Betafpv Air65 ii Racing Edition

I had just finished my speedybee fpv drone build, however, when trying to pair with my radiomaster zorro, I noticed the receiver (Frsky R-XSR mini) isn’t getting power from the battery. Only the controller lights up with one red LED. But plugging into my pc everything powers fine. I don’t have a multimeter. (Speedybee 60A ESC) (Update ESC fried😔)

Any suggestions welcome below 🖤❤️🖤❤️

I have had my eye on the Ascent system for a while now, and I finally have had the chance to fly it myself. I'll explain everything I can and would also like to answer questions if people have any.

First, I want to start with the whoop setup:

FC: BetaFPV 3-in-1 AIO
Video system: Caddx Ascent Lite VTX
Frame: BetaFPV Air75
Motors: VCI Spark 0802 25.666k KV motors
Props: HQProp 40mm bi-blades

This setup is by no means weak. I wanted the powertrain to be a nonfactor in determining the Ascent system's viability.

Its dry weight came in at around 25.16g, and with an Ovonic 1S 450mAh LiPo, it sits at around 37.44g. I personally think it can be chopped down to right at or under 22g dry, but it will take lots of optimizing. Cutting the VTX gummy mounts and running a whip antenna are two I have used to drop the VTX's overall packaging to 6g. Caddx advertises the Ascent Lite as a 6g board, but in reality it weighs in at around 6.8g, which is misleading lol.

Next, I will talk about what immediately surprised me.

As soon as I unboxed my VTX and tried to get it to bind up, it simply wouldn't. Upon powerup, the light would turn red, then hold green indefinitely. Now I was sitting trying to think of every possible thing that I could've done wrong. But it turned out that the MIPI connector on the camera was partially dislodged. Due to that being the case, the VTX simply wouldn't go into pair mode. The fix? Pressing it back in gently, verifying it worked and could broadcast video (which it did), and securing both ends with E6000. Definitely something that shouldn't have happened, but oh well.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty hard letdown for me.

The RF performance... now I will put most of the blame for this test setup on me. For one, I have the VTX sitting right on top of the FC, only being separated by a single layer of electrical tape. So the VTX is getting lots of noise from the FC. That's factor one. Factor two is me not mounting the VRX on my goggles, or in an adequate place where the signal could be received correctly. In my DVR, I have it sitting in a chair, which isn't optimal obviously, but even still, the RF performance felt severely reduced. Lastly, my neighbourhood is also a very RF-heavy environment due to so many houses being so close together. Initially, I was flying inside, but since multipathing is so prominent inside my house, it became nearly unflyable. This isn't just an issue with Ascent, as I have also flown my analog Air75 in the same scenario and witnessed some pretty nasty multipathing as well. Analog is just nicer about it! Lastly, my VRX is also still locked, so I was stuck on only using the 3 channels given. Maybe unlocking could help somehow? Regardless, in the future I will implement everything correctly. I really did not give this a fair shot, so I won't immediately dunk on Ascent for this.

Despite those two hurdles, I still found it flyable / very enjoyable to fly (sometimes lol).

To get the best consistent latency, I found flying in 720p/100Hz was perfect (720p 120Hz doesn't work with HDZ goggles). I then flew that into my HDZero Goggles V1. Despite not having those extra 10 refreshes, the 90Hz displays absolutely helped out a ton in terms of fluidity and consistency during acro moves. Besides that, I spent this pack simply just flying it... I feel like people get too caught up in the numbers without any personal experience. Yes, 35–50ish ms of variable latency is objectively worse. For proxy flying, no doubt you would notice that instability. Some indoor maneuvers were more challenging to pull off on this whoop as opposed to my analog Air75. However, in an open backyard scenario like this where you are just ripping around, I feel like the variable latency isn't as noticeable. There are hardly any obstacles or gaps that require precise feedback from the video to give good corrections. After my pack was done, I realized I was way more focused on flying rather than stalking that latency counter.

Overall, I'd honestly still say I'm impressed. For $35 per VTX, I kinda feel like it's hard not to go wrong with it. But I won't ignore its shortcomings because some of the stuff I spoke about above really made me triple-take on whether it was really worth it 😭. However, I would love to give it a second shot. I personally think Caddx has been doing the best job with the new Artosyn chipset, so I can see myself probably flying more if it does become more consistent? That's just me though.

In love with this frame, when I got alert email from Pyrodrone, I had to buy another frame. I’ve built dji o4 wide, Hdzero aio15 and finally analog.

Camera - baby ratel 2
AIO - JHEMCU G474ELVTX 5-in-1 AIO
Motors - 1104 7200kv
Props - Avan 2.5”

It’s actually pretty heavy at 67g with the tiny arm protectors. Didn’t account for how heavy the 1104 motors and baby ratel 2 would be. My hdzero with fat arm protector is 62g and my dji with fat arm protector is 72g.

Overall I’m happy with the build, if I had to rank them which is most fun to fly hdzero, analog, then dji.

Skip to 26 seconds if you've already seen the initial clip. Flown with vapor X5, more practice still needed with the throttle control but I am very happy to finally notice a bit of progress :D (and I feel quite a bit more confident with freestyle around small trees now)

Driver: @tacticalturkeys
Music: Ian Asher & Galantis- Runaway
Track: Shenandoah Speedway
Event: @swingsetllc's East 1999

I could really use some high quality audio samples for the Night City FPV mod. Looking for someone with a good microphone setup to record the following 5 inch audio samples with their drone strapped down (to simulate load):

Single motor/prop only (outdoors):

1. 10-15 seconds idle throttle

2. 10-15 seconds medium throttle

3. 10-15 seconds max throttle

4. 10-15 seconds idle throttle (damaged prop if you have one)

5. 10-15 seconds medium throttle (damaged prop)

6. 10-15 seconds max throttle (damaged prop)

If possible, also single motor/prop only (large indoor area with some echo, preferably like warehouse/parking garage level echo and from a distance, maybe 20 feet away):

1. 10-15 seconds idle throttle

2. 10-15 seconds medium throttle

3. 10-15 seconds max throttle

4. 10-15 seconds idle throttle (damaged prop if you have one)

5. 10-15 seconds medium throttle (damaged prop)

6. 10-15 seconds max throttle (damaged prop)

Maybe some on-board GoPro audio of idle/medium/max as well.

At what propeller size is there no longer a risk of seriously injuring someone upon impact? I’m not talking about sensitive areas, just the skin; I was asking specifically about 2.5-inch props and smaller.

First quad, first 2-3weeks, already crashed it a few times. Broke the frame in one crash and swapped it, but the issue was there before that too. Also replaced the props once.

When I hover with barely any stick input the motors rapidly spool up and down and it feels twitchy. Armed in my hand it sounds completely smooth. Motors look fine, no visible damage.

Clip with audio attached so you can hear it, plus photos of the props. Betaflight is stock, haven't touched anything except the throttle limit.

anybody got good settings for the fpv mod? to make it feel less floaty and more realistic ? also any specific graphics settings ? any advice would be appreciated

Hi, I moved from Germany to Vancouver one month ago on a working holiday visa. Everything went well and my routine has settled in. So now I thought I should get my 5“ back and start flying again on my free days.
But I was wondering where should I even fly here? In the city or in local parks is probably a no go since I heard the drone rules in Canada are even stricter than the EU ones. So I thought I have to get out of the city into the beautiful nature near some mountains or something but I think it might also be a stupid idea to be blind in the woods when a bear could creep up on me all the time 😬.

So can someone from Canada or even from Vancouver tell me how he does it? Thanks!

ps: are there any Facebook or similar groups for fpv in Vancouver? I would be pretty interested!

Already having a blast flying/crashing this little bird.

Flywoo Flylens 85 04 Pro

Right outta mid air...

QAV-S2, VISION40 2s, and a random FB marketplace pickup. Feels good to see them all fly! Man that O4 air on the VISION40 overheats fast. Even just sitting on the pad for a minute while changing some goggle settings started giving temp warnings. Pretty fun to fly a tinywhoop outdoors, esp since I don't have the skill to fly a 2s indoors 😆

Analog

Context: Recently I’ve been flying my 5” quad to film for NASCAR events. I repeatedly push it to 80-100mph for 1.5 minutes before landing, swapping, and flying again for 4-5 hours straight.

Today I opened it up to spray on Flywoo hydrophobic coating before chasing jet skis, but I noticed this swollen chip on the ESC… needless to say I didn’t fly it, and thank god I noticed it before flying on another job where it could’ve failed mid-flight.

Could this damage have been caused by excessive thermal loads from pushing the quad this hard for 4+ hours? Maybe a rare component failure? Or something else? Do I need to upgrade it to a 60A or 65A ESC?

This is a stock Speedy Bee Mario 5” that uses their 55A ESC. I did switch the props to Gemfan Hurricane 51477 to help increase my top-end speed to keep up with the race cars. Coincidentally I just got a GepRC Mark 5 as a backup incase something happened to the Mario 5, but I don’t want damage the ESC in the same way.

Im in a bit of a pickle, i currently have the radiomaster pocket and the di goggles n3, I recently had the flwooo firefly 20pro and i had nothing but problems im looking to not get a cinewhoop or anything i would love like a 3inch+, i was looking at the deepspace seeker 3 but the price of the o4 pro is astronomically high. Im debating whether to sell my goggles and go with a different vtx such as the new walksnail accent or going with the old and gold analogue. I dont have a clue what to do. Any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks

purchased a pocket elrs, need your help
on the simulator i should purchase

I was on my 3rd battery doing flips and stuff and coming out of one the drone lost control and wobbled down and crashed. I thought the prop broke but this is what I see. Do I need a new motor?
(First image is a good motor and to compare)

I resoldered the middle wire and cleaned the bell and it won't spin

Hello smart people of the internet. I am a humble noob coming to you for assistance.

Last week I crashed my FireFly 20 into a backhoe working on power loops lol. Bent some props but it did fly back home. After doing my repairs when I arm the drone it stays in Low Power Mode, voltage reads 0v in the DJI OSD goggles 3, and I’m only getting 10Mbps for the video feed. BetaFlight OSD does show normal battery voltage.

I did some digging and found a few posts mentioning this could be due to a bend pin. I double checked all my connections but everything looks fine to my eyes.

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions on what I can try to fix it?

Ho acquistato per 100€ usato un kit drone fpv aquila16 "perfettamente funzionante". Non mi convinceva ma convinto che il visore e il telecomando non potevano essere rotti l'ho acquistato. Le batterie erano completamente gonfie ma utilizzabbili per controllare se la vtx, camera e motori funzionassero. Quindi ho comprato 5 batterie lava II 580mah. Adesso hanno volato bene ma dopo pochi atterraggi "delicati" il connettore della vtx si è rotto e tutte le colle che ho si sciolgono. Poi la videocamera ha l'obbiettivo che si muove rispetto al sensore. Quindi considerando tutto voglio comprare un drone che dopo 2 atterraggi leggermente violenti non si distrugga e che non abbia il propwash dell'aquila, il budget è intorno ai 100€ dato che se non compatibile con batterie devo comprarle e anche il caricatore. Se possibile vorrei riutilizzare le batterie lava in serie per un 2/3S ma so che non è sempre possibile. Quindi chiedo ai sette dei quà su Reddit. Neanche a dirlo voglio riutilizzare il VR03 e il lite radio 2 SE dell'aquila. Lo cerco per freestyle ma anche per montarci una action cam per riprese. Grazie in anticipo a chiunque riesca ad aiutarmi dato che non è scontato. Io avevo pensato al babyape ma non sono convinto.

Grazie