So I haven't posted one of these in a while!
Some of you may be aware I designed the SCX-200, and thanks to everyone's interest in it, it caught the attention of Armattan, and we took it mainstream with the Armattan Lite SCX-200.
But since then I have been continuously working on other designs in my free time, continuously building and testing. One of my favorite designs to date has been my SCX-140, which is a scaled down 3" version of SCX-200. It shares a lot of the same design cues but at the same time it is entirely different. I've been flying SCX-140 since the May/June time frame, and I really have come to love 3" multirotors. Up to this point I have built three of these little buggers for myself; partly because I enjoy building, but also because the market for 3" motors/props/batteries has really grown over the past few months, so I keep finding new combos to try.
Now I have decided to do what I consider a final SCX-140 build, using what I think are a great set of components to build a really nice 3" multirotor.
So let's start with the specs:
Frame: Space Cowboy Drone Designs SCX-140 (made via Armattan Productions)
Flight Control: Brain RE1 + MPB PDB (on Betaflight)
ESC: Aikon 20A BLHeli-S (on Multishot)
Motors: XNova 1407 3500kv
Props: RaceKraft 3030x4 clear
FPV Cam: HS1177 w/2.5mm lens
FPV vtx: UBAD 200mW w/raceband
FPV Antenna: cheap MRM color dipped right angle SMA LHCP
RC rx: KS-Servo FM800 FASST compatible
RC tx: Futaba 14SG
Battery: 4S, testing Lumenier 500mAh LiHV 80C, Tattu 650mAh LiPo 75C, and Lumenier 850mAh LiPo 75C
Now for everyone's favorite part, pictures!
Brain RE1 and Aikon ESCs:
XNova 1407 3500kv:
Space Cowboy Drone Design SCX-140 via Armattan Productions:
Now for the build process:
Other than being a really tight build, these 3" quads are pretty straight forward. Since SCX-140 used a unibody lower plate, the build goes real quick once you have the motors, esc, and pdb wired up. Here is everything wired up to the Brain MPB PDB:
Brain RE1 in place, all fpv wiring ready to go, just need to add the receiver:
At this point I got too excited to finish and quickly wired in the RC receiver and buttoned up the build!
First flights:
So now, after taking time to flash Betaflight to the RE1 and configure everything, including using the new BLHeli Chrome app to correctly program motor direction to the ESCs, I was ready for my first flights. For the maiden flights I wanted to see if I could get away with a small 500mAh LiHV Lumenier 80c battery. This battery actually worked pretty well in the past with my less powerful 1306 powered SCX-140 builds. Check out the video below to see some dvr from the first couple flights.
From this outing I learned two things! One, 500mAh, even though LiHV and 80C was not going to cut it. Copter flew great in the video, but the batteries were coming down puffy. Although I had some 650 75C LiPo's with me, I opted not to fly them. Pretty sure the power hungry 1407's will require 850mAh right off the bat.
Second thing I learned is that the antennas on the KS-Servo FM800 are not sufficient even in short range. Not enough antenna exposed from the carbon seems to be causing fail safe issues. This has happened to me on past builds, but I thought it was ESC desync at first. With the Brain RE1 OSD I was able to see the disarm failsafe on the screen when it happened. This led me to the idea of lengthening the antennas on the FM800:
Here is a macro picture of the new antenna connection to the board:
And lastly, as of last night I quickly designed and printed an antenna holder to keep the antennas out of harm and to position them clear of the carbon. I designed this part and printed it in TPU using my Prusa i3 MK2 printer, and it works with standard 3mm OD RC antenna tubing:
Next Steps:
Get out and fly some more! Test out the new antenna mod, and also try out some new Lumenier 850mAh 75C 4S batteries I just recently bought! This should be fun. I might even try to race this quad with the big boys this weekend just for kicks and giggles.
-Patrick
Some of you may be aware I designed the SCX-200, and thanks to everyone's interest in it, it caught the attention of Armattan, and we took it mainstream with the Armattan Lite SCX-200.
But since then I have been continuously working on other designs in my free time, continuously building and testing. One of my favorite designs to date has been my SCX-140, which is a scaled down 3" version of SCX-200. It shares a lot of the same design cues but at the same time it is entirely different. I've been flying SCX-140 since the May/June time frame, and I really have come to love 3" multirotors. Up to this point I have built three of these little buggers for myself; partly because I enjoy building, but also because the market for 3" motors/props/batteries has really grown over the past few months, so I keep finding new combos to try.
Now I have decided to do what I consider a final SCX-140 build, using what I think are a great set of components to build a really nice 3" multirotor.
So let's start with the specs:
Frame: Space Cowboy Drone Designs SCX-140 (made via Armattan Productions)
Flight Control: Brain RE1 + MPB PDB (on Betaflight)
ESC: Aikon 20A BLHeli-S (on Multishot)
Motors: XNova 1407 3500kv
Props: RaceKraft 3030x4 clear
FPV Cam: HS1177 w/2.5mm lens
FPV vtx: UBAD 200mW w/raceband
FPV Antenna: cheap MRM color dipped right angle SMA LHCP
RC rx: KS-Servo FM800 FASST compatible
RC tx: Futaba 14SG
Battery: 4S, testing Lumenier 500mAh LiHV 80C, Tattu 650mAh LiPo 75C, and Lumenier 850mAh LiPo 75C
Now for everyone's favorite part, pictures!
Brain RE1 and Aikon ESCs:
XNova 1407 3500kv:
Space Cowboy Drone Design SCX-140 via Armattan Productions:
Now for the build process:
Other than being a really tight build, these 3" quads are pretty straight forward. Since SCX-140 used a unibody lower plate, the build goes real quick once you have the motors, esc, and pdb wired up. Here is everything wired up to the Brain MPB PDB:
Brain RE1 in place, all fpv wiring ready to go, just need to add the receiver:
At this point I got too excited to finish and quickly wired in the RC receiver and buttoned up the build!
First flights:
So now, after taking time to flash Betaflight to the RE1 and configure everything, including using the new BLHeli Chrome app to correctly program motor direction to the ESCs, I was ready for my first flights. For the maiden flights I wanted to see if I could get away with a small 500mAh LiHV Lumenier 80c battery. This battery actually worked pretty well in the past with my less powerful 1306 powered SCX-140 builds. Check out the video below to see some dvr from the first couple flights.
From this outing I learned two things! One, 500mAh, even though LiHV and 80C was not going to cut it. Copter flew great in the video, but the batteries were coming down puffy. Although I had some 650 75C LiPo's with me, I opted not to fly them. Pretty sure the power hungry 1407's will require 850mAh right off the bat.
Second thing I learned is that the antennas on the KS-Servo FM800 are not sufficient even in short range. Not enough antenna exposed from the carbon seems to be causing fail safe issues. This has happened to me on past builds, but I thought it was ESC desync at first. With the Brain RE1 OSD I was able to see the disarm failsafe on the screen when it happened. This led me to the idea of lengthening the antennas on the FM800:
Here is a macro picture of the new antenna connection to the board:
And lastly, as of last night I quickly designed and printed an antenna holder to keep the antennas out of harm and to position them clear of the carbon. I designed this part and printed it in TPU using my Prusa i3 MK2 printer, and it works with standard 3mm OD RC antenna tubing:
Next Steps:
Get out and fly some more! Test out the new antenna mod, and also try out some new Lumenier 850mAh 75C 4S batteries I just recently bought! This should be fun. I might even try to race this quad with the big boys this weekend just for kicks and giggles.
-Patrick
