Rich from Flite Brothers here. I wanted to share my latest project with you, the Tick Quad!
I started out with a Flite Test Electrohub kit. I like the spider quad shape, but I wanted to go smaller, so I cut the arms in half.
Forgive the messiness. This thing has been flown hard already.
First step was stripping the 12A Magic ESCs of shrink wrap, then removing the motor leads and power and ground leads from the signal line.
The motor leads from the SunnySky x2204s-2300 motors could go right to the ESC, which was heat-shrinked right to the shortened booms.
Left side:
5V BEC with battery alarm under a fully stripped (case and pins removed) HobbyKing 6-channel Receiver.
All internal board (even ESCs) are painted with liquid electrcal tape.
Right side:
RCTimer mini FPV setup. SMA jack has been removed and replaced with a flexible lead with a bulkhead SMA.
Channel / Band indicating LEDs face out, and channel-changing button is accessible on right side.
Front:
FPV camera peeking out between the plates. The front of the lens is actually slightly behind the leading edge of the plates. The camera is fully protected.
Rear:
NAZE32 mounted between plates with spacers.
I wanted to do a super-clean build of a mini-scale electohub. Aside from fasteners and antennas, there is nothing on top of the top plate, and nothing under the bottom plate except battery straps.
There are almost no connectors on any of the boards inside the plates, everything is soldered right to the boards with hand-built custom wiring. Sorry I don't have a photo of the inside, I'll get one next time I open it up.
The legs from the electrohub can be screwed into the side of the booms with servo mounting screws, but I have removed them for the photos.
Frame is 375 grams without the battery. I've only run it on 3s 2200mah 20C packs, which brings it to just under 600 grams.
It has plenty of punch with Gemfan 0530 props.
It's already taken some nasty hits without breaking anything but props and on one occasion some velcro battery straps.
Between the excellent Flite Test motor mounts which are slightly larger in diameter than the motors, and the fact that all components are protected between the top and bottom plate, there really isn't anything to break except props.
The camera doesn't quite fit. If you look closely you'll notice a little bit of warping in the plates and some relief cuts on the top plate.
Diagonal distance between motors is 260mm
It is a blast.
I've added a Mobius underneath. Footage to follow
Here are few pics of the inside.
