure nothing was visibly missing, which it wasn't.

The USB voltage stays at expected levels after cleaning, but no change on battery voltage. Out of desperation, I tried calibrating the voltage levels and even flashing the newest firmware, but predictably no change - the readout just stays at what I calibrate it to.

The whoop is a Flywoo Firefly16 V3, with the Goku F405 1S board. Something's clearly busted hardware-wise. If anyone happens to know which particular component to look at, I could try resoldering or replacing it. My friend suggested reflowing the board in the oven, which sounds risky...

Thoughts?

I've finally built a modern drone! After a month of messing around with an ancient ZMR250 with a Naze32 and dreaming of modern capabilities, I was ready to upgrade. I'm sticking to 4S for now, so I decided to salvage the motors off the old drone. When I'm ready to go 6S, I'll get a new set of motors, revive the old fella and do something silly with it, maybe put a modern ESC in it and slam it.

Frame: GepRC Vapor X5

Stack: GepRC Taker F405 BLS 60A V2

Motors: Multistar V2 2206-2150KV Baby Beast

Camera: CaddxFPV Ratel 2

VTX: Speedybee TX800

RX: Radiomaster XR1 Nano

TX: Radiomaster Boxer w/ AG01

Goggles: Betafpv VR02 w/ Pagoda antenna

I chose this frame for how it contains everything nice and neatly, with a capacitor mount, buzzer mount (that I couldn't use because my buzzer is too big, will rectify later), a lovely receiver and VTX mounting stack in the rear, and TPU bits for the antennas.

With the ESC mounted backwards to fit the capacitor mount and me wanting the FC mounted the intended way so I wouldn't have my cables snaking around the stack, I had to solder on longer wires between the FC and ESC. Then, due to the connectors on the board having different voltages than what I needed (and a little bit of me wanting to be consistent), I had to solder everything else into place too. I really should've chosen an FC with solder pads on the top - I had to dry fit everything, cut my wires to length, solder everything into place outside the frame, then mount everything in one go. It was a hassle, but it looks quite tidy.

As you can tell, soldering the motor wires and especially the battery leads gave me trouble, as is tradition. Even with the gas soldering iron I borrowed off a friend, it took an embarrassingly long time to get the battery leads to kinda sorta stick. Not the worst I've ever seen, though.

I stayed up until four in the morning yesterday planning, soldering and mounting everything, lol. Once I'd ensured no magic smoke would escape, I went to bed, and set up the software side today. I'm using Supafly presets for now. It was rainy today so I only managed a tiny indoor test flight in Angle mode (appropriate caution and care was taken dw), but I'm already impressed. The old ZMR felt... uncertain at the best of times, wobbly at the worst - this thing is *locked in.* I'm sure part of it is the radio - going from the old Devo 7 to the Boxer in simulators instantly dropped my times by a solid quarter - but I'm still extremely happy she flies. Can't wait to go fly for real.

Do let me know if anything looks particularly off!

Very fun little speedy chill-out build. Got the kit for eight bucks and it was surprisingly good.

My friend introduced me to FPV a while back and insisted on selling me his old drone, dropping the price more and more until I relented. As of right now, I have a couple hours flight experience with his drones in normal mode and maybe ten in acro mode in simulators, which I'm already pretty not bad with. This particular drone is probably a bit much for a first, but the price was right and he started on this thing too...

Some years ago, he'd had a friend of his buy and replace the motors to pay a debt. At that time, he'd gotten a few DJI drones and never found the time to put it back together, so in the drawer it sat, partially disassembled. I ended up buying the whole lot for 150 euro. Naturally, I have a few questions.

It has brand new Multistar V2 2206-2150KV motors, new 5x4.5 props, an Afroflight Naze32 Rev5 flight controller, a Fat Shark Pilot HD V2 camera and VTX, Teleporter V3 goggles, and a Walkera Devo7 radio and receiver.

My friend had forgotten how he'd placed all his components, so I just winged it and stuffed everything together like pictured. How's the placement, anything I need to tweak? The RX antenna setup seems odd to me, but I decided to just go for it.

The Naze32 is apparently pretty ancient and outdated, but it's what I have. From my research, Betaflight 3.2.5 is a good software to flash onto it, any alternatives I should consider?

The motors came with these thumbscrew prop mounts with right- and left-handed threads. I'd like a sanity check; I mounted right-handed nuts on CCW motors and vice versa, thinking the inertia of the nut would act to tighten it on acceleration. That's correct, right?

The RX antenna for the goggles is missing, any recommendations? I'd be able to build one myself with some good plans. Is a regular old coax dipole workable?

Finally, the FOV of the goggles is pretty bad, and they'll probably be the first thing I replace. Is the Eachine EV800D still the go-to budget set? Being analog, it will work with the VTX I have, yes?

I'll appreciate any pointers. I have background in ground RC, amateur radio and flight sims, so I'll be able to understand the concepts here, but there's just so many new things to learn. Can't wait to get everything tidied up and go flying!