God damn Bardwell, you are on it. Every single time I have a question, Papa Bardwell has the answer and has already made a video for it. You're awesome!
I’ve been into RC for 20yrs now and even professionally raced 1/8 buggy for a little bit so I have a fair bit of experience. With that said I have recently started looking into the FPV drones 3/5” and most of the stuff I’ve watched is either a little to “beginner” oriented or they just gloss right over a lot of key points and information. Your videos have been crucial for me to feel confident in building a drone that will fit my budget and not be a waste of money because I outgrow it or went too far. Thank you for the help. Also just the right amount of humor so the videos aren’t boring in the least I really enjoy them.
About soldering: I went into the hobby trying to avoid it. I got a TH2 Freestyle BNF. I was learning to solder a week later because I ripped the battery connector leads off. You just can't avoid it.
17:55 I'd recommend using display_name for your pilot name and leaving craft name for the - well name of the craft. When you save your config it will be named by craft name, that way you can keep track of your library of config dumps much easier without having to manually rename them. display_name (pilot name) you can copy into your osd setup commands for every quad.
I think this is surprising for the cost, at the time mine was $69.99. Most the quads I like well more in this category are either double the cost or at least $40 more. Sorry if I am out of line.
@@jermadjesty I haven't given it away just yet. I did take it out for about a week post review. Maybe another 15 flights or so. Still flies just like it did. :)
I just bought the Flight Controller from this quad on it's own from DarwinFPV for a self build. £33 (43.19 USD) shipped from china for a 15A AIO F411 FC seems like a pretty good deal these days and sure some of the solder pads are in odd places, but so far it's just worked...
Hey Joshua, There's an excellent double sided tape made by Gorilla Glue that is already double the thickness of the Scottch brand and holds 35=38 pounds per square inch. really sticky and squishy. I used it to hold my Crossfire Diversity and have had many hard crashes and has never come off. $3.00 a roll at Wal-Mart.
I've had this one for a while, I like it. It's a fun little drone, upgraded the camera though, in lower light the picture gets really washed out otherwise it's a lot of fun to fly and I'm not too worried if it gets wrecked.
If you're using dshot beacon instead of a beeper you might want to increase the Beacon Tone value so it's a bit louder. It looks like it comes set to 1 by default. I usually set mine to be 3 or 4 and then test it to make sure the motors don't heat up too much. Also if you're going to arm your quad and spin the props as a means to find a lost quad, then I recommend doing it with turtle mode on. That way you can just leave the quad armed and wiggle the stick periodically to listen for it. If you're unable to takeoff then there is a good chance you have obstructed props, so it should be a lot easier on your ESCs. If neither of those are loud enough to help you find it, then I like to put a single patch antenna on my goggles and use that to figure out what direction the signal is strongest. That usually gets me close enough to hear the props spinning. I've been enjoying the beginner themed content lately. Can't wait for the review to come out for this.
Great spending Sunday morning with you JB, nice to be back into quads again. I'm sure that cute baby is running around grabbing stuff they shouldn't by now ;) Take care.
I was a little skeptical about this quad when I saw it a little while back especially when I saw the motors they look antique to me and I'm a newb!!!! Lol however I do love the price and overall it's not a bad quad....now I'm really stoked on getting it having these step by step instructions on getting it set up just sold it for me JB THANKS👍 can't wait to see you rip it✌
They look ancient because they are the motors off the original babyhawk from emax that was probably released like 4-5 years ago. They work fine though.
That's the problem with ALL of the parts used in these ultra cheap ass quads! They use very old parts no one uses or wants anymore! They have issues and burn out quick. Buyer Beware! 🥴
I got one of those, unfortunately that AIO in it is not that great. The boards have really weak voltage converters on them. First board I had smoked out right away on 2s, and the second one I had that came in the Ape died after about the 10th flight, again it was the converter.
What do you know. I just purchased a baby ape and Elrs Rx, and my favorite Fpv tech guru has just the video I was looking for. Don’t know why I’m surprised. Thanks Joshua
This one's gonna be my first outdoor unit. I'm going to replace the VTX with a Happymodel 300mW VTX/ELRS receiver combo, and I'll be upgrading the VTX antenna with a HGLRC lolipop. I have a set of LDARC 1104 7500kV motors on hand that I'm thinking on installing. Stoked to get outside and not have to worry about range issues.
Hii did you install the 1104 motors 7500 kv??. I think to install the same motors. If installed how it works. Can fly with 1s? How are compare with stock motors??
@@stelic9515 Unfortunately, the mounting holes don't match. And no, it won't fly with a 1S, even with 7500kV motors. I think you'd need at least 12000kV or better.
i been flying one of these on 3s for 2 months and crashed the hell out of it in trees, concrete, buried it in sand. its a fuckin trooper! the only thing that happened to it is the camera came loose from its 3d print. a motor eventually came loose after lots of crashes and flights and no maintenance and it cause the props to cut the wires. upgraded to 1204 5000kv and thing flies soo good.
Yeah, but don't you see... Once you put a dime into upgrading or repairing this hunk of junk, you might have well bought a quality, name brand quad, and had better performance from parts actually used in this decade, and you'll have long life and possibly no failures from a name brand! And, you maybe have to add 20 bucks to the cost of this Total POS! 🤔👍 Go ahead, buy it, and find out what I've already learned! Just trying to help you not throw your money away. Because that's what you do by buying this ultra low end garbage! 🙈🤮
@@KOrnhOliO1 as much as ive flown and crashed this thing without much problem im more than satisfied with its performance and durability. i was expecting much less
It's funny that your three pads for sbus is presoldered, because mine came with a pre installed wire.. although the connector is not needed, so I'll be snipping it off
I had the Ape for a week and its great, XLRS is my choice to so now this is my favorite 3 inch , 80 buck delivered to europa is a bargain. got the 129 gps long range to and the quality is way better than eachine's, so far the Darwin company has not disappointed
I got one of these and have gone through 3 receivers. 2 brand new and one removed from a working drone. Two were betafpv mini elrs and one flywoo one. All with the tower antenna. The first one stopped working while trying to flash it. The second one did similar. The third one I took from another working quad. It worked for a minute. Long enough to bind and arm the quad. The next morning I tried it and it just lights up solid but has no connection to the controller. I have it hooked to the 4.8 v vcc, and the rx and tx both have around 3 v. I’m at a loss here and don’t know what I’m doing wrong
Buen vídeo estoy por comprar el pro, pero no sé qué batería sería mejor?! La 3s de 11v verdad, el conector es el xt30 o xt60?? Puedo poner una de 1500mah?!? Gracias
i bought a cinape 25, connected my reciever but do i need to conne t it to betaflight ? or is there a way around that ? i only have a chromebook and do not want to developer mode
Hi all please help me i buy rafiomaster pocket i have receiver elrs nano 2.4 and i have problem my rafiomaster pocket My remote doesn't respond on the receiver tab, even though I've set everything up correctly
im kinda not confident about those hole not made well to receive screw from propeler... its like my 2.5 inch 2s 8700kv eat 27 amp total... if the prop dont have screw it fly off... ... surely there is on thingiverse some print to make to put on the top of the motor put screw and with new hole for prop screw to fit (kinda need short screw .. but 2 time 3 turn of screw in pla should lock it in place ... )
Hi. Just received my BabyApe Pro. Aside from the rubber band, I didn't receive any other battery strap. What other strap did you receive? I saw two short velcro straps in the box, but they are too short to hold a battery. Cheers.!
Thank you so much for putting up this video, I finally got around to soldering my ape on friday. Quick question? is it normal to have only 6 or 8 ft of range before video cuts out to static? Ive havent been able to fly this ape, could EP2 be interfering with video signal? im using true patch and axil omni on skyzone 04x V2 googles.
Hi Bardwell, thank you for all your vids, you're helping me a lot!! theres is just one thing with the darwin drones, i always have problems with the vtx! when i install my own all is working fine, but the normal vtx from darwin is so strange! i have problems with the powervalues and levels and low power disarm mode! it's just not working when i start the drone sometimes the power ist set to 200 and somethimes to 600 but never 600 as i've set! and low power disarm is not even working (sometimes it works) and when i got the drone, the osd was so laggy, so i needed to cut some tasks in the CLI, do you know if a firmwareupdate might fix the issue? i have betaflight 4.3.1 and i don't know if its safe to update the vtx! this is my second drone from darwin and i had the same issue till i replaced the vtx myself
Hi, Question! I hooked up my TBS Tracer receiver - as in your instruction - and everything is green, hooked up, shows up in my RadioMaster TX16s *But* I can't seem to get my stick input working in BetaFlight. Is there like another thing I have to do with the Baby Ape that I'm missing? or any idea what's wrong?
RSSI 50% means you have enabled RSSI aux channel but it's not actually configured in Tracer RX so it's just sitting at 50%. But Tracer does not need RSSI aux channel configured. Go to Receiver tab and disable RSSI Aux channel. As I said, the best guess is you have reversed the TX and RX wires. Confirm the wiring is exactly correct as shown in this video and/or double check against the Tracer wiring diagram. TX on the receiver goes to RX on the FC and vice versa.
@@JoshuaBardwell Yes, I had the RX TX mixed up, and for some reason I was on UART 2 instead of 1... New side quest; Now the quad won't arm. I did set up the AUX 1 - 2 as in your video, and in even BETAflight the RadioMaster arms.
@@JoshuaBardwell So when I set Tracer Nano CH7 or CH8 to RSSI, the baby ape starts beeping like a mad man. Any idea whats up? And you where right, I did mix up the rx and tx 😥
Well great tutorial! Just dont let this be your first drone if you have bad eyes lol...i will be buying theG1600 microscope,i seen 1 of your vids with same ish version dont think this 1 was released yet.anyway,cheers for the video!
Does it make any sense to soldier a connector to the FC instead of the receiver straight to it? I know there'd be added weight and signal loss, but for something so small as a first drone I could see the advantages of a connector and later changing the receiver out. My receiver came with angled connector pins and straight ones, but they are two far to fit, but might be worth a dongle connector for easy removal and testing.
Hi Joshua. I'm a fan of your channel and I love how much knowledge I learn from you. Thank you. So I'm just about to purchase a Baby Ape Pro V2 ELRS from RaceDayQuads and I really want you to get the credit. I see you have a link to it above but I want to get the Pro model instead. Can you please give me an affiliate link to that drone? I'm not sure how that works. I'll probably also buy some batteries and a charger. I hope you'll get credit for that too.
Thanks Joshua I'm new and just got this quad I have to put a dsmx receiver on this don't really know we're or how to do it any help would be greatly appreciated
Hey dude nice video ,buddy I'm got a problem I think , my video signal I've lost over 10mts , so I think that the power off my vtx is low ,how can I change it ? I bought the darwin baby ape V2 ,tks for all
I messed up my baby ape🤦🏻 no blinking yellow led on the fc and no picture in my goggles from the beginning.where can I get the original CLI dump for it?
That double sides stuff sticks better if you just press it firmly for 10-15 seconds. If you wiggle it won't stick as well. At least in my experience and what the instructions say on the stuff I use but you are using a different kind than I use 😆.
HI all, does anybody have problems with the quad bouncing around from the moment you arm? its like spinning the motors without props but than in the air and with props on.
I need Help 😭. I'm totally new to copter flying and have made all the mistakes you can possibly make. But now I almost got it. Except for the throttle - if I give it a little gas and take it back again immediately, the speed increases slowly but steadily up to full throttle. I have no idea what that could be. does anyone have any ideas???? (sorry for my bad google translator english)
Done everything according to the video, but does not work and I do not receive the signal from the radio. Can it be a problem in the ELRS firmware for the receiver? Should I use the compatibility option for inverted SBUS when building the firmware?
I didn't have to do that, so you shouldn't have to either. The first thing I would do is confirm the ELRS receiver is bound and has solid LED when the controller is turned on. Also make sure you turn your controller on first before plugging in the quad or the receiver will enter wifi update mode.
Please unprivate your video "inverted pitch is dumb and you are dumb if you use it", it was hilarious and really helped convince me to abandon trying to control quadcopters like an fps. Maybe at least give me access? I promise I wouldn't reupload or anything. :^) Just would like to show it to my bro.