Dead Cat, SK450 Quad conversion.

by x3mperformance | April 23, 2013 | (5) Posted in Reviews

 

DEAD CAT conversion kit.

(Need the SK450 kit to build and complete.)

 

As i couldent get my arms down, after the SK450, matters have changed, when looking at this kit. Unfortunaly.

As robust and ridgid the SK450 is, the Dead Cat conversion kit ends in the other end of the scale, almost.

 

The front end of the Kit, good room for the camera/s Many slots to tie downs / Velcro straps / cable ties.

 

The rear of the kit. Also a lot of mounting points and slots for tie dows / Velcro straps /cable ties.

 

It is a camera/FPV frame kit, where the angles of the front arm, is reduced, to get the props out off view, when using cameras on it, and for this, the concept seems good. The kit contains 2 glasfiber frame parts, and a small bag with some stabilizers, to stiffen the front camera mount up. The machining of the kit, is good, but where the donor kit is from 2 mm glasfiber sheets, this kit is only 1,5 mm. And this puzzles me, since the conversion kit is more expencive than the donor kit, which also contains the arms etc. And you will not be able to use the SK450 bottom PCB with this kit, since the arms mounting points, are wider apart, and at a different angle.

It's ok, seen from a weight point of view, but it fails to make the quad robust and ridgid.

 

 

One of the few plusses of this kit. Good room to draw wires, space enougt even for larger obscure sized controllers, here the APM2.5. And plenty of room for FPV gear aswell.

 

 

I will however, give it a go, and see how it behaves when flying, and also to learn a bit more about the odd angles, that you have to take into consideration, when programming the controller board.

I will try to set it up with a KK2 board, and also the Ardupilot Mega 2.5 afterwards. Might be a challange, but thanks to Ronsco (Ron Scofield) to point that out.

 

But here's the verdict so far.

Might not be worth the money, it is kind of expencive. $18,99 + $17,99 for the SK450 kit.

Glasfiber frame is a bit wobbely.

Dissapointning to recieve, upon the much better quality of the SK450.

 

 

It's also a 1/2 hour build, using all the hardware from the SK450.

Heres the Specs:

Front arm width: 490mm

Rear arm width: 375mm

Weight: 460g (completed frame w/out electronics)

 

 

COMMENTS

wacko911 on April 23, 2013
I have this kit, the really big downside is the cg.

Use a piece of string between 2 diagonal motors and where they cross that's where the cg should be.

I moved everything I could as aft as possible, cut the nose off, got rid of front anti vibration mounts and mounted a 5000mah 3s hanging off the tail.... Just to get the cg correct!

Do get 15mins flight time and it flys sweet with kk2 and Simon speed controllers, but there are much better frames out there like TBS discovery clones.
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eluminerRC on April 24, 2013
Great review. At first I was thinking about buying Dead Cat kit but I didn't like the fact that you can't use PCB plate. I hate messy wiring. So I've postpone this purchase and now I see that it's not that great. I also think that this is a bit to expensive if you consider the price of SK450 alone.
I'm looking forward to your next article. :)
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x3mperformance on April 28, 2013
I will give the Dead Cat a go.
I have spend the $$$ for it.
And the APM 2.5 is Awsome. I really like the KK2 board, i honestly do. But the ArduPilot just beats it so much.
But it's at a bigger prize, the KK2 is still really good, and with the update, even the Stabilizer mode is really good, too.
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Dead Cat, SK450 Quad conversion.