Expensive Day, Still Had a Blast

[Flat4]

Today was a bit rough on the wallet, but we'll get to that in a minute, let's start with the happier stuff.

Finally got my friend to come out with me after what has to have been months, and we did a lot of flying. Went out to 3 different parks, with charge breaks and memory card dumps in between, and I finally got a chance to get my recently built Achilles 210 really dialed in. Man oh man is this thing fun, after primarily flying 180's for a couple months, this thrusty/floaty 5 incher is a lovely change of pace.

Here's a picture from a few week ago, before I started smashing it into stuff.



Here's a part's list:

Achilles 210 Frame
RCX2205 2350kv
Kiss 30amp
Kiss FC
RROSD pdb
DAL TJ5045 Tri's
HS1177 cam
Hawkeye 200mw vtx
Aomway Antenna
Xiaomi Yi

Now on to what everyone was waiting for...the carnage!!!

First on the chopping block today was a Tattu 1300mah 4S lipo. I don't have any footage of this one unfortunately because some dummy never hit record...wonder who that could be? The crash was just your average unintentional encounter with a tree at speed. Normally these are just a broken prop or two, but this time a branch somehow snuck past my Xiaomi Yi shield, and mushed up my lipo. The corner of the top cell was dented in a good half inch. We took no chances with this one, held it out the window on the drive home, immediately discharged it outside, and then dropped it off at best buy.

The second casualty was an aomway cloverleaf. Did you ever have such a good flight going that you just completely stopped paying attention to your osd voltage? Well I did, I slapped some music behind it and tossed it up on youtube. Feel free to skip to the last 10 seconds to see the wreck, or watch the whole thing and be awed by my excessive power looping!

Also here's a pic, by far my most mangled antenna to date. It's also worth noting I had a 3D printed cover for it secured with 2 zip ties, it was no where to be found. Also included was copious amounts of extra solder from previous repairs, repairs that this poor guy will never see again.



Last, but not least, the worst of the day. Worst not only by damage, but because it wasn't even my fault. I was zipping around doing my thing, and my friend decided to switch from the quad he was flying all day, to a different one. This particular quad uses a vtx with a push button channel selector, that just happens to be in a spot my friend frequently hit when grabs the quad to plug the battery in. Now I'm sure you can see where this is going, but he just happened to switch it to my frequency, or one close enough to it, for my receiver to switch to his feed. I yelled for him to unplug immediately, but those dang tight new XT60 connectors were my demise. He got it unplugged when I was about 6ft off the ground, just enough time to realize it's all about to go wrong, but not enough to do anything.

The damage this time was a 200mw hawkeye vtx, 5 sheared aluminum bolts, and another Tattu 1300 4S 75C. Not a good day for the Tattu's, I currently have 5 different brands of packs, but only the Tattu's fell victim. This pack is not nearly as banged up as the first either, but I'm not willing to risk it. I discharged it when I got home, it's now lying outside until I can run it over to BestBuy.

Some pics:





And the crash video!!! Unfortunately the Yi cam couldn't finish writing the HD file before the crash cut it off. Luckily the SuPoorView script I run also records a low res file that is so small it always writes til the last drop. Great for those spectacular wrecks.

All in all quite a day. Honestly if I knew how it would all pan out I'd still do it again, but maybe with a friendly reminder about frequency etiquette first . Hopefully my misfortune can bring some joy to you guys, thanks for reading/watching!

 

[French]

I hate breaking antennas. They aren't something that I normally just have extras laying around.

Nice videos!!!

 

[Snarls]

I never like days where I come home with something broken besides props. At least you still had a blast to compensate. Where did you get the SuPoorView script. I might want to try that out on my Yi.

 

[Flat4]

Luckily I bought an extra set a couple weeks ago, the last time I had to repair this one. I knew it was a matter of time, it was fixed about 4 times previously.

Thanks for watching!

 

[Flat4]

I never like days where I come home with something broken besides props. At least you still had a blast to compensate. Where did you get the SuPoorView script. I might want to try that out on my Yi.

Yea, it was rough one. Just not my day, ah well. I got the script from here. The more I use the more I like it. Plus that little back up recording it does is amazing for the hard hits that turn off the Yi.

 

[Cyberdactyl]

I hate breaking antennas. They aren't something that I normally just have extras laying around.

Nice videos!!!

Exactly!

 

[Snarls]

Yea, it was rough one. Just not my day, ah well. I got the script from here. The more I use the more I like it. Plus that little back up recording it does is amazing for the hard hits that turn off the Yi.

Thanks, looking forward to trying it. Does stretching the video take a toll on the video quality?

 

[Flat4]

Not that I can tell. The script also ups the bitrate from the 20mbps stock to up to 35mbps. So if anything it increases the quality. I can upload the raw file, if you'd like to see what it looks like before youtube destroys it.

 

[Snarls]

I can upload the raw file, if you'd like to see what it looks like before youtube destroys it.

I'll spare you. I'll give it a try myself and can always change back if I choose.

 

[Flat4]

I'll spare you. I'll give it a try myself and can always change back if I choose.

Sounds good, I carry around a card with the supoorview script on it, and one with a script that increases the bitrate to 35mbps, in case I'm not feeling the stretched look.

I was having issues with it, when everything was covered in snow, it was causing some wired artifacts in the footage, since the snow has been gone it's been working great however. There are also different settings for color balance and what not built into the script, it's pretty awesome. Gotta love this community.

 

[Flyingninja]

Looks like you had a heck of a good time! Pretty jealous

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Not that I can tell. The script also ups the bitrate from the 20mbps stock to up to 35mbps. So if anything it increases the quality. I can upload the raw file, if you'd like to see what it looks like before youtube destroys it.

You can also try Vimeo. It tends to use a less harsh compression algorithm.

 

[Flat4]

Looks like you had a heck of a good time! Pretty jealous

I really did, even with the $100 in broken gear, I still had a big ole stupid grin for the rest of the day.

 

[Flat4]

You can also try Vimeo. It tends to use a less harsh compression algorithm.

I've toyed around with vimeo before, but the free account only gives you 500mb a week, and it's only at 720p. Even still the 720p vimeo version is as good as the 1080p youtube version. My problem is at 35mbps a 3min video file is like 750mb. I could export it in a lower bitrate, but I find it comes out better on youtube if you start with a higher quality source. This all just what I noticed, I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to video editing/recording, so who knows I could just be making all this up.