Race Quad

Now that I’ve been working on DroneBridge and my associated quadcopter for about two years, I wanted to try something different. With a camera drone you can take great pictures but sometimes you just want to rip through the landscape incredibly fast.
My camera drone is constantly changing and most of the time it is not ready for use because new parts, features or enhancements have to be added.

In contrast, an FPV Racer can be assembled and configured quite quickly. There is no need to develop your own software. The fun factor and flying itself are in the foreground.

For my Race-Quad I decided to use the following components. Here much less attention has to be paid to the perfect combination of parts than with camera drones. When you buy medium quality and widely used gear you can be sure that your quad will rock. Just get the motor/propeller and ESC combination right. Beginners won’t need 30A Dshot 600 ESCs. Some cheap 30A burst and Multishot capable ESCs are just fine.

Parts

• Matek F405 CTR
• EMAX RS2205 2300KV
• EMAX Lightning 20A ESC (free – came with the motors)
• Team black sheep unify pro 5v
• Runcam micro eagle
• FrSky X-Lite (also a good choice in combination with DroneBridge) with XM+ receiver
• TransTEC Frog Lite (218 Frame)
• EMAX AVAN R 5×65
• Racerstar fishbone (free – came with the receiver, great for crashing)
• Tattu 4S 1550mAh 95C
• NOC 4S 1300mAh
• Aomway omni antennas
• Realacc triple feed patch antenna
• FXT Viper V2 goggles
• 5V active buzzer

The Frog Lite frame is designed for non-micro sized cameras. In order to mount the runcam micro, I had to drill the upper carbon plate (where you would mount a GoPro). That way I could mount the camera with the supplied bracket (metal, U-shaped). Drilling the carbon is not something you should do! I was lucky it worked and that way I didn’t need a 3D printed adapter. Be aware that you do not want any carbon fiber dust floating around. That stuff is really bad for your health.

0.5mm solder wire really helps with getting the connections on the tiny solder pads right.

Specs

• Weight: 343g (without battery)
• Thrust: ~4.4kg at full throttle (to be confirmed)

Some additional pictures & video