Going Full Kiss - Martian 220mm Build Log

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
It's finally time...time to go full KISS. Considering I have not used anything KISS before this should be interesting. This is a 4s performance build with a Martian II 220mm frame, EMAX red bottoms, KISS 24a ESCs, and the KISS FC.

Full Parts List:
Frame: Martian II 220mm
Motors: EMAX RS2205 "red bottoms"
ESCs: KISS 24a Race Edition
FC: KISS FC
RX: FrSky XSR
Battery: 4s 1300mAh Nanotech
Props: DAL BN5045 V2
Regulator: Hovership Micro Stepdown
Camera: Runcam Swift
vTX: TS5823 200mW
Antenna: Aomway 4-Leaf Clover

220ExplodedS.jpg
Let's get building!

Taking a look at the martian (no not Matt Damon):

I got this one from GoodLuckBuy. It is the martian II 220mm with 4mm arms. I did not know the martian II was a thing, nor was it labelled on the store when I bought it. When I opened up the box I was surprised to find I got version 2. This version has the new camera mount with optional angles instead of just one. There is also some other small changes which I can not point out specifically.

MartianFront.jpg
Front view. I'm not exactly sure what the tiny plate on the top of the frame in the back is for. Antennas maybe, but I may just remove it to shed weight.

MartianSide.jpg
Side view. XT60 supplied along with standoffs for the FC and the carbon plate above it. The plate above the FC could help protect it as well as be a place to mount the vTX. I'm not sure I like the position of the XT60 on the side. Too close to the props and seems kinda awkward.

MartianTilt.jpg
Closer view of the new camera tilt. There are three angle options; 10, 20 and 30 degrees. I'll probably set it to 30 degrees and eventually I may mod it to accept any angle.

The instructions (well, schematics - still pretty impressive) for this frame claim a weight of 140g. I weighed mine and got 145g with the XT60 and 139 without. The parts are nicely cut, although they came with sharp edges so I had to do some sanding. The only tight fit was with installing the camera tilt side plates which required some hits with a mallet. Overall seems like a nice quality frame.
 

Darkback2

New member
I have been really happy with my martian, to the point where I got an Alien frame to switch over to and haven't done it yet. Honestly though I am not sure if it is the Martian I am happy with, or the fact that I have grown as a pilot in the time it took me to move from my original ZMR to this thing, but I feel like I can do almost anything with it. I can't mind you, but I feel that way.

As for KISS...I still don't know that I am good enough to know the difference between KISS and anything else. I'm still doing what works for me, but I would love to hear what you think the differences are between KISS ESC's and anything else, and the KISS flight controller and say the NAZE-32 in terms of flyability.

Can't wait to see this build come together!

Best of luck.

DB
 

mactek

Member
Love my Martian frame. The durability seems pretty good. I have not smashed it into pavement yet like used to with my HMB but i also think this frame handles much better than the HMB. I running an RROSD "Awesome PDB with OSD", LUX FC, RTFQ 2403 motors with RTFQ Blizzard esc's.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Nice build. This is close to what I have planned for my next quad. The frame decision has not been made yet full but the kiss combo with the red based emax motors are for sure. I have a kiss FC now and picked up a graphene 4s 1300 to test using 4s on my Versa ( I know its probably too small but wanted to test the 4s and a higher c rated battery) Im gonna stick to my trusty Devo7 radio as I am comfortable in its use and KNOW its reliability now.

Have fun building this and I will look forward to more posts as you do. Don't forget to get a maiden video as well. Some have gotten all excited and forgot in the past.
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Thanks guys! My ZMR frame is not bad, but the martian has been very easy to work with so far. All the bolt holes line up good (unlike my ZMR at first) and it feels really solid. The PDB is going to really speed up and clean up the build as well. I can't wait to try out KISS products for the first time. I will film the maiden for sure!
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Back at it today with mounting the motors and ESCs. First I attached the motors to the frame to get a feel for things and see how the fit is. Absolute piece of cake mounting these motors. The supplied bolts are just the right length for the 4mm martian arms. There is just enough material at the motor mount to protect the circumference of the motor.

Motors.jpg

Next it was time to get the motors and ESCs soldered together. Man I forgot how tight things are when working with mini quads. I've been working on my Disco for so long I got used to having lots of space.

ESCsSoldered.jpg


ESCsClose.jpg
 

French

Construire Voler S'écraser Répéter
Very nice, Snarls. I can't wait to see how you like this setup.

Not that I need a new quad, but I'd really like to build a Luminer 210 with 2300 red bottoms. I'm torn between kiss FC/kiss 24; motolabs cyclone FC/DYS xm20A; or lux FC/DYS xm20A. I feel like I'd like all the tweaks that Betaflight provides, but I wonder if the simplicity of the kiss makes more sense.
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Next I cut some wire for the power and signal leads on the ESCs. The ESCs are so close to the PDB that I really did not need much wire to reach. For the signal leads I am using braided servo wire. The braided wire will be much cleaner than if I soldered on three separate wires. Unfortunately this servo wire from HK has silicone that melts very quickly, but it still does the job.

ESCsTop.jpg

The ESCs are nicely covered in clear heatshrink, however I will have to remove at least two of the heatshrinks to reverse the motor direction when the time comes. The force from the motor wires and power leads is enough to hold these ESCs in place pretty solidly. I may still add some tape around the ESCs and arms to secure them further and protect from prop strikes.

PDBClose.jpg

The KISS FC has a built in 5v BEC, but it is mainly to allow you to power the board off the full battery voltage. For the FPV equipment I am using a micro stepdown regulator from Hovership. The same regulator can also be found over at Rotorgeeks. I need to power the FPV camera up front along with the vTX in the back. That is why there is a pos/neg running to the left and one to the right. Disconnected on the right side is the yellow video signal wire from the vTX that will be connected to the camera.

Regulator.jpg

The regulator is mounted in the center of the PDB using a small piece of foam tape. There are four bolts in the center as well so I put some heatshrink around the regulator to protect it from shorting. The flight controller will be mounted above.

RegulatorInstall.jpg
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Very nice, Snarls. I can't wait to see how you like this setup.

Not that I need a new quad, but I'd really like to build a Luminer 210 with 2300 red bottoms. I'm torn between kiss FC/kiss 24; motolabs cyclone FC/DYS xm20A; or lux FC/DYS xm20A. I feel like I'd like all the tweaks that Betaflight provides, but I wonder if the simplicity of the kiss makes more sense.

Thanks French! Do we ever need new toys :p? I too was contemplating going with an F3/F4 FC and an ESC with F390. Then running raceflight and multishot. But that all sounded very new and experimental and I thought I might as well hop on the KISS train while I see where everything else goes. I still have my ZMR250 with Betaflight so I get the best of both worlds. We'll see how simple KISS is once I start configuring and programming.
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
You should watch FinalglideAUS video for his Alien build on Rotor Riots you tube. He has a few tips that makes this build much easier. things like what motors HAVE to be reversed so you can set that up and not have to go back over things like het shrink and such. Well worth the watch even if you have built quads before. This will help you when it comes time for all the Kiss set up stuff as well.

 

French

Construire Voler S'écraser Répéter
I really like Chad's method of mounting the VTX/antenna as a single unit.
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
You should watch FinalglideAUS video for his Alien build on Rotor Riots you tube. He has a few tips that makes this build much easier. things like what motors HAVE to be reversed so you can set that up and not have to go back over things like het shrink and such. Well worth the watch even if you have built quads before. This will help you when it comes time for all the Kiss set up stuff as well.

Thanks! I will definitely check that out. I have all mine soldered the same way so I know two will have to be reversed. I just did not know which two.
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Got the flight controller mounted. It's a pretty tight fit with all the ESC leads and the regulator underneath. I also have the receiver lead for the FrSky XSR I am using.

FrontKISS.jpg

Right now I have the battery leads coming out the back as opposed to the side as suggested with the PDB. I'm not sure I'll keep it that way. I am worried that a side mounted battery connection is easy to get sliced by the props in a crash.

TopKISS.jpg

KISS FC fully soldered.

KISSClose.jpg
 

PsyBorg

Wake up! Time to fly!
Don't forget to dab some hot glue or rtv on them tiny wires as they are the weak point of the entire build where they all connect to the FC.

That's starting to look like a flying machine. Nice neat work in that tiny space. There is a neat "Riser" that was used for the XT60 to get it up higher away from props I saw in one of the recent build videos. Ill have to see if I can find it again. The xt60 connector was mounted to a hard riser that brought the connector up the side and level with the upper board where the battery was mounted.


EDIT: heres a video where they use the riser I am speaking of Start at 2:48 and you will see it get installed. The one I am thinking of though was taller then this one.

 
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Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Don't forget to dab some hot glue or rtv on them tiny wires as they are the weak point of the entire build where they all connect to the FC.

That's starting to look like a flying machine. Nice neat work in that tiny space. There is a neat "Riser" that was used for the XT60 to get it up higher away from props I saw in one of the recent build videos.

Thanks I forgot the hot glue, but I'll wait till after the maiden to do it in case something soldered on wrong.

I thought about raising the XT60 up from the side using some wire, but I would be soldering the ends of wires to holes on the PDB that are almost twice as big as the wire. Not impossible, but I would think that connection could break easily in a crash.
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Earlier today I flashed the newest KISS FC firmware to the board and got the motors running. All the motors were spinning counter-clockwise so I had to reverse the front left and back right motor. It involved desoldering the ESC signal leads and power leads, but that really was not too bad.

Oh man was shorting the motor reverse pads difficult though. I could not get solder to stick to the pads for the longest time. I even accidentally ended up soldering to a nearby capacitor, but that has been fixed. I eventually got the pads shorted and could re-shrink the ESCs and reattach them to the PDB and FC.

After doing that I noticed my wiring to the camera was a little too short. So I moved the regulator about a half inch forward. While I had the FC up from its mount I also decided to change the power wires over to pins. Directly soldering wires to power the FC worked, but it restricted how much I could lift up the board from its mount. Now with the pins I can unhook the power leads and get the FC up and rotated a full 90 degrees to do service on it. Still not too easy to work on, but it is much better than before.

Next I mounted the receiver which was as easy as installing the plate above the FC and plugging in the receiver. The XSR makes wiring and binding really easy. The camera is mounted up front with some green foam felt between it and the tilt plate because it is not a very tight fit with just the sides and tilt plate. Now it feels really solid. XT60 is soldered on to the back and a zip tie between it and the PDB helps reduce stress on the solder joints.

SideStack.jpg

TopOpen.jpg

And that was pretty much all the electrical work. I attached the vTX and antenna to the top plate in a similar way as Chad does in the build video Psyborg shared. Up front I got a 30 degree camera tilt that I designed and 3D printed for this frame. I'll test it out and post the STL on Thingiverse if anyone is interested. Also on the top plate is a no slip battery pad that I made using the same technique as what I did on my ZMR build. Some felt foam and plastidip.

SideFinish.jpg

I put the top plate on and it was done! Well actually not really. First I determined that my power lead was too long. So I shortened that. Then I wanted it even shorter so I shortened it even more. Then I discovered I soldered on my XT60 backwards so it was time to solder it again...when I discovered a short between the positive and negative on the connector. So I took off the top plate and tore down the central stack again to find I plugged in the power lead to the FC backwards. The dangers of using pins. Thankfully I did not have the urge to plug the battery in any time before that or else this build log would be a lot longer. Now after all that the XT60 is good to go.

FrontFinish.jpg

I put some props on to check things out and this thing looks ready to beat some air. I'm debating making a DIY aeroguard like I did with my ZMR build. Maiden coming up once I can get out to the field.

TopFinish.jpg
 
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MototechRyan

Wannabe Jedi
Not sure if you know, but there's two solder pads on the kiss esc's you jump with a solder blob to reverse motor direction. Curious why you needed to jump the boot pads? I didn't need to mess with the boot pads when flashing firmware on mine.

Sweet build, let us know how you like the red bottom motors. Been wanting to try them.
 

Snarls

Gravity Tester
Mentor
Not sure if you know, but there's two solder pads on the kiss esc's you jump with a solder blob to reverse motor direction. Curious why you needed to jump the boot pads? I didn't need to mess with the boot pads when flashing firmware on mine.

Sweet build, let us know how you like the red bottom motors. Been wanting to try them.

Good catch. That was a late night slip up. I meant the motor reverse pads.

One thing also worth mentioning is this batch of KISS FCs has a built in button for the bootloader instead of pads you have to short.