Dualcopters are the dead end of evolution

I'm done with coaxial dualcopters. It's a dead end of evolution: loud, not efficient, hard to tune, hard to fly. If you still want to make one, here is my 3D printed dualcopter on Thingiverse. Maybe you will have more luck than me...

The news: FrSky ACCESS, BF4.0, F7, SP Racing H7, F7, INAV Radar and Russian Drones In Space

• FrSky has announced new air protocol: ACCESS
• Betaflight 4.0 is just around the corner
• The topic of F7 as in STM32F7 flight controllers and INAV
• INAV Radar.
• Dominic Clifton aka Hydra, known from Cleanflight and Seriously Pro Racing (SP Racing F3, SP Racing F4, SP Racing F7 and so on) is preparing something new: flight controller based on STM32H750 processor: SP Racing H7 Extreme -Russians are putting drones into space! Cosmic Drones you might say.

This is my 7-inch TBS Source One

This is my 7-inch version of TBS Source One quadcopter frame. So far, so good, Source One is really tough and stiff frame so all the problems with resonance and oscillations in flight should be over. And looks like they are over.

It might sound like a good old V8 engine but flies smooth. And after all, that was my ultimate goal. So let's say "bye, bye" to wobbly-wobbly iFlight XL7 v2 and say "hello" to 7-inch Source One! 6mm thick arms are the way to go!

How to setup INAV on a flying wing - video tutorial - GPS, Baro and Compass

• Do you need a barometer on a flying wing with INAV?
• Do you need a compass/magnetometer on a flying wing?
• How to set up a GPS unit and which protocol should you use?
• Do advanced tuning and set up a return to home, banking angles, landing procedures etc.
• Configure the most important GPS related flight modes: PosHold, AltHold, and RTH
• some extra tips and tricks like Galileo support for GPS

INAV and Failsafe - especially for FrSky owners (but not only)

• You should not trust a guy on YouTube that says that he knows it all
• OpenTX "no signal" is not the best failsafe setting when FrSky S.BUS devices are used and why
• Than "Hold" failsafe setting might actually be a better option when S.BUS is used
• How to setup Failsafe in INAV to have the best experience and safe flight

How to make 868MHz or 915MHz dipole antennas for FrSky R9 or TBS Crossfire receivers

The correct length of 868/915MHz antennas used by FrSky R9 and TBS Crossfire is:

• for FCC 915MHz it is 75mm
• for EU/LBT 868MHz it is 80mm

From time to time FrSky has a big problem with cutting their antennas to a correct length. Good thing, you can make your own TBS Crossfire RX antennas for cheap!

How much does a propeller weight? Mass vs. moment of inertia

How often, when you watched or read a brushless motor review you've heard a sentence like "this motor will not have any problem spinning a heavy propeller" or "this motor is designed for light propellers". Or "this is a very light propeller". But what does that really mean?

Thanks to our good friend Sir Isaac Newton we know that

F = ma

Where F is the force, a is acceleration and m is the mass of an object. In this case, mass is the unit of inertia. This is all true for propellers if you want to throw them in linear motion. But propellers rotate and that changes a few things. Instead of mass we are interested in the moment of inertia and mass distribution around the rotation point.

The news - INAV 2.1, Betaflight RPM filter, IMU-F goes open source and Matek 4in1 ESC with SerialShot

In this episode of The News

• INAV 2.1 is here and we have a lot of code waiting for INAV 2.2
• Betaflight 4.0 is coming closer and closer together with RPM filter that analyzes RPMs of motors (via ESC telemetry) to set up very narrow notches. What a nice idea!
• Something very fresh in terms of hardware: Mateksys aka Matek has built their own 4in1 ESC. But instead of doing what everybody else is doing (putting 4 separate BlHeli ESCs on one board) the wrote their own ESC firmware, flashed a single STM32F405 with it and called it a day. Of course it took much longer than a day (a year) but finally something very very fresh in the 4in1 ESC world! Kudos, I can not wait for the actual hardware

3D printed FPV tricopter drone

Who could have imagined that tricopters can be so much fun? For sure they are interesting devices that lost a lot of "market" when quadcopters gained extra torque and plenty of reaction moment to do fast yaw turns. Almost no one flies them now. Too bad... And good luck if you want to buy a tricopter frame for 5-6 inch propellers. There is almost nothing on the market right now!

Luckily, we are living in interesting times, and everyone with few hundred dollars can get a 3D printer and make whatever he wants (right, if it was that simple...). Thanks to this, I give you a 3D printed tricopter frame designed to use miniquad parts: 2205 motors, 5 inch propellers and 9 gram servo:

STL files can be downloaded from Thingiverse

Presented setup:

• Racestar BR2205 2300KV motors
• Racestar RS30A Lite ESC
• Turnigy TSS-10HM servo or similar
• Omnibus F4 flight controller
• PDB
• RunCam Swift camera
• VTX03 video transmitter
• Lollipop antenna
• R-XSR receiver
• STL files

Flight controller runs INAV 2.0.1

iFlight ION Raaange/ION Drive 2506 1250KV Motors

220x motors are the workhorse on the RC hobby right now when it comes down to mini quads. Sometimes they are joined by 230x too. But 2205 and 2206 brushless outrunners have a serious problem that limits their use with propellers bigger than 5 inches. They might still be fine with 6-inch props, but on 7-inches problems begins. What 220x lack is torque! They are just too small to have enough copper wire and diameter to deliver enough torque to drive much heavier 7-inch propellers.

Let's welcome something much more powerful: ION Drive / ION Raaange 2506 1250KV!