My experience with the Naze 32

I read that the Naze 32 was a stable board but was a bit of a head ach to get set up, so i decided to watch some videos on Youtube before deciding on my next flight controller. I was pleasantly surprised by how simple setting up looked and included one in my next order from Hobbyking. I lost my previous quad in a river so basically ordered from scratch, never realised how expensive a 250 quad with FPV gear was! So 2 weeks later the parts arrived, I decided on getting the Multistar Elite 2204-2300KV as the motors pull close to 10amp static I thought 12a esc's would be to little so I opted for 20a afros. I’m using a ZMR carbon frame (a decision ill come to regret soon after).       

Before I started to build I thought I’d take a few photos of frames machining quality, it’s a very shinny frame but if you look closely you will find flaws as with any cheap product.

The frame parts just stacked on top of each other u can see how reflective the frame is in this photo, really beautiful finish and the small flaws are really hardly noticeable.

Be warned the motors require screws that are larger than the provided slots in the frame arms, a drill bit will make easy work of this however.

Sorry about the blurry photo i took it with my phone didn’t know how it came out. But here is the basic flying structure of the quad motors, ESC's, flight controller and wiring harness.

Just a different angle and a slightly less blurry photo

Next I simply attached the receiver and then the biggest headache ensued, I’m not sure if it was a bug but I couldn’t get the board to initialize with the switch on my transmitter for hours. After I reflashed it the next day I got it to work and then the moment the Quad took off the pain of a flight controller suddenly seemed worth it! I only have a photo of flying in the house but I took it outside and it was incredibly stable in wind and extremely powerful!

I still had to attach the Mobius camera and FPV gear but it was starting to take shape, this photo I’m still using the orange 433mhz receiver later that day it shorts on the frame burning it out and forcing me to go buy a 2.4ghz module and receiver to carry on flying. i wasn’t sure why it stopped working later on when I shorted out something else I realized it was the carbon frame that was conducting current. 

At this point it finally seemed as though I had sorted out everything! It took me 2 days and 2 receivers to get it too work so I thought I’d take it for a flip only for the back left ESC's capacitor to come loose mid-flight. Here’s a video of it happening.

After this I was done with this quad I didn’t realise the 433 receiver was burnt out I thought it was faulty and when the esc failed I couldn’t believe my luck! 2 faulty products in a $500 order and in South Africa there was no chance of getting another 20a Afro esc. I put away the quad for a few days then I started to play with it again I tried to reflash it but this didn’t help it was at this point when I noticed the capacitor came loose, this was a relief as this can be easily replaced rather than waiting 2 weeks and having to pay for a replacement ESC. I have a friend who works in IT and dose maintenance on PC boards and he had a replacement capacitor and soldering it on for me. The old capacitors are all black the new one is blue and slightly smaller.

After this the quad was flying beautifully everything was working just fine I was starting to enjoy my new quad and the capabilities of the Naze board became evident I started doing flips and roles, I never realised there was a product as good as this after coming off a kk2 board. It would how ever be mentioned that if the props aren’t balanced the vibrations can cause issues with board. I swapped from the 2 blade 6x3s to 3 blade 6x4.5s as the gem fan 2 blade props were losing blades and would flex heavily in flight. The additional pitch dose made this quad an absolute monster in punch outs considering the battery and FPV gear it is carrying. 

Here’s a video of my quad i do some loops, punch outs and fast runs at full throttle, this new quad is absolutely insane!!!

I plugged in a battery and was ready to go again when my naze board wouldn't incalize, i noticed the red light on the naze board wasn't coming on and the recievers power light was out. the i noticed the antena of the reciever had been rubbing againt the frame and when i was changing the battery it must have shorted out when i pressed against it. my heart sank as i realised i just lost my second reciever in the same quad and that this was possibly what happed to the first reciever. 

later that afternoon i stripped my quads base to expose what was causing the issue and was alarmed to discover the heat shrink wore through and the live wire was making direct contact with the frame.

The short even left a burn mark on the frame!

After doing some over kill with insulation the wires had no chance of fitting between the two carbon layers that make up the base of the frame so I had to cable tie the wiring harness to the bottom of the frame.

My friend who helped me with the ESC offered to help me with the receiver and find what burnt out and see if it was possible to fix, so we took the receiver apart and looked all over and we couldn’t find a single thing that was burnt out not a resister or track. We plugged it into a receiver battery and to our amazement it lit up and working fine. We plugged it back into the Naze board but then the receiver wouldn't light up, then my heart sank as I realised the receiver is powered by the Naze board and the short could have caused the board to burn out. We followed the tracks and found a tiny neutral track that was burnt; we made a bridge over the burnt track with a small piece of wire. Once the receiver was plugged in everything was working as normal I couldn’t believe my luck that I managed to avoid any huge damage that would keep me grounded for a few more weeks.

The repair looks cool and makes for an interesting story.

Hope you enjoyed my article I took a photo of my quad under my friends hex these 250 quads are impressively small.