I have a BetaFPV Air65. It’s great but more than 10km/h of wind and it’s hard to control. I have access to a whole electronic workbench and I am mad with power, let’s build a drone.

The Goal

• ELRS receiver, because my controller speaks ELRS.
• Analog or HDzero, because I have the HDzero boxpro and they speak both.
• Lighter than 250g. It would be cool to get a license someday, but not today.
• Build it myself. There are a lot of great pre-built options but I want to do it myself.
• Not too expensive would be good. That means all parts from a single Canadian vendor.

The choice is obvious: the sub250g kit from Joshua Bardwell, analog version. That would indeed be a great choice but it is only sold by a single distributor, in the US, and they are out of stock (with no restock in sight). That means waiting, and maybe paying outrageous customs fees.

If there is something that I learned from sewing is that whatever the product, you can always do it worse and more expensively yourself, so let’s pick parts!

The Parts

I selected RotorVillage as my vendor and selected from their available products. I can only recommend them, they have been great so far.

• Frame: RVS SmolYeet35 V2
• Motors: GEPRC SPEEDX2 1404 4600KV
• Flight Controller: GEPRC F722 35A AIO
• RX: Radiomaster XR2
• TX: GEPRC RAD Tiny 400MW VTX
• Propellers: Gemfan Hurricane 3630-3
• Battery: GNB 650mAh 4S HV
• Camera: RunCam Phoenix 2

The Build

Following the wiring diagram from the flight controller, the build went fine and I did not invoke the magic smoke. My only big mistake was to use the wrong screw and damage a motor’s power cable, which broke it partially. I had to reorder the motor and replace it. The receiver and transmitter are both partially attached to the frame with some electrical tape. I would like to have a more robust attachment but I need to keep them ventilated (mostly the VTX) and maybe I’ll print some brackets later.

Does it fly? YES! Does it fly well? Yes. Is it the best drone? Likely not. Honestly, I lack the experience to even judge if it is a good build. All I know is that it flies, I have a decent (to me) battery life, and I had fun building it. The video transmission is a bit spotty but nothing too bad yet. I usually fly in a big open field. There is some instability when throttling up to slow down a descent (I think that’s what they call prop wash), but again, nothing too bad.

Next up:

• Carry a GoPro
• Upgrade to HDzero
• Maybe try to install a GPS module

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