DIY Quad Build ATV Quad Bike Project User Manual

1 x Set of Propellers HQProp Ethix P3.5 RAD Berry 5.1×3.5×3 Propeller (Set of 4)
1 x KiwiQuads Pack
- 3D Print for VTX Antenna
- Wire, Heatshrink for capacitor
- Cable Ties for mounting Vtx and Rx Antenna
- 3M tape for mounting components
  Standard Options that you may have chosen:

iFlight ToolKit – iFlight 9-Piece Tool Kit with Soldering Iron
- This includes all the tools needed to build the quad
- The build photographed throughout this manual was built using the iFlight Toolkit exclusively – we provide TBS solder with the ToolKit.
TPU Upgrade kit – 3D Printed Source One V5 Accessory Kit

What you’ll need to complete the build

If you purchased the DIY kit and iFlight toolkit then all you will need to complete the build:

Insulation or Cloth tape
Multimeter or Smoke Stopper

Computer for setting up BetaFlight
USB-C Cable (Data and Power)

If you did not purchase the iFlight ToolKit then you will need the following additional items:

2.5mm Hex Driver

Soldering Iron
Solder, Flux

Prop Tool or Crescent Spanner
Side Cutters
Tweezers or precision pliers

Finally there are some Optional Items:

Loctite 243 threadlocker
Conformal Coating

Build Guide

This build guide has been broken into 9 Physical and 14 Betaflight steps. Each step is a complete section of the build, we recommend completing these sections in full. It will take several hours to complete your first build so please take your time and have fun!

Top Tip: Stay Organised! Keep your fasteners organised in their respective sizes, and keep track of your components, if you don’t have something specific the bottom of an egg carton makes a good fastener sorter, and the lid makes a good component tray!

As with any DIY Quad build, you will be required to solder some connections to electronic components, so if this is your first soldering experience, we suggest you familiarise yourself with some basic soldering skills and practice before getting started.

We have included some tips in the build guide below, but these are based on you having a solid understanding of the following resources from YouTube such as:

RCModelReviews – Soldering basics for RC planes
Joshua Bardwell – Most FPV pilots need to watch this soldering tutorial

You can also find soldering practice boards, as well as wire and connectors to use for practice at KiwiQuads:

For reference, if purchasing wire separately:

Motor wires are usually 18-22AWG
Battery Connectors are 12-14AWG
Signal wires for VTX etc 30AWG

Physical Build

Step 1: Assemble the Bottom of the Frame

Take out the components from your TBS Source One frame kit and lay them out in front of you. You will need:

Lower-Bottom Plate (with camera plate slots)

Arm Locking Wedge
Arms
Upper-Bottom Plate (with press nuts installed already)

4x M3x12mm screws (take care as there are 4 x 14mm and 4 x 12mm in the kit)
From the FC/ESC Stack you will need the long M3 bolts

Note: Carbon frames can have sharp edges, some people choose to chamfer/sand these.
Please use appropriate PPE as carbon dust is not good for your lungs, we recommend a face mask, gloves and sand under running water with a file

Thread the bolts through the inner (20×20) Lower-Bottom holes and into the inside arm hole, along with the Arm Locking Wedge for locating the position. Note you want the arms in a wide stance:

Position the Upper-Bottom Plate on top, and thread the long bolts through the outer bolt pattern (30×30) from underneath the frame, taking care to not bend the carbon plates by forcing the bolts through, you may need to screw the screws in and out a few times so it doesn’t catch on the carbon and finds the thread in the press nut correctly.

Step 2: Dry Fit Out

Whilst the temptation is to complete the frame, we recommend at this stage that you take the time to complete a “dry-fit-out” of the components, so you know where everything goes.

Dry fit out involves fitting the components without soldering or fixing, this is a build best practice, it offers a chance to optimise the location and find any clashes and change your build as needed, KiwiQuads stocks many connectors/adaptors and can 3D print mounts.

Key Considerations:

Battery Cable – we suggest to run it out the rear of the quad.
Capacitor location – we suggest in front of the stack, behind the camera.
Rx location – we suggest in front of the stack, behind the camera.

Overleaf is our suggested layout, if you don’t use a nano sized Rx eg. Frsky, Flysky, then you may want to consider placing your Rx in the rear, ontop of the VTx or attached to the top-plate with some double-sided tape and ziptie.

Step 3: Prepare and install the ESC

Time to calm the nerves and start tinning up the pads, remember to get some practice as noted above in the Build Guide section.

For the capacitor placement you will need to run some wires forward from the ESC battery pads to the capacitor location behind the camera, we have included some 22 AWG wire in the kit for this.

Remove the ESC from the quad and run the wires along the bottom of the ESC, you can either solder them to the pad (shown on -‘ve black below) or poke through the provided hole (shown on +’ve red below) and solder from the top.

IMPORTANT: Make sure that the wires are insulated right up to the pad to prevent a short on the bottom of the ESC.

Once you have prepared the capacitor wires, you can turn over the ESC to solder the battery connection wires to the ESC battery pads. The FC/ESC Stack comes with an xt60 battery connector with pigtail of wire, in this manual we used it in supplied length ~10cm

IMPORTANT: check that the + and – on the sides of the XT60 matches with the ESC (note the markings on the pcb and connector) and the wires (red positive, black negative). This is very important to check – getting this wrong will cause a short and damage your quad.

Soldering the battery connector is the most challenging soldering activity of the build, the iFlight toolkit soldering iron is more than capable of soldering this joint.

Remember to take your time, ensure the pad is tinned with plenty of solder, the wires are well tinned with some extra flux applied. Use bluetack/”helping hand clamp” to help line up the wire with the pad, pre heat the wire and pad and then make the joint.

This completes our preparation of the ESC. If you wish to conformal coat your quad, now is the time to coat the bottom of the esc (we solder the motor wires on the top).

Step 4: Install and Solder the motors

Important: You need to swap some fasteners, the Source One kit comes with 16x\ M3x10mm Screws, we will use these for the motors. The M3x8mm screws that came with the motors aren’t long enough, but instead we will use them for the frame assembly.

Install the motors at the ends of each arm using the M3x10mm bolts from the underside of the arm. If you purchased our TPU kit then make sure the screws go through the TPU first.

Some people elect to add threadlocker to these bolts. If you do regular maintenance (tightening the bolts) you don’t need thread locker, but it can add extra piece of mind. If you do use Loctite 243 Blue, not 222 Red, as Blue can be loosened with a heat gun.

When building its important to check that the motor bolt clearance with the bottom of the windings:

Now that the motors are in place, we need to solder on the motor wires, you will no longer be able to remove the ESC from the quad after this step, so ensure that it sits properly on your stack bolts, and you are happy with the power cable location.

To solder the motor wires on we have two options. The first is to bring the wires up to the esc pads directly, or to bring them around the stack bolts and solder to the pads.

If you are still building your soldering confidence we recommend to bring these up to the pads directly, you can leave excess length that provides more margin for error, and you can be less precise with the insulation removal.

If you are more confident bringing the wires around the stack bolts will create a very clean look, and with the slim body of the V5 frame protect the motor wires from snagging those “ghost branches”.

Use insulation tape to tape the motor wires to the arms and prevent moving while soldering, carefully measure and cut the wires to length, you will need to tin the ends.

Top Tip: When soldering small components and tinning wires, bluetack is a great base to hold wires for tinning, or components.

Solder the motor wires to the ESC pads closest to the motor. It doesn’t matter which motor wire is connected to which of the 3 pads on that ESC corner, however its good practice not to twist or cross them.

To complete the ESC “layer” we need to solder the capacitor supplied with your FC and ESC to the battery + and – pads.

The capacitor from the kit is well labelled, with a negative line (Some capacitors are not labelled the short leg is negative, the long leg is positive).

Remember to check the position next to the camera, then remove the parts ready for soldering (note the use of bluetack again to hold it in place but allow movement). Make sure to thread heatshrink on before soldering the wires, and solder the wires as close to the capacitor as possible by cutting back the legs to suit

We will doublesided tape the capacitor down later in the build.

Now is a good time to test the ESC for shorts:

If you have a Multimeter, check there is no continuity between the positive and negative pad and xt60 connector.
Use a smoke stopper and plug in your battery, the light should be green for OK.

Step 5: Install and prepare the FC

We will tin the pads with the FC mounted in the quad. Installing the FC physically is a simple process, locate the arrow on the FC and make sure it faces forward (toward the camera), Tighten down the M3 locknuts down until tight – firm but not squishing the yellow spacers.

We also need to plug the FC-ESC cable together, this cable passes the battery voltage through to power the FC. It also includes wires for the motor signals as the FC needs to tell the ESC how much throttle to apply to each motor, as well as telemetry information being returned from the ESC to the FC.

For this build we have prepared the FC wiring diagram on the following page specifically for the components used in the build. There is the full wiring diagram in Appendix 1. Some useful notes on pad selection:

Consider the layout of the board and position the wires with a logical/short run.

Take your time and double check which pads to tin – the pad labels can be in different places on different FC.
A UART is a communication protocol used for serial communication between devices. It is typically described as being in a Tx (transmit) and Rx (receiving) pair.
When selecting a UART for a component consider:
- When wiring up the Reciever/GPS try to select a 4V5 pad for 5V, a 4V5 pad means that the pad is powered via the USB port on the FC. This is useful when setting up Betaflight to not have to plug in a flight battery and worry about the VTx overheating.
- The number represents which UART it is, and these must be paired ie Rx1 with Tx1.
- Remember a Transmitting Tx UART on the FC is wired to a Receiving Rx UART on the device (Receiver/GPS etc), and the Rx UART on the FC is wired up to the Transmitting Tx UART on the device.

Utilising the diagram, carefully Tin the Pads – they are only small, you will not need a lot of heat:

Step 6: Connecting the VTX

First let’s get the VTx into position.

Fit the rear standoffs utilising the small bolts. Note the rear standoffs are shorter due to the split deck design.

Unscrew the SMA connector and thread it through the provided 3D Print, utilise one nut to secure it in place. Next plug in the MMCX connector into the VTx and start to twist it into place, you may need to create a loop over the battery cable to get it to fit on the rear standoffs. Pass the 3D print over the standoffs as pictured below.

The VTx comes with a wire pigtail so let’s plug that in (make sure to use the one from the VTx box that matches the wiring diagram – not the pigtail from the FC as the order is different), and now use the provided cable ties to secure the VTx to the quad.

Run the pigtail wires up to the Flight controller, cut them to length, tin, and solder them to the pads, per the wiring diagram.

Step 7: Connect the Rx to the FC

For your Rx we will “borrow” the wire from the ESC/FC Kit. Using the Black, Red, Yellow, and White, by cutting off the connector, solder these to the receiver as below.

Refer to your receiver wiring diagram to ensure you wire it correctly, in this case we have used a HappyModel EP1. Remember to fit the heat shrink over the Rx to prevent a short.

Top Tip: If you don’t have a heatgun or lighter handy to shrink the heat shrink over the rx, hover the end of your soldering iron over/under the heatshrink.

Use some double sided tape to mount between the stack and the camera plates, next to the capacitor – this is a good time to double-sided tape the capacitor too.

Run the wires up to the FC, carefully consider the camera and capacitor wire route, cut, tin and solder them in place as per the wiring diagram.

Step 8: Install the Camera:

Install the camera into the camera brackets using the screws that came with the camera, you do not need any spacers:

Plug in the included 3 pin pigtail to the camera, measure out the length of the cable needed, run it between the capacitor and Rx back to the FC. Cut the wires to length and solder on the wires, refer above for the wiring diagram (once you have measured the cable length you may want to remove the standoffs and camera assembly for space to solder).

Fit the camera in place and tidy the wiring. Twisting the wires together helps with EMF rejection, making the camera signal clearer.

Step 9: Finishing the build

We will now power up the Quad with all items connected, including the VTx, it is good practice to ensure you have an Antenna on your VTx, powering it without could burn it out. Screw the provided antenna onto the SMA mount now.

Now is a good time to test for shorts.

If you have a Multimeter, check there is no continuity between the positive and negative pad and xt60 connector.

Check that there is continuity between the -ve pin of the xt60 and ground pads on the FC, also check for continuity between vbat and +ve.
Use a smoke stopper and plug in your battery, the light should be green for OK.

Unplug the battery and mount the top plate of the frame on the top and use the remaining screws to fix it down to the standoffs.

Ensure the camera mounting plates sit in the holes in the top plate, clamping them down between the top and bottom plates.

Finally, the most exciting step of any build, remove the tape backing and apply your battery pad!

Now, time for Betaflight….

Betaflight Setup

Now that you’ve built your quad, we need to set up the Betaflight firmware on the flight controller.

Note: Unlike many other electronic products, you do not need to update your firmware each time a new version is release. After this setup, we recommend you stick to the firmware version 4.4.2 and do not update it (as it will wipe all the settings). We will post BetaFlight settings updates to our blog should a major update be released in future.

Step 1: Installing and connecting to Betaflight Configurator

On your computer (Mac or PC) go to https://betaflight.com/download where you can find the latest link to the configuration tool, currently: https://github.com/betaflight/betaflightconfigurator/releases/tag/10.9.0

Choose the operating system for your computer and install.

First let’s test our connection: Plug the USB cable into the computer, and the usb-c into the Flight controller.

You should see a COM port pop up in the top right-hand corner of the program.

Note: The most common reason BetaFlight does not connect with the Flight Controller is the USB Cable – many cables that are supplied for charging are missing the data conductor, they will provide power to the FC so the LED will come on, but won’t connect to a computer. You need a USB-C cable that is known to transfer data.

Step 2: Update your FC firmware

Before configuring your FC, the first step is to make sure you have the correct firmware.
Click the “Update Firmware” button next to the connect button in the top right hand corner of the program. The firmware flashing screen should appear.

At the top, there are two drop down boxes, the first reflects the flight controller target, and the second the BetaFlight Version.

Use the “Auto-detect” button to load the target, in our case it should be “SPEEDYBEEF405V3” then for this guide we are going to select the 4.4.2 firmware version (latest at time of this manual).

On the bottom Right corner we want to click “Load Firmware [Online]” button. Once it has downloaded (its very fast) the “Flash Firmware” button should become yellow. Click this button and the flashing process should start:

If you don’t get the Programming: SUCCESSFUL message, you many need to download the drivers for your computer. Luckily there is an easy tool to help this process called “Impulserc Driver Fixer”. Search for the app in google, download it and run it while your FC is still plugged in. This should write the drivers to your computer to enable you to flash the firmware to your FC. The app should state that it was successful, so you can unplug and replug your FC into your computer and restart the flashing process mentioned above.

Once you have successfully flashed your FC, you can unplug and replug your FC and then click the connect button in Betaflight. The first time it will ask you to apply the default values for the SpeedyBee FC, click yes/Apply Custom Defaults (this tells betaflight some basic settings like what gyro is used etc).

Note in the top left corner of the screen you can see the key information about your Quad including BF Configurator version, BF Firmware Version, and FC Target, which can be helpful when troubleshooting in future.

Step 3: Tab 1 – Setup

When you connect to betaflight, you will be presented with the “Setup” screen with a 3D quad model on it, this model moves when you physically move your drone.

Make sure when you tilt your drone forwards (towards the camera), the model in Betaflight moves in the same direction. Similarly, tip your drone to each side and make sure the 3D model moves the same direction, we installed the FC in the default orientation (arrow forwards) so we don’t need to make adjustments in Betaflight.

Before moving on, you will also need to calibrate your accelerometer. Set your drone on a flat level surface and click the “Calibrate Accelerometer” button and ensure you don’t move the drone and the surface remains stable during the calibration process.

Step 4: Tab 2 – Ports

The ports tab is where we tell Betaflight, which components are connected to which UARTs on the Flight Controller Board.

From our wiring diagram in Section 5 page 14 we have connected:

Video Transmitter to UART 1 – T1:

From the video transmitter manual (https://www.kiwiquads.co.nz/wpcontent/uploads/TX800-manual_EN.pdf) we can see that it uses IRC Tramp as its communication method with the FC, therefore under Peripherals we update that field

Receiver is wired to UART 2:

We have wired our Rx to T2 therefore we check that that the Serial Rx Slider is enabled on UART 2.

Note UART4 has the MSP connection activated for the Bluetooth connection to the SpeedyBee App. This should not be changed or unselected.

It is important that you do NOT change the line “USB VCP” as this will mean you cannot connect your flight controller to your computer using the USB port anymore, we only ever adjust the UARTs

Once this is done, click “Save and Reboot” down the bottom right. Your drone will reboot and disconnect from Betaflight and you might need to click the “Connect” button again, but once you are in Betaflight again check that the ports tab is now correct, and the settings have remained

Step 5: Tab 3 – Configuration

The Configuration tab is where we select the majority of the general FC settings, there are a few important elements to change

You can update the Drone and Pilot name, which both can be added to your Video OSD (more on that later).
The Arming angle is the number of degrees that Betaflight allows the quad to be tilted, before preventing you to Arm the motors. We recommend turning this restriction OFF by changing the “Maximum ARM Angle” to 180. This will mean you can arm when you are upside down or any angle in between, which is important if you get stuck in a tree or other obstacle.
Because we did not include a Buzzer in our build, we can utilise the ESC tone to help us diagnose problems or find our drone in future. Under the “Dshot Beacon Configuration” set the “Beacon Tone” to 4 and make sure both sliders are in the enable position.

Once these have been done, click “Save and Reboot” down the bottom right. Again your drone will reboot and disconnect from betaflight and you might need to click the “Connect” button again, but once you are in Betaflight again, check the settings have saved and go to the “Power and Battery” tab.

Step 6: Tab 4 – Power & Battery

In the power and battery tab, you need to calibrate the Voltage and Current sensors so your flight controller shows you the correct voltage and current values in telemetry and your Video OSD.

This is one setting that is typically populated by “Apply Custom Defaults” from earlier, so we simply need to check that “Onboard ADC” is selected for both the voltage meter and current meter source.

From the ESC data sheet we can see the Current sensor figures should be set to

Current Sensor Support (Scale=386 Offset=0)

If you adjusted anything press the “Save” button on bottom Right.

Step 7: Tab 5 – Presets

This tab is OPTIONAL.
If you use ExpressLRS we recommend you run it at 250Hz and use the preset as follows.

Search for ExpressLRS and Select the 250Hz preset.

Fine tune to your liking, we recommend HD Freestyle, our build has a Serial, Separate Rx, Single Cell Voltages

Press Pick and “Save and Reboot” it should show a quick popup loading the preset.

Step 8: Tab 7 – Receiver

Note: we skip Tab 6 – PID Tuning as we leave this until last.

In this tab, you are going to setup the Receiver and check that the Flight Controller is getting the expected inputs when you use your Radio Transmitter.

We have already assigned the port in Step 4, therefore we just need to tell the flight controller what protocol the receiver will talk to it in.

Set Receiver mode to “Serial (via UART)”

The receiver profile is the protocol which Betaflight talks to the Rx, not to be confused with the Protocol that your receiver uses to talk to your Transmitter:

For FRSky receivers, set to “SBUS”
For FlySky receivers, set to “IBUS”
For Crossfire or ExpressLRS receivers, set to “CRSF”

In this case we have used an ExpressLRS Rx so selected CRSF Once this is done, click “Save and Reboot”.

At this point we assume that you have bound your Radio to your Rx successfully, and setup the Radio model with the switches you wish to use in the mixer tab on your Transmitter.

Now unplug the USB-C from the drone so that it powers off the receiver.

Turn on your Transmitter/Radio
Power on your Quad via re-plugging in the USB-C Cable (remember our rx is powered via the USB port)

When you get back to the receiver tab and move the sticks, you should see the coloured bars on the left start moving.

If the bars that move are not correct we need to change the order of your channels in the “Channel Map” section. Each time you change the order, make sure to press “Save” and then check if the order is correct. We recommend you change one channel at a time, take your time Adjust, Save, Adjust, Save.

The first four channels should always be your sticks, followed by 1,2,3,4 for the auxiliary channels/switches (our transmitter is AETR1234 in this case).

Once you have the channels mapped correctly and your sticks move the correct channels, turn the telemetry slider to on and click “Save and Reboot” for the final time. Once you’re back in the configurator, head to the “Motors” tab.

Step 9: Tab 9 – Motors and ESC Setup

Note: We setup the Motors tab before the Modes Tab as Flip Over Crash isn’t available until motors are setup

Note 1: During this step we need to plug in a battery. It is very important to ensure there are no propellors installed on your motors.

Note 2: Please be careful to charge your battery and monitor its voltage while setting up so it doesn’t get to low.

Note 3: Remember our earlier advice to ensure a VTx Antenna is fitted before plugging in your battery

Before we progress with the ESC firmware, we need to tell the FC how to communicate with the ESC. The ESC/Motor Protocol is how (and how often) the ESC and FC talk to each other, our Flight Controller is an F4 coupled with a Bluejay ESC so we need to select DShot300. Press Save and Reboot (that’s all we need betaflight for at this stage).

Before we setup the motors we are going to flash the ESC with BlueJay firmware, this allows us to run rpm filters which is a solid improvement to quad performance, particularly after the quad has been flown and develops vibrations through wear and tear.

This can easily be done via a web browser: https://esc-configurator.com/

Disconnect from Betaflight and remove the cable.
Plug in battery – you will hear the esc chime.
Plug in your usb cable.
On the webpage connect via the top right (similar to betaflight)
Click “Read Settings” in bottom right and the configurator will recognise 4 ESCs:
Click Flash All ESC
Firmware: Bluejay
ESC: J-H-50
Version: 0.19.2 (this was the latest at time of writing, recommend using this rev) PWM Frequency: 48kHz
Press “Flash” it will go through and flash each ESC, wait for all ESC to be flashed.
Once completed press disconnect.
Remove the USB cable.
Remove the battery.

Now that we have flashed the ESC we can go back to BetaFlight to complete the Motor setup. Plug in the USB, open Betaflight and navigate back to the Motors tab where we will be setting up the ESC and checking the Motor direction. If motors are spinning in the wrong direction, the quad will flip over and you will not be able to fly it.

In the top left corner of the tab, there is a diagram of a quad with a red arrow in the middle, numbered motors on each arm and circular arrows around each motor. The red arrow indicates that the diagram is drawn looking down on your drone with the camera facing away from you, In Step 5 of the Build, you made sure that the arrow of the FC was also pointing in this direction. The circles represent the motor/prop direction that Betaflight is expecting.

Prop direction is an ongoing discussion (rivalry) in the community, we recommend Props Out ie turn on “motor direction is reversed” slider, because of Chris Rosser’s Research

We selected the motor protocol earlier DSHOT300.

We do not have a BL32 esc in this case so ESC_Sensor Slider is Off, because we setup the ESC with Bluejay firmware we can set the Bidirectional Dshot slider to On

From the motor datasheet, we can see the motor is 12N14P meaning 12 Windings and 14 Poles– you can also count the magnets on the bell of the motor as 14.

Motor idle we leave at the Betaflight default of 5.5

Time to spin up the Motors, using the Betaflight Sliders.

There are sophisticated tools to assist with the motor order and direction process in the most recent Betaflight configurator, but we prefer and encourage you to try the individual motor method – queue a post it note or small piece of paper.

The numbered motors correspond to the sliders (note the motor mapping on the picture is not in numerical order) and the circular arrows around the motors is the direction that the FC expects each motor to rotate in.

Now that you have ensured the propellors are not installed, plug in your battery and move the toggle down the bottom right of the screen which states “I understand the risks”. This enables us to control the motors individually from the FC

Above this white box with the toggle are bars with sliders. The sliders will change to blue and will allow you to raise them, which will spin the motor corresponding to the slider number at the top of the bar.

It can be difficult to control the sliders using a mouse – the throttle range is 1000 2000 but the motor will start spinning around 1020 and 1040 is normally enough to get it slowly spinning. So we suggest you (taking care not to slide it) single click the motor you want to adjust, this selects the motor and allows you to use the up arrow and down arrow keys on your keyboard to control it one point at a time

Start with Motor 1, click on the slider and use the up-arrow key on your keyboard to start the motor up, remember you wont need much throttle, once you are used to spinning it up and down, bring it up to a slow idle around 1030 position.

First check that the correct motor is spinning (if you have followed this guide and installed the ESC in the normal orientation the motor order will not need to be changed), then check it’s spinning in the correct direction.

Our favourite method for checking motor direction is to bring a post it note up to the motor perpendicular, it will be pulled in the direction the motor is turning:

If you notice that the motor spin direction does not match the diagram in the top left of the motors tab, you can click the “Motor direction” button under the drone diagram and it will start a wizard to get the motor directions correct.

Repeat this for all four motors.

The last item we need to check is that our Bidirectional Dshot is working, spin up all 4 motors using the “Master” slider and check that the Error (E) remains at 0% use your mouse and pump the master slider up and down.

Once you have all the motors spinning in the correct directions (they match the drone diagram) we can unplug your battery and move to the Modes Tab.

Step 10: Tab 8 – Modes

Setting up the modes on your drone controls the actions of your auxiliary switches. There are a few modes we recommend activating via a switch:

Arm: This will arm the drone and allow you to take off normally set to Aux 1
- Note for ELRS this MUST be set to Aux 1.
Flight Mode: Angle/Horizon/Acro: It’s best practice to have all flight modes attached to one switch, we usually use a 3-Position up/away position is Angle mode, Middle is Horizon, Bottom/Towards is Acro/Manual (no selection)
Flip Over After Crash (Turtle): If you crash and find your drone upside down, you can use this mode to spin the motors in the opposite direction and flip your quad over when you move your sticks (it is easy to burn out motors/esc with this mode so take care) Normally set to Aux 3
Beeper: This will make your drone beep when you activate a switch, making it easier to find Normally set to Aux 4 we like to use a momentary switch.

Power up your Radio (you may need to cycle power to the receiver via your usb cable), and make sure your Radio and Rx are connected.

To set these modes up, ensure the “Hide unused modes” toggle is off and go to each mode mentioned above. Click the “Add Range” button, and flick the switch you would like to use.

We find it easiest to enable all the modes you want, then toggle the Hide unused modes back on, so you get a clear view of the selected switches.

You can manually adjust the channel from the drop down box if it doesn’t automatically select the correct channel.

You will see a little vertical yellow bar move across the numbers underneath the main horizontal bar, and this will move left and right as you flick your switches. When the switch is in the correct position, drag the yellow horizontal bar to where the little vertical bar is to set the range that this mode is active. When you have finished setting them up (example above), click the “Save” button in the bottom right.

When you put your transmitter switch into the correct position, the box on the left with the mode name will light up, meaning it is active. If all of these have been set to your liking, click the save button one more time and head to the VTx tab.

Note: you wont be able to arm your quad while plugged in to the computer but the Arm section will still light up.

Step 11: Tab 11 – Setting up your VTx

You will notice that when you click into the video transmitter tab, there is no content. This is because we need to set up the “VTX tables”, which tell the FC the configuration of your VTX and how to communicate with it.

It is always best to source the VTX Table from the manufacturer, in this case we have the manual linked from the KiwiQuads product page: https://www.kiwiquads.co.nz/wpcontent/uploads/TX800-manual_EN.pdf

You can either:

Type the values in manually OR
Paste the following into the CLI:
vtxtable bands 5
vtxtable channels 8
vtxtable band 1 BOSCAM_A A CUSTOM 5865 5845 5825 5805 5785 5765 5745 5725
vtxtable band 2 BOSCAM_B B CUSTOM 5733 5752 5771 5790 5809 5828 5847 5866
vtxtable band 3 BOSCAM_E E CUSTOM 5705 5685 5665 0 5885 5905 0 0
vtxtable band 4 FATSHARK F CUSTOM 5740 5760 5780 5800 5820 5840 5860 5880
vtxtable band 5 RACEBAND R CUSTOM 5658 5695 5732 5769 5806 5843 5880 5917
vtxtable powerlevels 5
vtxtable powervalues 25 200 400 600 600
vtxtable powerlabels 25 200 400 800 800
save

This is the first time we have used the CLI. The CLI is the command line interface, it allows direct text entry to configure the parameters.

Go back to Betaflight and click the “CLI” tab and paste the text above into the command box down the bottom of the tab and press enter. This will update the vtx parameters and your FC will reboot.

Reconnect and head to the “Video transmitter” tab and you should now see that the values are populated. Your table should look like this once completed:

If you plug in your battery again, under the “Current Values” table on the right, the “device ready” should change from No to Yes.

Once your VTx is setup, we can set up your OSD.

Step 12: Tab 10 – Setting up your OSD

The On-Screen-Display (OSD) is telemetry data that is overlayed on your video feed while you are flying, it can show information such as your battery voltage, transmitter signal strength, flight mode and any errors or warnings.

There are a lot of elements you can add to your OSD, and tab 10 gives you the option of adding and moving them around on your display. The elements we recommend you have showing in your OSD are as follows:

General Information:

Recommended – Warnings – indicates any issues with the drone including those preventing arming.
Recommended – Disarmed – indicates when the Quad is in a disarmed state.
Recommended – Timer 2 –tells you how long your drone has been armed (flying).
Optional – Craft/Pilot name – personalise your OSD with your name, also helpful for identification if others are watching.
Optional – VTX channel – tells you the band, channel and power of your VTX
Optional – Throttle position – nice indication of your stable flight throttle level

Battery:

Recommended – Battery Average Cell Voltage – shows you the approximate value of each cell in your battery, which makes it easier to remember when to land (around 3.7-3.8V) regardless of the Lipos number of cells.
Recommended – Battery current mAh drawn – this is the cumulative capacity drawn from your battery. As this value gets closer to your battery capacity you know you will need land soon, note voltage takes precedence over current drawn.
Optional – Battery voltage – this is the total voltage of your battery which is also useful to record.
Optional – Battery Current Draw – this is the total amp draw of your drone (not necessary to show but a good stat to record)

Radio Control:

Recommended – Link Quality – useful for quads flying Crossfire, Tracer or ExpressLRS, it indicates the number of good packets received by the receiver it is impacted by range and RF noise.
Recommended – RSSI dBm value – useful with quads flying Crossfire, Tracer or ExpressLRS and indicates the signal strength received by the receiver impacted by range. This is a negative value and indicates that your drone is getting too far away as the value moves more negative.
Recommended – RSSI value – only used for drones running Frsky, Spektrum, Flysky etc and is similar to the RSSI dBm value above but is a positive number and is indicated as a percentage, where 100 is full connection to your drone and less than 100 indicates that the connection is degrading. Usually at around 50-60 your drone may failsafe.
Optional – Tx uplink power – only useful for drones running Crossfire, Tracer or ExpressLRS and is helpful if you have dynamic power level set on your transmitter

To select an element, check the tickbox next to it and then it will show up on the sample screen. To move the element, you can click and drag it around the screen. If you have your goggles connected, you will see the elements move around live while you are changing them in BetaFlight.

After you’ve chosen all the elements you want and and moved them to the screen location you want, click the “save” button in the bottom right.

Like in the VTx section, we have prepared the following CLI paste should you wish to copy our OSD setup and locations:

set osd_link_quality_pos = 2113
set osd_rssi_dbm_pos = 2145
set osd_tim_2_pos = 2103
set osd_throttle_pos = 353
set osd_vtx_channel_pos = 2081
set osd_mah_drawn_pos = 2168
set osd_craft_name_pos = 2093
set osd_pilot_name_pos = 2443
set osd_warnings_pos = 14666
set osd_avg_cell_voltage_pos = 2135
set osd_disarmed_pos = 2411
set osd_canvas_width = 30
set osd_canvas_height = 13
save

Step 13 Tab 6 – PID Tuning and Rates

Our final step is to setup the Quad PID tune, Filter tune, and Rates. This can seem like an overwhelming process with many terms and sliders, but with time it will become more familiar.

The first point to remember is that the Betaflight defaults are specifically designed to work for 5” freestyle quads in the weight range of our build. You can completely ignore this Step if you wish to fly defaults. We recently flew the build on default’s and it flew well.

If you would like to get the maximum flight feel, we have completed our own tune and can work through the following (see CLI dump at the bottom should you wish to paste it in), note this tune was done with a ~200g battery and no GoPro/Action Camera.

There are three elements to the PID Tuning Tab:

We will start with the Filter Settings.

In general, the performance of the quad will improve with less filtering, however all quads have some measure of vibrations or signal noise that we prevent (filter) from reaching the gyro on the FC. With new quads and props you can be more aggressive in reducing filtering than with older equipment. The Filter settings we have chosen are:

Remove (uncheck slider) the Gyro Lowpass Filter 1 when using RPM filter.
Slide the Gyro filter (1.4) and D filter (1.3) sliders to the right (reducing filtering).

Ideally you would do a test flight after this to check the motors remain cool, but we understand that it’s not always practical, so this is a safe setting for the DIY build.

Note motor temperature is a good indicator of issues with your PID tune, a too aggressive tune (particularly too much D term) or not enough filtering can be diagnosed with motors that are hot to the touch. If you detect your motors are hot increase the filtering by sliding the Gyro and D term slider down to the LEFT.

Next we move to the PID Profile Tab. The PID values define how the quad will react to a stick input or system set-point.

We found that the Quads performance benefited from increased D gain, which reduces prop wash. Using the Pidtoolbox method we found that:

Damping (D gain): could be increased significantly, with the slider at 1.4 being a good balance of performance without overheating motors or inducing trilling.
Tracking (P&I gain): leave at default
Stick Response (FF): the quad has excellent stick response so a number around default is acceptable.
Dynamic Damping is not needed with higher D Gains – set the slider to zero.
Drift (I gains): I term generally has a wide working range on most freestyle builds, you may prefer to increase this value if you prefer a more robotic feel, but leaving at default is fine.

For completeness we want to increase the TPA setpoint, TPA lowers the D gain at a certain throttle setpoint (remember from the receiver tab the range was 1000-2000), the Betaflight default is quite low to prevent noise/oscillations at higher throttles, but with a good tune this is less of a concern, so we increase the set point to ¾ throttle or 1750

Note you will hear people mention the “Master Multiplier” MM, we have left this at default – 1.0 and it is hidden by the Expert Mode Slider (Whilst our testing allowed for an increase to the MM, we felt it safer to leave this at 1.0 for your first build). Should you add a heavier battery or Gopro to your build you may wish to increase the multiplier.

This tune is a solid improvement in propwash performance over the default tune, while also having leeway to ensure you don’t burn out a motor with aggressive pids. Try the following CLI to implement all of these:

set gyro_lpf1_static_hz = 0
set gyro_lpf2_static_hz = 700
set dyn_notch_count = 1
set dyn_notch_q = 500
set gyro_lpf1_dyn_min_hz = 0
set simplified_gyro_filter_multiplier = 140
set dterm_lpf1_dyn_min_hz = 97
set dterm_lpf1_dyn_max_hz = 195
set dterm_lpf1_static_hz = 97
set dterm_lpf2_static_hz = 195
set i_pitch = 75
set d_pitch = 47
set f_pitch = 118
set i_roll = 72
set d_roll = 42
set f_roll = 114
set i_yaw = 72
set f_yaw = 114
set d_min_roll = 42
set d_min_pitch = 47
set feedforward_averaging = 2_POINT
set feedforward_smooth_factor = 45
set feedforward_jitter_factor = 10
set simplified_i_gain = 90
set simplified_d_gain = 140
set simplified_dmax_gain = 0
set simplified_feedforward_gain = 95
set simplified_dterm_filter_multiplier = 130
set tpa_breakpoint = 1750
save

Lastly we need to setup our Rateprofile Settings. Rates are how “sensitive” the quad will feel to your stick inputs, there is plenty of good information including how to Find YOUR perfect rates! With science! – Joshua Bardwell

If you are brand new to flying, our recommendation is to try the Betaflight defaults and after getting used to flying try adjusting them via the Joshua Bardwell video described above. Our experience has been that if anything most people have rates that are too high for them:

Step 14: Advanced: Failsafe Settings

At the top right of the BetaFlight Configurator there is a slider labelled “Enable Expert Mode”. This will provide a number of new options including a Tab labelled “Failsafe”.

There should not be any settings you need to change in this tab, but for the safety of you and others, its good practice to check your quads behaviour should it lose connection to your Radio.

Under “Stage 2 – Settings” the failsafe procedure should be set to “Drop”.

This will ensure that if you do lose communication with the receiver, your drone will not continue to fly away, it will disarm the motors and drop immediately.

You should not need to change anything, but if you need to change any settings, you will need to click the “Save and Reboot” button.

Flying Your Drone

Now it is time for the Maiden Flight! You need to do a few things to prepare:

Charge your batteries (ensure they are fully charged)
Check your Arm switch operates as anticipated
Install your propellors – make sure the propellors are installed on your drone to match the motor direction set up in props out as discussed in Step 9: Tab 9 – Motors and Power
Complete a Line of sight hover test
Check the Channel selected on your Goggles matches that of your VTx (this will default to F7 in this guide)
Go fly!

A few tips if this is your first drone:

If you have not flown a quad before, we recommend spending time on a simulator to get familiar with the controls, the sensation of flying with a controller, and building the basic muscle memory needed to react and pilot the Quad. This can save many crashes and make your first flight more fun! Some good simulators include:
- Velocidrone
- Liftoff
- Tryp FPV
Make sure you are always flying outside and away from people or property that might be damaged when you crash. The CAA has guidelines for flying your drone safely, so please take them into account when you go out to fly
Take it slow the first few times that you fly, get used to the drone and how it feels, and the video range.
Be prepared to crash, a lot. Most of the time you will only bend or break a propellor, but you might break an arm or motor, especially if you are flying over concrete. We recommend flying in an open grassy area to minimise the damage in the event of a crash.
Don’t over discharge your batteries. Fully charged batteries are 4.2V per cell and a safe landing voltage is around 3.7V per cell. If you see in your OSD that the voltage starts to go below that you need to come back to your landing spot.
Running a battery too low will damage the battery and potentially cause a fire
Make sure when charging your batteries, you do not leave them unattended. The most dangerous point for batteries is when they are being charged or discharged and more often than not, when a battery explodes, it is while charging unsafely.
Youtube is your friend. There are so many helpful videos out there, your question will likely have been answered by someone else.
Have fun. This is such a cool hobby and is unlike anything else apart from actually flying a plane or helicopter.

From the KiwiQuads team we hope you have enjoyed the build and setup process and have fun flying your new drone! If there is anything you need help with, please get in contact with us support@kiwiquads.co.nz, or try our facebook or discord groups to interact with the community!

Happy Flying!

Appendix 1 Full Wiring Diagram

Documents / Resources

DIY Quad Build ATV Quad Bike Project [pdf] User Manual
Quad Build ATV Quad Bike Project, Quad Build, ATV Quad Bike Project, Quad Bike Project, Bike Project, Project