ZMR180 [BUILD]

Hi , after a long time watching the cool youtube videos of the amazing mini quad, wanted to get down to building a quad myself. This is a cheap mini quad build, with decent parts and as builds go, this was my first and it was more of an exercise in teaching myself to actually build this machine. The parts used are here:

ZMR180 frame

1303 3100kv motors

DYS BL20A 

Frsky D4R-II CPPM

Naze 32Acro

Gemfan4045(3s) / Gemfan 3030(4s)

Tunigy 1300mah 3s 

Dinogy 1000mah 4s 65C 

As you can see these are not the high end parts you would find on the pro racing quads, but its a tidy setup. The build was a learning process for me, although you can find so much information on the internet, its different to when you are building something yourself. These are just some tips when building these things:

• Insulate the electronic parts from the frame, proper carbon fibre frames conduct electricity 
• If using heat shrink never shrink the casing before testing everything. 
• Use a clean soldering iron, and move quickly with high powered ones.
• Loctite all screw and nuts.
• Don't apply loctite before finishing the build, otherwise you will have a bad time trying to open up the quad again.
• When ordering parts , always order some spares just in case.

The final quad was not so bad, even if I was not entirely happy about the result. I have done basic programming and tried it out on hovering. Unfortunately one of the motor did not last long and , during bench testing it was already showing bad signs, and after a couple minutes of flying it gave up. Lesson learned, always buy spares, otherwise you will get stuck just  when things are getting good. 

On another note, the ZMR180 frame is not so bad, but it has some thing that I do not like very much. It does not have an adjustable fpv camera mount, it is fixed inside the frame. The anti vibration mount for the recording camera, is a bit flimsy, the carbon plate is enough but rubber mounts will be ineffective in my opinion. also it comes with a flat mount and no option of changing the angle again. those are the only real grumbles about it. 

The good points are, its very cheap to buy, it has different motor mount holes for larger motors if needed. The carbon parts are clean cut and seem quite tough which is good as its my first mini quad and I am still trying to learn multirotor flying properly. For a frame this size, there is enough space to place all the component onboard without any issue.

Later on I will update this with some maidens and my programming experience, this is the first time tuning these boards. Until then Happy Flying!!