On a related note, Keegan was flying the NightHawk 280 today (only his 4th or 5th flight); he put it in acro mode and did some flips with it already. Kid can fly circles around his old man.
Well done, SPONZ.
FT Gremlin - SP0NZ Build Log
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Well done, SPONZ.
I don't know about flying circles, but... ;p
Dan,
I second the top plate with your avitar! Your journey is so helpful as I want to do the same. I have re-entered the hobby 6 months ago and have just this morning got my gremlin. Haven't even opened the box yet, had to jump on the forum here to find some help. I also have no experience other than the eachine 010 when it comes to quads.
Subscribed and looking forward to things you find. I promise to do the same.
Anybody know if Phoenix people have built a gremlin sim? I could use the help!
I second the top plate with your avitar! Your journey is so helpful as I want to do the same. I have re-entered the hobby 6 months ago and have just this morning got my gremlin. Haven't even opened the box yet, had to jump on the forum here to find some help. I also have no experience other than the eachine 010 when it comes to quads.
Subscribed and looking forward to things you find. I promise to do the same.
Anybody know if Phoenix people have built a gremlin sim? I could use the help!
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
I got the emax BabyHawk flying. What a great sense of accomplishment. One step closer to getting the Gremlin built. Learning a lot so far and loving every minute of the journey.
On a related note, Keegan was flying the NightHawk 280 today (only his 4th or 5th flight); he put it in acro mode and did some flips with it already. Kid can fly circles around his old man.
Young people usually have that advantage when they do things against us older guys who are blind in one eye, cant see out of the other, and are old enough to have the original recipe for dirt. Not to mention the reflexes of a fart in a headwind. Speaking for myself obviously but it goes for all father son competition with technical stuffs I think.
Time to resurrect this ancient thread. Also, time to apologize for not working on this for so long. This has been without a doubt the busiest summer I can remember. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that I’ve only been out flying 3 times this summer, and one of those was Flite Fest.
I managed to break both my FPV Inductrix and my BabyHawk (released the magic smoke somehow) several months ago. I picked up parts and upgrades to get them both operational again at Flite Fest East in July. I finally got around to fixing them.
The Inductrix repair/upgrade was fairly easy. I clipped off the useless battery connector (pigtail) that it came with and replaced it with the PW (power Whoop) connector so I could use the new 225 mAh lipos I got for it. Flew it once with the stock motors and realized it flew like a pig, so I replaced those with TW special sauce motors. But, I broke the frame (more) trying to replace them so, I picked up a replacement (the black Inductrix pro version) and swapped everything over. Flew much better, but eventually I’ll need to ditch the stock body and replace it with the mullet body I picked up at FF. My bad luck with multirotors continues though, because two flights in on the new frame and my FPV camera is no longer working. L She flies fine LOS for now though, and I will get back to sorting the camera out eventually.
The BabyHawk repair was very intimidating, for the same reason that I didn’t dive right into the Gremlin build. The electronics are tiny and my soldering skill is mediocre at best. With my old eyes, it’s very hard to see what I’m doing. I picked up a cheap magnifying visor at Harbor Freight and was surprised at how well it worked. I was ready to give this repair a shot. I bought a replacement Femto F3 flight controller and was hopeful that that was the only thing that went up in smoke. So, I disassembled the BabyHawk and cut out the old flight controller. The replacement FC came with wire soldered on for the ESC’s, so I de-soldered the ones on the Hawk. I made a few mistakes figuring out what motors to solder where, but I was eventually able to solder everything in correctly. Much to my surprise everything came to life when I plugged in the battery. I needed to set it all back up in BetaFlight, but the rest of the electronics were all good. I finished putting it all back together and flew a couple of packs through it already. This might seem like a small, simple repair to most, but it seemed like a lot for me to tackle. It was just what I needed to get some experience and confidence to tackle the Gremlin.
Keegan picked up a Gremlin kit at FFE. He’s off to college already, but we are coming out to visit for family weekend in a couple weeks. He wants me to build his out for him and bring it along so he can have it to fly at college. I haven’t started either Gremlin build yet because I didn’t want to mess anything up. But, now that I have the BabyHawk repair under my belt, I think I’m ready to get to building these FT Gremlins.
I managed to break both my FPV Inductrix and my BabyHawk (released the magic smoke somehow) several months ago. I picked up parts and upgrades to get them both operational again at Flite Fest East in July. I finally got around to fixing them.
The Inductrix repair/upgrade was fairly easy. I clipped off the useless battery connector (pigtail) that it came with and replaced it with the PW (power Whoop) connector so I could use the new 225 mAh lipos I got for it. Flew it once with the stock motors and realized it flew like a pig, so I replaced those with TW special sauce motors. But, I broke the frame (more) trying to replace them so, I picked up a replacement (the black Inductrix pro version) and swapped everything over. Flew much better, but eventually I’ll need to ditch the stock body and replace it with the mullet body I picked up at FF. My bad luck with multirotors continues though, because two flights in on the new frame and my FPV camera is no longer working. L She flies fine LOS for now though, and I will get back to sorting the camera out eventually.
The BabyHawk repair was very intimidating, for the same reason that I didn’t dive right into the Gremlin build. The electronics are tiny and my soldering skill is mediocre at best. With my old eyes, it’s very hard to see what I’m doing. I picked up a cheap magnifying visor at Harbor Freight and was surprised at how well it worked. I was ready to give this repair a shot. I bought a replacement Femto F3 flight controller and was hopeful that that was the only thing that went up in smoke. So, I disassembled the BabyHawk and cut out the old flight controller. The replacement FC came with wire soldered on for the ESC’s, so I de-soldered the ones on the Hawk. I made a few mistakes figuring out what motors to solder where, but I was eventually able to solder everything in correctly. Much to my surprise everything came to life when I plugged in the battery. I needed to set it all back up in BetaFlight, but the rest of the electronics were all good. I finished putting it all back together and flew a couple of packs through it already. This might seem like a small, simple repair to most, but it seemed like a lot for me to tackle. It was just what I needed to get some experience and confidence to tackle the Gremlin.
Keegan picked up a Gremlin kit at FFE. He’s off to college already, but we are coming out to visit for family weekend in a couple weeks. He wants me to build his out for him and bring it along so he can have it to fly at college. I haven’t started either Gremlin build yet because I didn’t want to mess anything up. But, now that I have the BabyHawk repair under my belt, I think I’m ready to get to building these FT Gremlins.
Michael9865
Elite member
You got this.
After watching the build video (twice ) I decided it would be in my best interest to order some tweezers to help with the soldering. Those just arrived on Saturday. I worked on my FT Simple Cub and got that flying over the weekend instead. I did pre-tin the FC on Keegan's Gremlin. I'll hopefully make good progress this week on it.
) I decided it would be in my best interest to order some tweezers to help with the soldering. Those just arrived on Saturday. I worked on my FT Simple Cub and got that flying over the weekend instead. I did pre-tin the FC on Keegan's Gremlin. I'll hopefully make good progress this week on it.
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
Did you test and flash everything at this point? It would be a good idea to do so now if you did not. You also need to think what protocol you wish to use. The esc's use different firmware for the various protocols. 16.0 (or any .0) is for the one shots and 16.5 (or any .5) is for multishot. The Femto is capable of Dshot but usually requires remapping motor assignments and also only uses Dshot 300 which is actually slower then Multishot.
Not a coffee drinker, so no worries there. My hands a pretty steady even with caffeine. It was easier to solder than I thought it would, but definitely takes a little practice and skill.
Checking everything will be the next step.
It sounds like you speaking a foreign language right now.
This is my first quad build ever. I don't know any of this stuff...yet. I will get there eventually. :black_eyed:
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
Oh you are in for a treat then.. Might wanna meditate before starting. This can be the most frustrating part of any quad build as sometimes normal process works. Others not so much. I wont toss in scenarios to confuse you but can answer questions as they arise if needed.
All the various "shots" are esc programming variants that have progressed over time. Mainly due to the speeds and precision they can control the motors with. Earlier ones are the "Oneshot" series then came "Multishot" which was faster and added more features like active braking I believe? Then came "Dshot" which is a digital protocol not analog which is even more accurate and faster and does not require any calibrations to work properly like the previous analog esc protocols do. There are now four levels of Dshot and the two levels the Femto is capable of using are actually slower then multishot so that is one of the trade offs for the more smooth protocol. For the Gremlin faster is better then smoother being as small and nimble as it is IMO.
Might wanna meditate before starting. This can be the most frustrating part of any quad build as sometimes normal process works. Others not so much. I wont toss in scenarios to confuse you but can answer questions as they arise if needed.All the various "shots" are esc programming variants that have progressed over time. Mainly due to the speeds and precision they can control the motors with. Earlier ones are the "Oneshot" series then came "Multishot" which was faster and added more features like active braking I believe? Then came "Dshot" which is a digital protocol not analog which is even more accurate and faster and does not require any calibrations to work properly like the previous analog esc protocols do. There are now four levels of Dshot and the two levels the Femto is capable of using are actually slower then multishot so that is one of the trade offs for the more smooth protocol. For the Gremlin faster is better then smoother being as small and nimble as it is IMO.
Oh you are in for a treat then..
All the various "shots" are esc programming variants that have progressed over time. Mainly due to the speeds and precision they can control the motors with. Earlier ones are the "Oneshot" series then came "Multishot" which was faster and added more features like active braking I believe? Then came "Dshot" which is a digital protocol not analog which is even more accurate and faster and does not require any calibrations to work properly like the previous analog esc protocols do. There are now four levels of Dshot and the two levels the Femto is capable of using are actually slower then multishot so that is one of the trade offs for the more smooth protocol. For the Gremlin faster is better then smoother being as small and nimble as it is IMO.
PsyBorg, hit me with your best recommendation for the Gremlin. I very much trust your judgement and would love your expert advice here.
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