Here are some notes about my ongoing experience with the prebuilt batch 4.
3d Printed Hoop Connectors: These have pretty tight tolerances and at first seemed way too tight but for those in the future just sand paper them for a minute and its a perfect fit.
Motor Direction: There were no stickers (which I only found out was a thing after finding a video that mentioned them which I added to the OpenGuide) so I made a guess and turned out to be opposite so I had a really nice breeze and back trust
Viz-Torque: From my gas motor training this stuff came in handy so I spent an hour putting this over every screw/bolt I could find to hopefully help spot anything that might start coming loose. We will see how that works out and I’ll report any findings. Has anyone discovered a part that gets loose over time?
Velcro vs GliderPilots’ Rails: I bought a ton of velcro but I wasn’t a fan once I started trying to attach the batteries so I went with GliderPilots’ rail system. I used his spec’s except I went instead with this stainless steel 8-32 x 1" screw. I also had to go with doubled up 75 pound zip ties instead of 150 because the 150 ties were too wide for the 3d printed design because I had to print everything with a negative 1mm horizontal expansion to get my tolerances right. Without that change it was far too tight for the pieces to slide without locking up. Also 14 inch ties weren’t long enough maybe because 7s batteries are a little thicker than the 6s? So I used 2 zip ties together to make it long enough. I did that twice per rail so 4 zip ties per battery. (pictures to come later tonight)
Another issue I had was with printing petg. I went through about 5 failed attempts with various brim, raft, flow, temperature, etc setting tweaks. Most prints almost made it but would always end up failing so I finally went with PLA and I only had orange on hand
Another big issue is that with batch 4’s PCB location. I had to unscrew 2 screws that were in the way of the rails and I couldn’t drill a hole for the rivet in fear of puncturing the PCB. In one of the images you’ll notice a missing rivet When I get home I’ll see if I can drill higher up on the part to avoid the PCB.
Voltage Alarms: I got these and have only done one quick 2 battery (at storage voltage) test to see if everything was working and they instantly started beeping when I hit full throttle and they do not stop until unplugged. I’ll test tonight with 4 fully charged batteries to see if they work better but I suspect I’ll want to buy voltage alarms that don’t continue to beep if the voltage only drops below the set value for a short time. Any suggestions?
Other Little Things: How long should I hold the pre-charge switch before fully turning it?
It would be cool to include a print out in the package of a FAQ/manual sheet for things like propeller orientation, motor direction, battery hookup, safe voltages, other things found on the guide page, etc.