My Blackout Mini H

As a present to myself two years ago I bought a one of Blackout the drunks Mini H frames. These were the original mini quad frames, built for FPV it is the frame that started the drone racing revolution. With the pace of advancement in miniquads it is clearly very much two year old technology.

I bought Cobra 2204's and DYS SN20A's, running BL Heli and capable of Oneshot and active motor braking. The first time I tried active breaking with a high P value tune that was only made possible by Oneshot it transformed the way FPV quads flew in my mind. The extra control you get in throttle response alone is everything and flight controller software has only got better since. The advent of Betaflight has made setting up a 250 trivially easy. You can pretty much flash it and fly.

The larger 2204 Cobra motors make a significant difference in power terms and are in reality the only difference to between my Blackout and my ZMR. The frames have a very similar profile.

I had huge issue's with video interference with this build, getting clean power to both the camera and VTX is a challenge. I had wrongly assumed I only needed to filter the camera and on hooking up a better wiring loom I now get crystal clear video.

The difference between the quads I'm flying now and the first one I built back in 2014 is ludicrous. The technology is light years ahead; we've moved from 8bit Arduino derived controllers to 32bit Arm chips, improved PID controllers with filtered gyro data and increased the frequency of motor updates well past the point of the physical motor can keep up. The component I like the most is a Dragonfly VTX, it's got a push button to change video frequancy and that makes flying with friends 200% easier.

Flying my blackout is like a dream, it is so agile, so able to hold a long banked turn, so able to take your mind off the ground and into the sky. It is a joy.

My Blackout may be relatively old tech, but it's the best piece of tech I own.