Holybro Kakute F7 FPV Quadcopter Build – What To Buy
If you are interested in getting information on the Holybro Kakute F7 FPV Quadcopter Flight Controller, then you came to the right place. Over the next several days, we will be building one from scratch.
Hey everybody, Steve here welcome to a brand new video series. And in this series, I am going to attempt to build an FPV racing quadcopter. This build is going to be based off of this Holybro, Kakute F7 And for those of you who don’t know the channel, I have been in to drones for almost 10 years. However, my experience has predominantly been in much, much larger, uh, aerial videography and photography platforms. I’m relatively new to building FPV racers. So, this is going to be more of an exercise of, can I get it done and will it fly more so than a how to video? So I’m going to invite you on my journey to see if I can’t take a big box of parts and turn it into something that flies and the message that I like to get across on this channel is if I can do it, anybody can do it.
So come on, take a journey with me and let’s see if at the end of this video series, we’re not up there flying. Let’s get started. All right, this, this build is going to be based on this Kakute F7. This is the all in one version, which is a bit of a misnomer because when you hear all-in-one you think that it would contain everything, but the reality is, as it pertains to the flight controller, the all-in-one really makes reference to the fact that it’s the flight controller and the power distribution board. And it’s got, uh, it’s also got the OSD built into it already. Uh, ESCs are separate. So all in one, and there’s another version of this board that did not an all-in-one. So that is going to be our flight controller. So let’s talk about all of the things that we’re going to need for this build.
Um, let’s start with the obvious. This is a carbon fiber frame. So there’s actually nothing special at all about this frame. It’s actually a little bit on the older side. Uh, however, I didn’t have anything newer at the time, so this is what I’m going to go with. All right. So that’s the frame definitely going to need one of those guys. We already talked about the flight controller. This is the receiver right here. This is a free sky or fr sky R-XSR essentially. Look at how small this little guy is there. He is right there. So this is an fr sky D 16 protocol receiver. It’s got 16 channels S bus telemetry, and it’s tiny, tiny, tiny, and super lightweight. So cool receiver there. So here we’ve got four motors and they come in boxes of two. One is a clockwise.
One is a counter-clockwise and the specs on these motors right here. These are [inaudible] they’re 2300 KV. This build that I’m going to be doing is going to be a four S built. So 2300 KV, and there’s four of these guys because of the configuration of this particular, all all-in-one one flight controller, I’m going to be using four speed controllers, electronic speed controllers, also known as ESCs for these, I chose the Emacs formula series. They’re BL heli 30 twos. All right. Also some odds and ends for the quad copter. Obviously we’re going to need propellers. So I’ve got, I haven’t decided whether I’m going with those guys or these guys yet, but either way propellers. All right. So I’ve got a very, fairly common 4s battery right here. Obviously it’s, it’s a good idea to have more. And then for our FBV stuff, here’s the FPV camera.
That’ll be using cat X and it’s got a 2.1 millimeter lens. And one thing about cameras is make sure that you know, what the voltage is for your camera, a, this one’s five volts to 40 volts. So I’ll be fine. Um, I have used the smaller cameras, three volt one, I think, and I smoked it. So that’s a mistake that you make once. Oh, so also residing on the quad copter. This is a 600 milliwatt lumineer, TX 5g, pro 32, blah, blah, blah. You can kind of see what it is right here. Links to get all of the stuff will be included in the description below. Those are affiliate links, which means I get a tiny little commission every time you buy something, which doesn’t cost you any extra. It’s just a, the retailer’s way of saying thank you to me for sending people their way.
And Oh, by the way, I buy all this stuff with my own money. I am not sponsored by anybody. This is my own money. And those affiliate links helped me to purchase items so that I can make more videos. So what I’ve got here is just a bunch of various things that you may or may not need in any particular, build your need, some, a 14 gauge silicone wire, uh, so that you can make your connections for your batteries. Um, heat shrink. You know, if you are just starting out and you got to order all these parts, and it’s going to take a couple of weeks for stuff to get, get to you anyways, um, you might as well start out with miles of heat shrink it’ll serve you well. But like I said, if you are planning in advance, it probably wouldn’t hurt you, uh, to have some MP3 and M 2.5 nuts and washers, and maybe some of these shorter screws handy.
These guys, these little guys right here are standoffs, and I’ve got lots and lots of them because it seems like you buy frames and they don’t come with the things that they’re supposed to come with. Here’s another thing that you’re going to want to have on hand prior to your first build that will help you get through your first build, much easier are these nylon standoffs of different sizes. Uh, and then there’s the nuts for the standoffs. And then over here is another packet. That’s got a bunch of nuts and it’s got a bunch of nylon screws. So, all right. So that’s pretty much the main stuff that I’m going to be using in this F seven built. I will have an exhaustive list of things that you can buy, uh, in the description below so that we don’t leave any stone upturned. And speaking of not leaving any stone upturned, you’re going to want to get yourself a radio.
This is the radio master, TX 16 S 16 channel radio, lots, and lots of three positions switches. This is a multi-protocol radio, which means that, uh, you can buy receivers that are fly sky fr sky spectrum, and about 70 other different protocols as well. So any of this thing is infinitely programmable. Uh, it’s absolutely amazing. As a matter of fact, it’s so amazing. I have a, how to playlist on this radio that is well over 10 videos long. So I’ll leave a link to that playlist in the description. I think it’s safe to say that most people won’t outgrow this radio and, uh, pretty much it’ll do whatever you needed to do. And if it won’t do that, then you can learn how to program it, do even more. And if you’re not interested in doing, if you’re not interested in making that kind of commitment, that’s okay too, because it’s awesome right out of the box, do me a favor.
I’m very excited about this F seven build. So be sure to subscribe to the channel, hit that bell so that you get notifications of future videos. As soon as they come out and beyond the lookout for the rest of this series, things, which I’m very much looking forward to. And then after that, we’re going to do another F seven build. And then after that, I’ve actually got ideas from a 386 more videos. So be sure to subscribe. And if you got benefit out of this video, please do me a favor, share it on social media, tell somebody about it. I appreciate you sticking with me till the end and looking forward to seeing you in
The next video.
Calibrating TX16S & Using Outputs and Betaflight to fix Endpoints
Calibrating your TX16s and setting Endpoints is a very important step to get your quad flying well. The good news is that between OpenTX on your TX16s and Betaflight, it is very easy.
Hey everybody. Steve here. Welcome to this video on the radio master, TX 16 S actually the things that we talk about here will work on any open TX radio. So, uh, anyhow, um, did you know that this is video number nine and a long series that I’ve got going on this radio master TX 16. S if you came here looking just for outputs, well, I have some bonus material for you. There are eight videos that pre-seed this one, we start all the way back at like zero. We start with, uh, adding a model and binding it, and we go through inputs and mixes and we get to special functions and logical switches and pave flight, loose grips, and all kinds of really good stuff. But, uh, here we are. We’re finally at a point now where we’re set up enough to where outputs are relevant.
And I told you back way back in video, two, we’d get back to outputs and here we are. All right. So for the purposes of this video, we are using the TX 16 S with an fr Skye D 16 protocol receiver. And we’re going to be using beta flight as our flight controller software. And for those of you who are using a different protocol on different software stick around anyway, because I still think that as we are talking about the outputs on the TX 16 S I still think it will be relevant to you without further ado, let’s dive in and figure out what the deal is with our outputs. So the first thing I’m going to do before I mess with outputs at all, is I’m just going to go back to my main screen, and I’m gonna check my trims, my T1, my T4, my T2, and my T3. We’ll make sure it’s centered.
All right. So I’m trim centered, which is wonderful. I like to be trimmed centered. All right. So now I need to go into one of those areas where there is a ton of dissension on the internet, and that topic is calibrating your radio. So let’s dive in and get a little bit further. We’re going to go ahead and long press on SIS, and then we’re going to move over to the hardware screen. And we’re going to select the button right here. And I mean, how easy can this be? It seems like it should be so easy, but there is so much disagreement on the internet about how to do this. I’m just going to go ahead and say this. Some people, okay, we’re going to click this button and we’re going to move all of our sticks to the end points. But before I move this button, some people say you’re supposed to grab the sticks and just jerk them all around and all this kind of stuff.
Make sure you hug all the outside points and stuff like that. Now I have found personally my opinion, one person’s opinion on the internet flaming, if you want to that that methodology is less effective than the methodology that I’m going to use. So let’s go ahead and dive in. First thing I’m going to do is I’m going to select the inner button to start, and it wants me to send her everything. So I’m going to go ahead and take a quick peak here, make sure I’m centered on my throttle. And, uh, it wants me to center everything. So let’s center this guy in center, that guy, and let’s send her these guys right here. And I think it’s even important to center the six position switch. All right, we have no centered everything. So now it’s at the magical button and now it says to move the sticks and the pots and the sliders and stuff like that.
Now let’s go ahead and do the easy stuff sliders. No. So I’m kind of going slow. I’m not jerking them all around. I’m just going slow and end up back in the mid point and my pots all the way to the end, make sure go all the way, the end on both pots and, and back to the middle. And I don’t know if this one’s really important or not, but I’m just going to go ahead and do it just for the sake of doing it now for sticks. I’m going to show you the way I do it. You can take it or leave it. Okay. The reason why I do it this way, and I’ll show you once we get to, um, the beta flight screen, the sticks seem to have the most accurate calibration. So what I’m gonna do is very slowly. I’m going to go all the way up to the end point and all the way down to the end point.
And I might do that twice, but I’m going slow and I’m making sure I’m doing the end points here across until I bang into the side, bang into the side, maybe do it a couple times. Like, so my throttle all the way down, I’m gonna go all the way up. Let me go all the way down to it twice. And then this is the hardest one to do linearly, but we’ll just go to the side and we’ll go to the other side. Make sure you bang up against the edge side aside. Boom. All right. That’s how I do it. Hit enter. And that’s our calibration. All right. Now, with beta flight open, I want to show you a very, very important piece of information. Interesting. How the stuff in bright yellow is, is important. It says configure their channel end points so that all the channels go from negative a thousand to negative 2000 and set the midpoint at 1500.
Okay. That’s what we’re going to do on our outputs channel. So let me bring this guy in here now. And here’s what I meant about accurate. Remember when it said to do the end points at 1500 with calibration that I just did look at my mid points. They’re dead on balls at 1500. I’m not going to have to make any kind of adjustment there at all. And as far as my end points are concerned, watch what happens when I go down. I’m at nine 87. Watch what happens when I go down. I’m at nine 87. Okay. Let’s do the same thing with roll nine 87. All right. So it’s dead on balls accurate, but, but here’s another thing that I want to show you is that when I bring this guy down, pitch pitches down to nine 87 lumberman, ya’ll all the way down. It’s at nine 87.
When I go the opposite wise, they’re both at two, two 11 or 2011. All right. Same thing with same thing with y’all nine 87. Did I just do y’all all right. Same thing with throttle nine 87 to two 11. And what’s the only one we haven’t done roll nine 87 to two 10. Okay. All four of them seem to have calibrated pretty nicely. I don’t know. I’m just saying when I do it the other way and I do it all wonky, crazy. Like I get all different con numbers and to me, that’s kind of a red flag. All right. That’s just one. Person’s why flame me if you want. I don’t really care, but that’s not the point. The point is let’s look at outputs long press here, go to the output screen. And here we are. All right. So what are the rules? The rules are that center point is supposed to be 1500 and then the end points are supposed to be 1,002 thousand.
Let’s start with our aileron. And if you notice he comes down nine 87. If I bring him up this way, he goes to two 11. So let’s go ahead and go to the output screen so that we can fix them zoomed in so that you can see the sticks. And hopefully you can read the outputs and we focus here a little bit. There she is. All right, aileron channel one, move it all the way over nine 87, move it all the way or the other way. It’s 2011. So let’s get busy. And the dead on ball center is 1500. So we don’t have to make any adjustments there. If we did have to make an adjustment there, this is how we would do it. We’re on channel one. We select it, we move over and we would go all the way over to here to the 1500. We would select it and notice as I move it, You can see if I’m at 1491 on the radio. I’m at 1491 on beta flight. Obviously it’s set up good. I’m gonna go back to 1500 and I’m gonna hold there. Right. But that’s not the one I want to change. The one I want to change or the two that I want to change. All right. So notice on aileron and I push over here. I’m at nine 87. Um, I’m supposed to be at a thousand. So how do I fix that? Well, I’m going to grab him. I’ll come over here. So I see nine 87 and I’m gonna go ahead and click on the radio and I’m going to make an adjustment. I need eight, nine 90. Let me make an adjustment until I get to where I’m supposed to be. I gotta click a bunch of times. So I’m just going to get to the sweet spot right there. And I’m going to thousand and my click. Now I’m gonna go to the other end, the other end. I’m at 2011. So let me dial that back. Some Right there, 2000 and clickety clack. All right. So here we go. All the way over. I’m at a thousand all the way over. I’m a 2000 dead center. I’m at 1500. Now I’m going to do that for pitch and yaw as well. All right. So I need, come out, go to channel two over here’s my elevator, my low 0.9 87. I need to click to so that I can mess with it.
93, 94, 95 and a six. There’s a thousand right there. He can see, I can click a bunch of times and stay within the range of a thousand. So I’m just trying to find a middle of a thousand as I can. It seems to be right there. I look at that 97.6, pretty accurate. I’m going to go over here and I’m going to go up to the high position. Two 11. I want to bring it back.
And boom, you’re starting to see a trend here. That’s a thousand. Oh, that’s 2000. That’s 2000. That’s a thousand. Now I’m going to jump to a channel four and I’m going to do y’all next.
All right. Save throttle for last go throttle, throttle down all the ways at nine 87, I can bring this up to a thousand reason why I did throttle. Last is because I want to show you something. Let’s check them channel one. Aileron a thousand, 2000 1500. Let’s check my pitch a thousand, 2000 1500. Let’s check my throttle a thousand, 2000, and there’s not really midpoint there. And then y’all 1,002 thousand and the middle is 1500. Now the one thing you want to make sure of the reason why I did throttle last was, um, with your thought all of a thousand, alright. If this number is a thousand, make sure that your stick low threshold is above that by I’d like to go at least 50, because if your throttle value is not below stick low threshold, it won’t let you arm. I can only say this.
This is the way I’ve been doing it since I started using beta flight. And this has worked for me every single time. And that’s it. I’m going to leave it there. We have now finished video number nine in this series on the radio master, TX 16 S using open TX. Obviously, if you’re using beta flight and open TX, these methodologies can be used on any of the open T TX radios. So do me a favor, check the playlist for the listing of all of the videos that have come before this one and check the description below for a link to the playlist. Everything that I’ve ever learned about open TX I’m sharing. I’ve been using open TX for many, many, many years. I’ve had many open TX radios, and I’m just trying to put forth the information, uh, that has been beneficial to me in all my years of flying. So hopefully found this beneficial. If you did, please like comment, subscribe. If you really liked it, please feel free to share on social media, get the word out. My whole goal with my channel is to take some of these complex topics and explain them in a way that even an absolute beginner could understand. So I’m glad you stuck around to the very end and hope to see you in the next video. See ya.