During the Christmas holidays 2014 I saw first time a video of quad copter FPV (first person view) racing. It looked very cool and I decided immediately that I have to have one of those. My first season (summer 2015) I flew with a setup that was really common at the time: ZMR250 frame+ Emax 1806/2280 motors + 12V ESC+ 3S batteries+ 5030–5040 props. For the summer 2016 it was time to make some upgrades, so this project started…

If you are interested, my new project for summer 2017 is to build BoltRC Kraken 5X

I had liked the Skyhero Anakin -frame from the first moment I saw it. Unfortunately if looked just a bit too experimental with the complicated motor mounts etc. and I was able to resist the desire and didn’t buy it. In the beginning of February 2016 SkyHero introduced a new, similar frame Anakin Club Racer, and I was hooked.

This is a simple documentation of the build. Mostly just for my own future reference but maybe it could be of some use to others too?

— 3.12.2016 I updated the part list to show the current setup —

Setup/parts for the copter:

Building the frame

Frame parts

Building of the frame was very straight forward. Only thing that I needed to adjust in the frame was the camera mount as I wanted to have the camera in 30 deg angle and I needed to enlarge the slit in the camera mount just a little (with Dremel). Also my old camera PZ0240 was just a tad too big to fit into the frame, but luckily a friend of mine had one HS1177 laying around and was kind enough to borrow it to me so that I was able to continue with the build.

My power distribution board was also just a little too larger for the frame so I needed to cut some edges of it with Dremel.

Binding the receiver

I followed the very simple instructions to bind my radio to the receiver. Everything seemed to go well, but the receiver just blinked red led after the procedure. Just as on the first time I did this long time a ago, I had the radio in my laps and the receiver on the table so close, that they didn’t want to communicate with each other. Taking the radio a bit further (20–30cm) fixed the problem.

Setting up the flight controller

I decided to use the SP Racing F3 flight controller and flashed it with Betaflight 2.4.0-RC7.

Ports

Configuration

Modes

Custom mix

As the quad is not a perfect square I needed to make a custom mix for it. I measured the frame and it was:

1 2 132 (=132 mm from motor 1 to motor 2)

1 3 168

1 4 215

…and I ended up with :

mixer custom

mmix reset

mmix 0 1 -1 0.786 -1

mmix 1 1 -1 -0.786 1

mmix 2 1 1 0.786 1

mmix 3 1 1 -0.786 -1

Minimum and maximum throttle and min_check

I had already made a test flight with Minimum throttle at the default 1150, but it made the copter to almost float when in Aero mode (it was hard to get the copter down from the air).

I checked out with the motors -tab that the motors start reliably at 1028 and set that to the “Minimum throttle”. When adjusting the minimum throttle the min_check should also be set accordingly (to be somewhat lower than the min throttle).

I set my max throttle closer to the max (default 1850=>1950) and made the ESC calibration again.

The*_check settings need to be made from the “CLI” of the Configurator.

set min_check = 1020

set min_throttle = 1028

set max_check = 1900

set max_throttle = 1950

Calibrating the battery sensor

Calibrating the voltage sensor

To get the voltage reading right in the FC I needed to measure the battery voltage simultaneously from the battery and via the FC. Initially there was a slight difference in the readings, but adjusting the voltage scale from Clean Flight Configurator solved this.

Setting up the ESC’s

This screenshot was taken when I used different ESC’s, settings are the same

I flashed the ESC’s with BLHeli 14.4 that worked nicely through the FC so I didn’t need to do any unsoldering. Just turned the direction of ESC’s 2 and 3.

I din’t really know what should I change from the factory settings. I had the timing in “Medium High”, but got a tip that I could/should be in “Medium”. Another setting that puzzles me is the “Demag Compensation”, but I learned from someone that if I experience “motor stop or stutter upon quick throttle increase” I could increase the demag (and loose some power at the same time).

Setting up the OSD

Wiring: CC3D (replaced laterwith SPRacingF3)+ FrSky X4R + Micro MinimOSD

Setting up the OSD was a pain in the * again. I already had an Micro Minim OSD flashed with a version of MW OSD so I was able to skip that part of the process. I also had the everything set up in Taranis (radio sends RSSI signal on one channel), but still I wanted to check that everything was working before I started to put the frame up. I was able to get the current and video signal from another frame but I made the same mistake than last time that I forgot to HAVE THE SAME GROUND FOR FC+OSD+TX. If the ground is not the same you’ll gonna get experience weird behavior from the setup (e.g. no OSD, errors in picture…).

Setting up the radio

Taranis end points

Setting Taranis end points from the “Servos” -menu

I got tipped that I should fix the end point of my radio so that the stick range would appear to the FC (in Configurator) as 1000–2000 and mid point would be 1500. This is done from the Servos -menu of the Taranis and is done individually to each channel.

Sounds for the Taranis

I decided to create some new sound for the Taranis. Just remember to change the sound quality/format to 32000Hz, mono, wav — and basically any sound should work.

Good sites for creating /choosing the sounds are e.g. www.acapela-group.com and www.audioblocks.com

Painting the radio

FrSky Taranis X9D plus

Just for a funny project for X-mas holidays I decided to paint my radio. I took the radio a part, cleaned the from piece thoroughly with some dish soap and painted it with multiple layers with some lexan paint.

Headplay HD

Just to follow the theme (that I didn’t know having before starting to write this story) my glasses are also black and white…

Making a copy of the canopy

I decided to try to make a spare copy of the canopy and I thought that it would be better to make it now when the brand new canopy is still in one piece. I friend of mine had all the equipment for making pieces out of carbon fiber so…

Original, negative model from “polymorph plastic”, finished copy from carbon fiber

Canopy before painting and camera fitting

Finished canopy

My main motivation for the CF canopy was not the weight reduction, but just for information to those who are interested:

Original canopy 13.8 g

Naked CF canopy: 9.9 g

Painted CF canopy: 11.3 g

This brings me to the total weight of the copter that is 389.9 g without battery (so depending on the battery around 500–550 g AUW)