6S LOW KV BUILD, PART 2: The Build process

12/8/2018

In part 1 of this build I reviewed the components I chose and why. In this blog (part 2) I go through the process of building the quad.

Building the frame (HGLRC BATMAN220 Frame)
To recap the HGLRC Batman frame was chosen for strength, weight and price and the frame itseld did not disappoint. Quality carbon fibre looks to have been used and most importantly the weave is aligned with the arm length. There are a number of nice design touches including arm chamfer top and bottom, well considered component mounting and a nice camera mount. See the the captions in the gallery below for full details:

No instructions included but few unique parts mean this is a simple build

Arms are 5mm thick, chamfered on both edges and have carbon aligned along the length

Frame comes together nicely in a 'sandwich plate' style

Enlarged holes on the bottom plate allow easy access to the stack mounting hardware.

Weight is a 78g which I'm very happy with given the sandwhich plate design.

A note on the HobbyCool 2207 Motors
Arguably the star of the show, the HobbyCool 2207 1700kV motors are the real thing - Brother Hobby R3 2207 in a 1700kV variant and they are very classy. I've kept the wires long in case 6s is not for me and these make there way into a 7inch build...

HobbyCool have gone with a genuine BH motor here

16 x 19mm bolt pattern in naked bottom

The Brother Hobby font you're more familar with but in the unfamiliar low kV variant

Installing the Flight stack
Much has already been said of the HGLRC Titan F460 stack that was chosen here. It is not cheap but it is high quality and the ESC is a BLHeli_32 unit with full telemetry wired in by defaut. I don't like that an XT60 connector is not included (especially since I'd just run out!!) but did like that they did include a 1000 microfarad capacitor and some really nice mounting harware - long stainless steel bolts and threaded spacers rather than the crappy m3 nylon standoffs. Both ESC and FC boards are include rubber grommets so require no further soft mounting. See images below for more comments.

Long stainless screws and threaded spacers make for a much stronger and secure mounting system.

Generic build shot with solder iron (love the TS100 even on the bench)

Yes the wires are too long but I want options for 7" later on

FPV system - Cam and VTX/DVR
The Runcam Eagle Micro camera was easy to mount on the carbon fibre plates and I'm please to say where they fit in with cutouts on top any bottom place is smooth with no wiggle. As you can see from the pics the large 12mm lens on the Runcam Eagle Micro Pro *just* fits in, allowing full camera angle adjustment up to about 70° - more if you have a m8 lens. The HGLRC AIO VTX/DVR was no harder to wire in than a reguar VTX and regular solder pads mean you don't need to mess about with a connector. See pics below for more detail. I'm not a big fan of the antenna system at present and is only temporary until I can get a 3d printed option. The reason I don't like it is an antenna mount via SMA perpendicular to the chassis will inevitably get destroyed when 'landing' upside-down. My ideal solution of using the MMCX UXII Antenna (see what I mean in my blog here) unfortunately doesn't work on this frame as it would be too enclosed.

This frame can only just fit the Runcam Eagle micro 12mm lens

Here you can see the top plate camera cut out is *just* large enought for full articulation of the camera angle

Wiring of the VTX/DVR unit is identical to wiring a VTX alone I used the filtered VBAT power from the F460 Titan Plus FC. You may be able to see i squeezed the XM+receiver inbetween these 2 boards. Yes I did remember to bind first!

I'm a big fan of stack-mounted VTXs

My rather untidy VTX antenna solution is a temporary one until I get a suitable 3d printed mount

UXII SMA antenna is low profile but will still take the full impact of an inverted crash

Other build notes
Other than the VTX antenna I'm pretty happy with this build. The small body means it is suprisingly compact with 3 full 30.5mm board plus receiver. Speaking of the receiver the antennas are mounted in the now common cable tie / heatshrink method which is robust and compact and offers more than enough range for a race quad. Small holes on the trailing edge of the bottom plates means that strain relief is easily added to the battery connector. When routing the battery strap I chose to go over both sandwich plates (i.e. under the ESC) rather than just the lower sandwich plates as I'd be worried about the force the heavy battery would exert on 1 plate only.

Final weight
It's 305 grams ready to fly with everything except the battery. Given the motors are over 30g and hugley powerful each I'm fairly happy with the weight. More pictures are below including one from the maiden which means maiden flight detais will follow soon :)