I should do a video of the week award.  If I had such an award, this video would win it hands down!  Check out the FPV video by Rotor Riot of the demolition of a power plant.  Whatever this setup was, I need to build one!

I’m glad to report that my new 2 inch FPV quadcopter is now airborne.  I had a successful maiden flight, line of sight in the backyard. I even did some trimming of the grass (video below).

I took the quad to a local park last night and flew about 10 packs around, over, and even under a few trees.  That marked my first attempts at any kind of moves “under trees.”  I did crash a couple of times, but one bent prop was all the damage.

I did find that the RunCam micro camera isn’t that great in dark conditions.

My last true build was back in 2015. After a long break from building, flying, and crashing, I’m back at it.  I’m going down the FPV racing road and having a blast flying FPV.  Having built a giant hexacopter in the past, I’m now building the exact opposite, a tiny tiny micro quadcopter with two inch props.

Frame

I found this iFlight iX2 frame on Amazon for $16.99.  It’s a 100mm frame built for two inch props and a micro FPV camera.

Electronics

• Flight Controller: Lumenier MICRO LUX V2 – F4 Flight Controller + OSD
• ESCs: Lumenier Mini BLHeli_S 12A 4-in-1 OPTO ESC DSHOT
• Receiver: FrSky XM+ SBUS
• Video Transmitter: AKK FX3 5.8GHz 25mW-600mW VTX with OSD
• Motors: BeeMotor 1108 5000KV brushless motor
• FPV Camera: RunCam Phoenix Oscar Edition 1000tvl 2.5mm lens
• FPV Antenna: Lumenier Micro AXII SMA 5.8GHz Antenna (RHCP)

Assembly

I haven’t done much soldering over the last few years, so it was a little tough to start back up on this build.  The electronics are all 20×20 mounts.  They’re very, very small.  So soldering wires to the pads on the flight controller was challenging.

I got the entire electronics stacked in the middle, but I’m probably going to need to rotate the FC 90 degrees to make it easier to access the USB port for configuration.

During assembly, when I’ve got the bird powered, the RunCam gets quite hot.  Not sure that’s normal or not.

I’ve got the receiver bound to my transmitter and I can arm the props.  I’m waiting on proper sized/powered batteries to fly it.  I strapped a 3S 450 on it but it was waaaaay too big.  I tried to liftoff with it but instead the props flew off and landed on my neighbor’s roof!

Maiden Soon

I hope to do a true maiden flight in the next couple of days.  Stay tuned.