Builds

Builds

This is the bench half of the site. Every build documented here was assembled at my own soldering station — the same iron that builds my sim button boxes and tunes my keyboards, pointed at flight controllers instead. The flagship is the 5-inch freestyle quad built from parts: FC and ESC soldering, VTX setup, receiver binding, the first Betaflight configuration, and the first-arm checklist that keeps new builds from becoming confetti.

Builds here follow the order I actually work in: components chosen for repairability as much as performance, soldering sequence documented joint by joint, smoke-stopper before battery, and props off until the very last step. The crash ledger feeds back into the build content — when a rebuild teaches me a frame’s weak point or a cleaner motor-wire routing, the build guide gets updated.

You’ll also find the smaller bench projects: tinywhoop maintenance, the 3.5-inch cinewhoop-class build, and repair triage — what breaks in a crash, the diagnosis order, and when a frame is genuinely done. If you haven’t built before, read the start here path first; if you’re choosing a camera drone rather than building, the drone comparison is your page.