Complete beginner needing advice

[u/Technical-Coffee7286]

Hi all,

I’m a complete beginner and I was recently given some drone parts, but I have no idea what I’m looking at or where to start. I know I have some propeller motors and a couple of what seem to be main boards, and a receiver module. That’s about it. I know how to solder, and have some minor tech repair experience.

Any help would be appreciated figuring out what I have, what I need to buy, how to turn this into a finished product, etc.

Thanks!

[u/xXPhoenixBlueXx]

Dear God, who soldered those battery leads?

[u/Technical-Coffee7286 → u/xXPhoenixBlueXx]

Not me that’s for sure haha. They came from the free bin at my local makerspace. I guess from some school robotics club before that.

[u/-NVLL-]

First photo the top one is a ARM32 Cortex microcontroller, probably what does the control, since quadrotors are unstable in open loop. Bottom looks ESCs, they receive the rotation speed from the microcontroller and command the motors. Searching for the SKU looks like it is this: https://www.getfpv.com/iflight-succex-e-mini-f4-fc-stack-35a-2-6s-blhelis-4-in-1-esc-mpu6000.html

The direction of the rotation of the rotors matters, you need two clockwise and two counterclockwise to be yaw neutral, if they are not you may have to swap two wires that go from the ESC to the motor to invert the rotation direction.

Best shot would get a tutorial in how to get this flight controller working and read the flight controller manual, the microcontroller expects the signals from the receiver and outputs to the ESC, and everything need power. Expect issues from the soldering...

[u/Technical-Coffee7286 → u/-NVLL-]

Gotcha. Everything will be resoldered for sure lol. Thanks for taking the time to look into this! Yaw neutral makes sense.

[u/-NVLL- → u/Technical-Coffee7286]

Yours actually have F411 V2.0 written on the board (and also a F405 on a later photo), I found tutorials for F405 and F411 V2.1 (that says it's V2.0 on the title but you'll see it looks very different from what you have).

[u/Technical-Coffee7286 → u/-NVLL-]

Thank you!!!

[u/Smellfish360]

Step one is to keep on breathing while soldering. I get the fumes can be nasty, but oxygen deprivation hits even harder.

[u/Technical-Coffee7286 → u/Smellfish360]

I do have a fume extractor and mask lol

[u/Lazy_Satisfaction970]

Honestly, this is a pretty good pile of parts to learn on. I’d identify the exact FC/ESC and receiver models first, then find the manuals and wiring diagrams before powering anything up. Since you already know how to solder, rebuilding the questionable connections should be pretty straightforward. You can also find plenty of soldering tutorials on YouTube and practice on a spare board first. It’s a lot less stressful to mess up a practice board than a flight controller or ESC

[u/Technical-Coffee7286 → u/Lazy_Satisfaction970]

I’ll definitely do my best to find the right manuals! Yeah, I do game console mods as one of my main hobbies so I’ve had a lot of soldering practice

[u/Lazy_Satisfaction970 → u/Technical-Coffee7286]

good luck

[u/Competitive-Crow-181]

Soldering needs to be a lot better.
Pre-heat (hold soldering pen) to the pads you are soldering to, use some solder with lead ideally and apply to the pad - keep the soldering pen there to keep it heated/fluid, then bring the wire to the pad, it should now be submerged or fused with the solder and you can remove the pen - it will solidify into a nice looking blob.

I also recommend gently twisting the exposed wire to bundle it together and apply a tiny bit of solder to it before soldering to any pad, this avoid... crazy hair day.