Tony
Staff member
I decided to put this in the Flight Controller section because that is basically what this is. However, it also has a 4-1 35a ESC as well as a camera that not only records HD footage, but it also sends out a signal and uses the same camera as your FPV camera. But for this little article, we are just going to stick it here in the FC section.
I requested this stack because another member here, @bigone5500 also ordered one of these and I thought I could get it and maybe help him out with a few things on it since he is just getting into quads. But I overlooked one crucial aspect of this flight controller, it has the ICM20608 sensor in it, which absolutely hates any kind of vibration, but moreover it HATES electrical noise. I have seen people stack capacitors on this board, do all kinds of soft mounting and still never tame these boards. But, I completely overlooked this little glitch...
I was excited to receive it though. A flight controller, all in one ESC, an FPV camera AND an HD camera that records? Who wouldn't love this thing!!! And when I received the package, Oh yea, I tore into it like a kid on xmas! I ordered a frame for this board but seeing as this board stands nearly 30mm tall, it would not fit. So next best thing, I tore apart my GoolRC 210 since it would fit in that frame.
I installed all 4 of the motors I ordered (review on those coming up when I get a balanced set.... Little spoiler there lmao) then I installed the stack after soldering on the battery lead which came with the stack and included an XT60 plug. Yet another reason to switch over to XT60... Everything has these friggin plugs on them lmao. I soldered up the motors to the ESC, connected the board to betaflight and tested direction of each motor. Every friggin one of them were backwards! So I fire up the BLHeli configurator and I reversed every ESC and now things are looking fantastic.
While I was in betaflight for the first time, I went ahead and pulled a full dump file of the stock settings before I went messing with things. Then, I went in and made sure the UART 3 Serial Rx was turned on, and it was, and I then went into the configuration tab and made sure I was on the spektrum Satellite, and it was and I set to DSMX/DSM2 1024. Went to CLI and set it to bind on 5 since I had a DSM2 satellite on it, rebooted and we have a blinking light. Bound it up, went into the receiver tab and EVERYTHING is screwed up. Go back into the config tab, set it to 2048, save, back to receiver, everything is perfect. Moral, don't use 1024 lmao. EVER!
From there I went ahead and set some modes. Just the usual. I set Arm to aux1 and set it just like I do my throttle hold on a heli, but on an opposite switch, set angle, horizon, acro and air on aux2 and set that to a switch and now it is time to fly. Of course I went in and set all channels to 1000/2000 for full range of motion. No expo, no dual rates, just a stock maiden flight with stock PID's. I even put on a brand new FPV antenna just for the occasion so I didn't burn up the transmitter...
I take the quad, with a 4s battery outside, turn on the Tx, plug in the quad and set it down, and I back away. I power it up in angle mode and it doesn't really want to level like it should. Whatever, lets play. I lift it off the ground and when it gets about a foot off the ground, it does a very powerful front flip and lands on its lid destroying the antenna. Okay, maybe I had a setting wrong, maybe I didn't check the directions correctly or something along those lines.
Back inside, connect it up to betaflight, all directions are correct. Fine, PID's look a little high so I take the P and I down to 30. I leave D alone since it's not really 'that' high. Take it back out, same friggin thing. I repeat this process about 4 times before I come to the conclusion my head is going to explode and so is this flight controller via a 20ga shotgun if I don't step away from it..... Back inside I tear it apart but everything looks fine.
I was pissed. They expressed this over to me at my request so that I could get the video done on this stack and now, it just won't work. Whatever. Time for bed...
I wake up this morning after sleeping on the problem and plug in the stack and I noticed something new. But something that I hadn't seen before either. There were no lights on the camera board. None. There should have been either a blue or a red light on. But there was nothing.
I finally came to the conclusion that this stack was just a bad one. No camera working, doing constant flips, it's just done. So my conclusion on this one, pass this stack up, it's just not worth it. If you already have it, be sure to soft mount the flight controller and get rid of any and all vibrations that you can to help this poor little ICM20608 sensor do its best without freaking out on you like it is doing with me.
And whatever you do, when you look at another flight controller, look for the MPU6000 sensor. That one just doesn't care and it just works.
I requested this stack because another member here, @bigone5500 also ordered one of these and I thought I could get it and maybe help him out with a few things on it since he is just getting into quads. But I overlooked one crucial aspect of this flight controller, it has the ICM20608 sensor in it, which absolutely hates any kind of vibration, but moreover it HATES electrical noise. I have seen people stack capacitors on this board, do all kinds of soft mounting and still never tame these boards. But, I completely overlooked this little glitch...
I was excited to receive it though. A flight controller, all in one ESC, an FPV camera AND an HD camera that records? Who wouldn't love this thing!!! And when I received the package, Oh yea, I tore into it like a kid on xmas! I ordered a frame for this board but seeing as this board stands nearly 30mm tall, it would not fit. So next best thing, I tore apart my GoolRC 210 since it would fit in that frame.
I installed all 4 of the motors I ordered (review on those coming up when I get a balanced set.... Little spoiler there lmao) then I installed the stack after soldering on the battery lead which came with the stack and included an XT60 plug. Yet another reason to switch over to XT60... Everything has these friggin plugs on them lmao. I soldered up the motors to the ESC, connected the board to betaflight and tested direction of each motor. Every friggin one of them were backwards! So I fire up the BLHeli configurator and I reversed every ESC and now things are looking fantastic.
While I was in betaflight for the first time, I went ahead and pulled a full dump file of the stock settings before I went messing with things. Then, I went in and made sure the UART 3 Serial Rx was turned on, and it was, and I then went into the configuration tab and made sure I was on the spektrum Satellite, and it was and I set to DSMX/DSM2 1024. Went to CLI and set it to bind on 5 since I had a DSM2 satellite on it, rebooted and we have a blinking light. Bound it up, went into the receiver tab and EVERYTHING is screwed up. Go back into the config tab, set it to 2048, save, back to receiver, everything is perfect. Moral, don't use 1024 lmao. EVER!
From there I went ahead and set some modes. Just the usual. I set Arm to aux1 and set it just like I do my throttle hold on a heli, but on an opposite switch, set angle, horizon, acro and air on aux2 and set that to a switch and now it is time to fly. Of course I went in and set all channels to 1000/2000 for full range of motion. No expo, no dual rates, just a stock maiden flight with stock PID's. I even put on a brand new FPV antenna just for the occasion so I didn't burn up the transmitter...
I take the quad, with a 4s battery outside, turn on the Tx, plug in the quad and set it down, and I back away. I power it up in angle mode and it doesn't really want to level like it should. Whatever, lets play. I lift it off the ground and when it gets about a foot off the ground, it does a very powerful front flip and lands on its lid destroying the antenna. Okay, maybe I had a setting wrong, maybe I didn't check the directions correctly or something along those lines.
Back inside, connect it up to betaflight, all directions are correct. Fine, PID's look a little high so I take the P and I down to 30. I leave D alone since it's not really 'that' high. Take it back out, same friggin thing. I repeat this process about 4 times before I come to the conclusion my head is going to explode and so is this flight controller via a 20ga shotgun if I don't step away from it..... Back inside I tear it apart but everything looks fine.
I was pissed. They expressed this over to me at my request so that I could get the video done on this stack and now, it just won't work. Whatever. Time for bed...
I wake up this morning after sleeping on the problem and plug in the stack and I noticed something new. But something that I hadn't seen before either. There were no lights on the camera board. None. There should have been either a blue or a red light on. But there was nothing.
I finally came to the conclusion that this stack was just a bad one. No camera working, doing constant flips, it's just done. So my conclusion on this one, pass this stack up, it's just not worth it. If you already have it, be sure to soft mount the flight controller and get rid of any and all vibrations that you can to help this poor little ICM20608 sensor do its best without freaking out on you like it is doing with me.
And whatever you do, when you look at another flight controller, look for the MPU6000 sensor. That one just doesn't care and it just works.
