This Nine Eagles Xtra 300 has already had a digital camera on board, altimeter with digital display, night lights and achieved 150 meters in the past all on the stock set-up. However the little N20 brushed motor died and so I decided it was time to convert it to my digital Futaba 6EX fasst system and brushless power. Why stop there??? Recently my sub nano FPV (first person video flying) camera arrived weighing just 0.6 grams I decided to make the Xtra 300 an FPV model!
I took out all the original components and the stock shell weighed 41 grams, I then removed all the plastic trays held in by hot glue which took another 4 grams off. So 37 grams total.
The Turnigy 1650kv brushless engine is to big to fit inside so I'm front mounting it on 2MM plywood glued in place with Beli-zell glue.
The wings flex to much and I know I'm adding weight. So I added a 2MM carbon fibre rod across the entire span of the wing, note I arced the rod so it takes more surface area and increases the strength. Again Beli-Zell glue.
I'm using 3.7 gram micro servos because its what I have at the moment but you could go lighter if you wanted.
There's an 500mAh 2 cell lipo powering the Turnigy 12Amp ESC (Electronic Speed Controller). This was my first set-up, you'll see below I changed it slightly.
At this point the model weighed 127 grams with battery, you can see it's maiden flight in the video on the left below.
After the maiden flight and having to take the wings off each time to remove the battery I got annoyed and cut an access hatch in the top of the nose slightly not wide enough for the battery to go. When pushed in it's a really tight fit so no worries about the battery going anywhere. I also moved the ESC inside the front fuselage just below the original battery hatch panel for air-flow. Now the bottom is like original again smooth.
Now for FPV
This tiny little 0.6g camera is amazing, it's small and lightweight while boasting a decent output resolution of 720*576 pixels (or about 540 lines).
The camera of course like much this size requires you solder components yourself. This is even more tricky than the nano video transmitter chips lol. This is not a job for anyone even slightly doubting they can do it, a little mistake and you will solder half the camera together and then most likely get angry and cry.
The camera came with a 2.307GHz VTX but I don't use the channel so I used the camera only, check out the size!
I wish I was rich and could just solder a set up and leave it but I'm not, I like to mix and match what I use so I am making most of my nano FPV equipment modular by wiring soldering plugs on to each component. Male or female depending what I want allows me to unplug a camera from any system and use any other video transmitter with it. Keep in mind if you do the same some cameras only accept 5Volt MAXIMUM and you will need a voltage regulator between power and camera in such cases.
The video transmitter (VTX) sits upright on the back of the original cockpit area for best signal followed by the wiring loom down to battery and camera. The battery is held in place using heat-shrink pipe glued in place just snug enough to hold the battery when its slid in. The camera is on a small piece of balsa wood to adjust angle.
You can also see the beginning slot of the battery for the radio gear in the last photo and in the video above. This Xtra 300 is a sub 135 gram fully functional 4 channel air-plane now with live video flying abilities... it's only got a 50CM wingspan!
Sometime later this year... mini/nano OSD (on screen display) so I can really push the Xtra 300 out to beyond just 500 meters until you can no longer see it in the sky
