fevereiro 22, 2019
Armattan Armadillo Quadcopter Frame Review
I evaluate the Armattan Armadillo quadcopter body. It is a related form to the Flynoceros Canis M4, which I reviewed beforehand, but it surely’s bought a extra enclosed …
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I evaluate the Armattan Armadillo quadcopter body. It is a related form to the Flynoceros Canis M4, which I reviewed beforehand, but it surely’s bought a extra enclosed …
fonte
Oi! Do you think this frame woul work weel with the Lumenier ALPHA all-in-one. Would not need the integrated PDB from armattan…
Oi, Joshua., Awesome review for an awesome frame!. I just finished building this frame and I thought I'd give my 2 cents to add on top of your review. I've been flying with bottom mounted batteries for a while now, and I don't find that your batteries really get damaged. Most of the impact when you crash is frontwards anyway. A 3d printed battery protector helps too. De qualquer forma, I hope you end up building this machine so I can bug you for some PID fine tuning tips 🙂
The warranty doesn't cover all frames and all parts.
for example The F1 top plates aren't covered, but i have heard of people getting replacements for free, the LITE range isn't covered under the warranty.
Please do a Build video with this frame Joshua Bardwell.
Josh I have just built this frame for myself and a customer. I have to say the allure is there but after having built it twice now, I would much rather recommend a F1 5". Its just not a good Design for several reasons.
This hobby evolves so fast. You gotta build this armadillo. Hella fast! I just got it last night. It may be a contender for that hex that smoked my 6".. 5" corners way better than my 6" and this thing so far don't mind cornering. I'm trying to drop throttle corner then punch to new race line. That's so hard to time right. But the hex does this for his cornering. He drops throttle down way before the corner and then attacks corner once he has his line then punches it. He's full throttle before the corner and right after. My brain don't work that fast. And the PTZ with head tracking on his fpv camera allows him to do these maneuvers without losing sight of the ground. Build the Armadillo!
I was thinking about frames and all of than are just CF plates with motors bolted on, what changes is how it possibility installing electronics and battery, how safe and well distributed they are, so the manufactures must think outside the box to convince someone to buy it, one way is sponsoring great pilots and by advertising, other way is like those guys with lifetime warranty, other ways must be yet to come, I liked this one, but will keep my nighthawk 200 for now!
Slap that Flip32 Omnibus w/ Built-in OSD on that frame, problem solved:)
I have flown this for a month and have rebuilt it about 3 vezes. I actually managed to break an arm. The concept is great but I ran into issues mounting the vtx. It just doesn't fit in the designed locations unless you get creative with extensions. I designed a 3D printed top plate that allows top mount of the battery, you can find it on thingiverse. If a version two is made I hope armattan sends me one so that I can tell them how to make it perfect. Overall I like it and I have beaten the hell out of it.
nice frame. did you mentioned the frames of GEPRC? they look promising and affordable. maybe you can review one of these frames? I am thinking to build the TX5 Chimp (not an experienced builder)
Get someone to 3D print you a top plate instead of the pdb. Then you can use your own and inject a little color while you are at it
Finally someone who ships a PDB with a 9V regulator! 🙂 Best choice ever.
Does the PDB hold the whole top in place via the 4 tabs? Its very hard to see on the pictures. I think this would be very bad in a frontal crash.
Just bought the Armadillo 4" pup frame and will use all these spare parts I have from qav250 and Vendetta laying around, hard to pass up lifetime replacements. This will be the quad I am not scared to crash and a nice size for winter indoor flying.
That prop on motor 4 tho…
this really looks like a fantastic frame. great video too. you really touch on all of the important points!
Oi, Joshua., i have been flying the Armadillo for a while now with the battery on top, its flies great as long as you don't crash. The top plate always comes off with the battery, which will end up breaking the small carbon strip on the side plate holding the top plate. On my armadillo the weight of the top mounted battery could shift the side plates just enough to hit the tips of a 5"BN prop on the front with hard rolles. As for the armadillo pdb, i use a furious kombini which has a pdb(and current meter) intergraded. I just connected the – of battery to the armadillo pdb and the + to the kombini. E então + from the Kombini to the + armadillo pdb again so the FC can measure the current of everything. I have the battery bottom mounted now, and it still flies really great, but i really need to print some battery protector for hard landings.
bom vídeo. I fly with a bottom-mounted battery, and tape a thin plate of plywood to protect the battery bottom.
i have broken an armattan frame. their service is AWESOME. the only thing i bought was the shipping, o que é 5 dólares, but its much cheaper than buying a new bottom plate for my morphite 180 quadro
Armadillos!
Na verdade, not every Armattan frame has lifetime warranty, por exemplo. the Lite series (SCX 200!) doesn't have it.
my experience is similar to another post here. Ive written off 2 baterias, both were mounted on the top of the frame. when in fast forward flight your quad is angled with the battery exposed to objects from that forward tilt, Ive bent and crushed cells hitting trees, thankfully neither went up, but the damage to battery was….well the cells were crumpled like the front end of car in an accident.
you can use the rrosd and the pdb just by having the battery connector soldered to the rrosd and then connect that to the pdb, so the battery voltage is going through the osd and the going to the pdb…
check this out someone made eXACTLY What you wanted for top mount battery
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1746478
I have only owned 4 quadros, and this is not one… but I would say without a doubt…. the Armattan frame i do own is BY FAR the nicest one…. and man… I bought a Bardwell recommended frame for my lasted build to save a few bucks… after sanding grinding and contacting the company…. sure wish I'd a just got another Armattan. Thumbs up for this frame from me.
I've broken armattan production frames but never have i broken a "Armattan" frame 🙂
The Flip 32 Omnibus has an OSD that you can setup with betaflight. Works good with this frame I think.
Bottom or top mounted lipo's have both plus and minus points. I agree that a bottom mounted lipo will have it harder with crashes but I have seen 2 lipo's go up in smoke on a frame and both were top mounted. 1 indoor because he hit the roof and one ad the Dutch Drone Race because he hid the bucked were the high gate was mounted on. For me indoor I go for bottom mounted, outdoor I just take what I like because I only fly above gras and by crashes,it is in most cases not a problem. The risk is always there. The strange thing I do not understand is why by rc racing a hard case lipo is in the rules were by quadcopters, were the lipo is outside the frame and can be damaged easily, it is not necessary to have a hard case around it.
For me I am thinking of designing a case from ninja flex that fids my lipo's. That way they are better protected by a crash and I will use it on top and bottom mounted frames. The ninja flex absorbs a big part of the impact. Also you can let it print in a color, so as your lipo comes loose of the quadcopter, it is easily to find back. The lipo will also stay better mounted on the frame.
i actually managed to break an arm on my QAV-R this past weekend, full throttle into a tree will do that. sadly my Yi cut out and i don't have the footage of the crash. the arm actually snapped right across the two outer screws holding the arm on. honestly just happy the ESC and motor survived. ordered a replacement arm and one backup just in case after that.
i had every extra part i thought i could need, motores, CES, receivers and even a backup camera, but no replacement arms so my QAV-R was down for the weekend. lost some flight time but learned a valuable lesson about paying more attention to my altitude.
perhaps one of these will help with protecting the battery, and this one gives you small feet to level the quad out. https://multirc.mysparkpay.com/tpu-battery-landing-skid.aspx
very sexy looking frame…
No diagonal measurements? prop size? 🙁
On its own linear regulator (as used on Armadillo PDB) will do "bad" job in filtering voltage spikes. All linear regulator have parameter called "Ripple Rejection" that describe measure of how well a circuit rejects ripple coming from the input and it is for high frequencies usually pretty low and voltage spikes usually have high frequencies (its depend of rise time time, smaller rise time translate to higher frequency). That is why there are usually capacitors on input and output of linear regulators (among other reasons, some linear regulators need them for stability …) and I do not saw capacitors on Armadillo PDB.
nice pour for the homies on the blackout clip!!!!
I'd buy it if there was a carbon plate option rather than the pdb- mainly because i don't want to apply stress to my electronic components even though its probably strong wouldn't want the worry of micro-cracks causing brownouts or worse it breaking in crash making a difficult repair job
Free replacement parts is a great idea…. if people play fair. Still looking for a frame with the FPV camera centered close to the axis. Are there any frames with the camera positioned like a tiny whoop? Fairly new to quads but I too am convinced a centrally located camera would improve FPV. My whoop can angle forward a lot and come to a stop angled back and the camera view is great and not all over the place like my other quad. I know it's kind of apples to oranges. Obrigado pela revisão.
If you build it maybe try the flip 32 f3 omnibus. It has mpu6000, SPI bus, USB over VCP giving leaving you 3 UARTS a built in micro SD card reader and the kicker it has built in OSD using the new betaflight OSD configurator. You can actually configure the OSD In betaflight plus you can adjust PIDS from your transmitter. You can get your CPU processor usage on screen! I know you don't like Ready to Fly Quads but I did get mine shipped to me with no problems and the thing works. I'm sure you would enjoy that flight controller and it would make a good video. Plus it would work well in this frame. It might be time to give them a second chance. I don't work for them by the way I just thought you needed to know about this thing just incase you hadn't already.
At this point companies should be throwing products at you, after every glowing review you give I am obligated to buy that thing, even if I don't need it! 🙂
On the product page I noticed "1.5mm CF Top Bottom Plate [no PDB]" but I don't see a way to add it to the order form…
link?
The Forty Tribute to the Blackout was Classic!!! Impressionante!
Seems like a good frame for the SirinFPV FC board – the sides would protect your FC investment. Wish they would send you one – I'd be interested in your honest review on that board.
armattan make cool frames, not really a fan of the built in pdbs though as i like to use osd/pdb combos! … though i do fly an scx-200 😀
unfortunately armattan does not cover top plate of F1 series frames, which is the easy piece to break. nice that this one is fully covered.
So joshua, do you have any recommendations for a good (and possibly cheap) controlador de voo + osd combo?
You had me sold on this frame until the mention of a structural pdb. In my experience with pdbs holding arms on can get stressed and cause shorts in the traces. Also if it were to snap it's a crap ton of work to replace it. Other than that I love the features of this quad.