Welcome to FPVDronePilots!
Join our free FPV drone community today!
Sign up

Armattan Gecko 3" Build Log

the.ronin

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2019
Messages
80
Reaction score
48
Stoked on my first build since getting out of the hobby a few years ago. Everything has gotten smaller, cheaper, and better it's nuts. Today's FC's are so solid in rate mode out of the box it's so much fun to fly again lol.

I honed in on the Gecko because of my history with Armattan. My first DIY drone was a prototype Andrew made, and their stuff has been just incredible in terms of design and quality. I also like the Gecko because it has the real potential of coming in under 250g. Lastly, it accommodates two stacks for a Runcam Split Mini. Big thanks to RENOV8R for helping me out with this! Specs incoming ...

Lumenier MICRO LUX V3 F4 + 30A BLHeli_32 4in1 Stack
Armattan OOmph TITAN Mini 1407/3650kv Motors
Runcam Split Mini 2
TBS Unify Pro Nano 5G8
Frsky XM+
WhitenoiseFPV TBS+Frsky Mount

The Whitenoise mounting board makes for a clean TBS and Frsky rx mount ... cos OCD. The thing with the Lumenier Micro Lux stack is that it does not come with soft mounts and some people complain about gyro noise on hard turns. The FC is hard connected to the ESC PDB so soft mounting it is kind of useless. So what I did was chop off the rubber tops from some shock absorbers I had leftover from the 250 class days and used those as vibration dampening washers. So basically I'm floating the entire stack ... cos that's how we roll.

DSC-5005.jpg


Those Titan Minis were used ... how lucky am I that they were perfectly cut to length ... lawls. I know my solder skills suck but **** the pads Lumenier uses are some ghetto pieces of crap. I had a lot of trouble getting solder to stick to the lipo- and one of my ESC solder joints just undid wtf lol. In contrast to the Whitenoise PDB and other components where even my lead free solder + n00b skillz still had good connection. Bah.

DSC-5006.jpg


I've got the Runcam powered directly off the lipo here with the capacitor inline since there have been complaints of insufficient power at 5v. I dunno maybe my heavy handed soldering, craptastic Lumenier pads, or both heated up the capacitor damaging it cos I got mad noise in the video with this setup. I moved it back to being powered off clean 5v on the WhitenoiseFPV PDB. Good to go.

DSC-5009.jpg


This thing is boss.

DSC-5010.jpg


Even with the space, you might need to get a little creative but what build doesn't require that right? I had to 3d print myself some 1mm spacers to give a bit more room between the Runcam PDB and the Whitenoise mounting PDB for instance. The Rx is shrink wrapped but I may add more since that space between it and the TBS Unify is kinda sketchy.

DSC-5013.jpg


Unfortunately I did not come in sub 250. The 4S lipo I'm sure isn't helping.

DSC-5014.jpg


Still lovin this guy and can't wait to get it outside. Did the living room test hover and all video and OSD is good to go. Here's the wiring I ended up with.

gecko-3-wiring.jpg


And some money shots for good measure. ?

DSC-5015.jpg


DSC-5016.jpg


DSC-5017.jpg


DSC-5018.jpg


DSC-5019.jpg
 
Sorry haven't been back in a while. This is my fav frame now. So much so I built 2 identical ones except with different motors. I've ditched the Armattan motors for HLGRC flames which are sick on 4s. I also managed to break an arm LOL ...


Armattan is not kidding around with their guarantee. I've got my replacement in the mail already.
 

New Posts

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
6,239
Messages
45,014
Members
5,584
Latest member
YogaInThePark