Category: Uncategorized

Last week, first parts for my new racing quadcopter started to arrive. One of them, was carbon fiber frame: Reptile X4R 220. Why this one? Like I stated many times: I’m cheap. Plus, I did not wanted to go with another ZMR250 build. This frame was easily available, within budget and good looking. So, few…

As long as quality is decent, there is nothing better like "el cheapo" electronic components. Just like below $5 Matek PDB-XT60 Power Distribution Board with integrated 5V and 12V BEC. Preparing to build a new 220 racer I just got my Matek PDB from Aliexpress. Quality, at a first glance looks good. Laminate nicely cut,…

After a short brake, let’s return to Blackbox series with new entry: “How much gyro noise is too much?”. Almost all PID tuning tutorials states: reduce vibrations that affects gyroscope and accelerometer readouts. Yes, this true: any vibrations that appear during flight affects gyroscope and accelerometer readouts are bad and should be kept as low…

You finished your build, you connect LiPo, power up flight controller, apply throttle (no propellers of course) and you see that one or motors are spinning in wrong direction. How to fix that? You can not do it, for example in Cleanflight Configurator. ESC communication protocol does not allow to change BLC motor direction. There…

Modern drones utilize many different sensors to archive flight. Some of them are required to fly, some are only optional and they can only improve flight performance. This entry will be a summary of those sensors, with short description and information how drone utilizes data from them. Gyroscope Gyroscope, or shorter gyro, is the only…

Below is a video I’ve recorder 2 weeks ago, showing almost fully automatic mission performed by INAV. The only “non automatic” phase in this flight was take off. Besides regular nice views, this video presents a feature that will be available in future INAV 1.2: refactored and greatly improved MAGHOLD controller. MAGHOLD known from previous…

Few hours ago official release of iNav 1.1 has been published. Comparing to few month old version 1.0, there were many changes, including few very very important. In my personal order of importance they are: Default settings for Position Hold and Return To Home has been retuned, so they behave almost perfectly. Take a look…

LiPo battery, as the heaviest single element of any racer quadcopter, is mostly the first one to fell off during crash. Or displace in high-g maneuvers. Or simple fell off in flight. Like on this picture below I’ve found on Reddit. Grrrr… for sure this is something I would like not to see personally again.…

It is still too early to decide if new Turnigy Graphene are worth the money, but after 3 flying weekends with them I do have some thoughts about them already. They discharge differently than Turnigy Nano-Tech I’m using in parallel. Discharge curve seems to be flatter Voltage drop on high load is much smaller comparing…