Can we acro an old F450 quad with a modern flight stack?

[@ndcapper]

Anxiously awaiting the tricoptor 😊

[@CurryKitten]

Not as anxiously as me :D

[@TheTonstar1]

Sounds like a xclass had a baby! Probably tune that a bit better but probably the plastic arms are causing vibs!

[@CurryKitten]

I can hold two of the opposite arms and bend it quite a bit. Its definately not the thing for going fast :D

[@onclefly8450]

Good idea Bro

[@CurryKitten]

I thank you :)

[@CliveFpv]

Love the sound of big props ! Looked a fun experiment

[@CurryKitten]

Not quite what you are used to, but it still sounded dangerous :D

[@MCsCreations]

You know what, Wayne... I can't remember the last time I've seen you fly and laugh that much! It seems like a LOT of fun! 😃 Tim commented above (or below, I have no idea) about using bigger motors. Let's see what happens, because it might be a good idea! Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@CurryKitten]

I did have a lot of fun with this one. It made it feel a bit like the old days when you congratulated yourself just for not taking home a bag full of crashed bits :D

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

What KV motors? That looks to be slower on a punch out then a Phantom2, which admittedly is the fastest of that product family. The DJI Naza flight controller does have a full manual mode, but it's difficult to access on the DJI Transmitter, as the same switch position does either RTH or Manual, and RTH is more useful on those, but in full manual it will climb and roll a lot faster then expected.

[@CurryKitten]

900kv those old thing. Naza does indeed have a manual mode, but you don't have any control over the rates, so if you've ever done a flip or roll, it takes around 2 seconds to complete so you need to be pretty high :)

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

@@CurryKitten Ya kinda do have rate control, throught the 'gain' settings in the Naza, but it has no where near the fine levels of adjustment of the non-comercial-customer flight controllers we use on wings and quads we build ourselves. But, the Naza was also never designed to do the things we do with race and freestyle quads. I can assure you through practical experience, of a Phantom2 that hadn't quite dried out as much as I thought (there was a tree, above a creek,..), that a full manual punch out, with carbon fibre props, is a surprising sight to behold. The full throttle inverted landing was equally as impressive,.... :D

[@quadswithmods]

Omg f450 fire wheel that was my 1st quad with kk1.6 fc

[@CurryKitten]

It was my second model, after my KK based Tricopter... but I have the Naza in the 450

[@EnglishTurbines]

Bi blade props, but Im guessing you dont have a prop balancer..?..Those plastic arms are very flexible though....🤔🤔🤔🇬🇧

[@CurryKitten]

They were balanced. These are my beloved Graupner E props and are over 10 years old themselves. It is a really flexible frame though

[@timlong7289]

I have a 10-inch 3D printed thing which suffers from the wobble issue.. I was watching UAV tech the other day and he mentioned that wobble is often due to under-powered motors that can't change speed fast enough. So I bought it some bigger motors! T-Motor Velox 2812 1150 KV. I'm hoping to fit them tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.

[@MCsCreations]

Please, let us know what happens! 😊

[@CurryKitten]

Yes - when you run big props, it can be more difficult for them to react to very fast changes that the ESC is wanted them to do. In the olden days things were tuned a little looser to get over this - be interesting to see what you big motors will do

[@GhostRyderFPV]

Gawd, there's even a MultiStar LiPo on it, you're taking me waaaaay back my friend! I just did this a few months ago with a Reptile 450 and a SpeedyBee F405/50A stack, as an homage to my first builds with HobbyKing DeadCats, same sort of wobbly mess for me too, but good enough for a shelf queen.

[@CurryKitten]

Can't get those anymore can you! Back in the day I was flying on 3S with 2 x 2200's in parallel. They are a good laugh to get out and see how we used to fly

[@ReggieRailSystems]

I am wondering (seriously) before you remove the components over to the tri copter, if you were able to place 3-bladed propellers on the F-450 and see if in fact some of camera shake goes away?

[@CurryKitten]

I'd like to play around with it, but these larger props are quite expensive in comparison to the huge range of 5" props. Its about £20 to deck it out with some 9" triblades. It's certainly weird on the frequency of the props spinning - was better at higher throttle rates wasn't it?

[@ReggieRailSystems]

@@CurryKitten too bad I have quite a few tri blade in various pitches of 8,9,10 that I purchase several years ago when my vision of FPV desires were bigger than reality of what I thought I was getting into. 😀😀😀 shipping them to you across the pond would kill the whole idea as well. 😖

[@scottyh72]

You need to balance big props. Period.

[@StereodreieckRC]

10x5 Props ? Whats your max amp draw ?

[@CurryKitten]

Dunno. Nothing exploded. With the modern 4-in-1 ESC board, it was only ever going to be an issue if the motors blew, but I have flown it before on those props. Although they are 10x5, they don't actually seem to pull as much as you'd think

[@MrJT270567]

to get rid of the wobble you need to balance the biblades props. that's what I do back in the days when I flew this kind of 450 or Hobbyking 450 deadcat. and the sound of it is still amazing...❤

[@CurryKitten]

They were balanced... well I balanced them 10 years ago and the little bits of tape are still there. the frame itself is quite flexible which I think is an issue. I;m sure it would tune up a bit nicer with some effort

[@702Wolfi]

I had one with a Naza Lite in it. Great times.

[@MCsCreations]

I'm still going to build one with the Naza. 😬 Finally bought a no clean flux pen. Big pads, you know. 😬

[@CurryKitten]

Everybody had a 450 or 550 with a Naza. When I went to my first meet over 10 years ago, there was like 9 of them :D

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

@@CurryKitten They're still available on online retailers, and with up to date Rx/Tx combo's, still do the job they were designed to fairly well. I'm thinking I'll swap out the DJI radio stuff on my F550, so I can use a TX16S for more controls, and head tracking on to the cine camera gimbal. Holding off till I find out whether a decent V-Lock battery can get it up in the air. Plus some of Master Airscrews 3 bladed props for it.

[@brightontilifly]

This is great makes me smile wondering if you need to dynamically balance those props

[@CurryKitten]

They were balanced and still have little bits of tape on them... that said, I haven't touched them in about 10 years, so maybe they have gone out

[@dazultra2000]

I just got an entire 450 in a box of bits I got for £10 including a horus x10, HD2 with rapidfire and a load of other stuff! Was thinking of building up but I dont think I'll bother now 😅

[@CurryKitten]

It's a fun ride - worth a build :D

[@spartan3299]

I destroyed several Nova CX-20 and a flamewheel trying to do acro in the day. But was running AP until Inav 1.7 on an F3.

[@CurryKitten]

You could actually roll and flip this on a Naza in manual mode, but you were looking at around 5 seconds to turn it all the way over, so it certainly needed some height

[@ibfisher]

Love the nostalgia here, funny thing back then if you were a crappy pilot you could always blame the equipment, but these days I have no excuse!!! 🤣

[@CurryKitten]

Even back in the day I remember some people just being wizards in tuning and getting original KK board flying super smooth. I've always been a lazy tuner - if it generally flies, then that's ok

[@mikbacitube]

I got one hanging on my wall with the original DJI board ..... You are tempting me Sir,,,,,,

[@CurryKitten]

It's good fun to try... go on, do it :)

[@allansnelder3292]

you can 3d print adapters for 16mm carbon fiber tubes it doesn't save that much weight but its stiffens the whole frame!

[@CurryKitten]

Yes - although, it wouldn't be quite the same experiment of using a 12 year old quad :D

[@danpenry8899]

I got out one of my plastic armed f550 from over 10 yrs ago and flew it last year and the first time I goosed it hard one of the arms snapped off in flight due to the plastic was so old and brittle..

[@CurryKitten]

I only ever snapped one in my life - and that was because of those very dodgy bullet connectors they shipped with. Other than that is was a bit difficult to crash if you were on Naza

[@MikeCarr07]

I was just looking at my old 450 in my garage and was wondering the same thing

[@CurryKitten]

Doooo iiiit :)

[@stevefox3763]

'It can do stuff'- Curry Kitten 2024.......

[@CurryKitten]

I am quite profound

[@camdynkellett6782]

I have always wanted to do this with an oldschool Phantom 2!

[@CurryKitten]

It's good fun to convert something that everyone expects to fly in a certain way and then you can go around flipping it

[@stevealbin8257]

😮 Great flight for an old timer.. the quad that is...😂

[@CurryKitten]

We've both seen better days :)

[@PerseidArchimedes]

😂😂😂😂😂😂🤔

[@dankusmemus2350]

you should put ESC temp in your osd me thinks

[@CurryKitten]

I could do - but where would be the fun in wondering if anything was about to burst into flames!

[@maddercat]

What's your amp draw? so cool! I just refurbed an old f550 flamewheel.

[@CurryKitten]

I never measured it. I did know the motors can take 4S and the ESC board can handle a lot.... it was really a question of was I pulling too many watts for the motors to handle. Based on the fact that nothing exploded I think it was ok. What I'd heard in the past was that although DJI used to sell those motors with 30A opto ESCs, they were being very conservative about the amp draw, and really only needed around 18A escs

[@maddercat]

@@CurryKitten You can turn it on in the osd since you're using a speedybee betaflight board...why wouldn't you, that's like one of the most important datapoints.

[@CurryKitten]

I've never believed raw amp draw from an FC unless it's been properly calibrated. But yeah I could turn it on. I'm actually using slightly different parts on the Tri, so maybe I will if I fly it again

[@WornUp]

Tricopter! Yus!!

[@CurryKitten]

Who doesn't love a tri!

[@kerrymillar4981]

Good lesson for people putting big motors and props on thin arms

[@neilfpv]

Are those 3D printed arms?

[@CurryKitten]

Nope, those are the original arms that came with the frame. I think it's just a type of moulded plastic

[@neilfpv]

@@CurryKitten Thank you. Great video and vlogging!

[@ched999uk]

Nice flying. It sounded like you enjoyed that a lot. Great to see the old kit hacking around.

[@CurryKitten]

I did inteed - just like the good old days :D