My name is Luke and I am 17. I have been designing and flying RC airplanes for over 7 years, and more recently FPV and mini quads. In early 2014 I started flying FPV by using a mini DVD player that I found at the dump. With a DIY approach, I was able to get it to run off a 2s lipo for a FPV monitor. I also purchased a cheap setup for transmitting video. The only thing I did not go cheap on was the GoPro for capturing video. My first multirotor was a wooden tricopter that I built. Immediately, I was hooked and after a few months I got the Predator V2 goggles. My first introduction to mini quads was from Flite Test's review of the Blackout. Ever since I saw that, I decided to save up and in September of 2014 I got my first mini quad. It was the Emax Night Hawk g10 frame which is an ideal, first-time mini quad frame. It held up really well to crashes, but after a few months I wanted something lighter so I decided to make my own frame. I ordered some carbon and started designing, with good results. I built several prototypes and now have the final version done and just started selling it on my website. I fly mini quads around my house and through the woods every day when the weather is good and a couple Saturdays of every month I fly at a FPV meetup near where I live, racing through gates and obstacles.
My website
The goal of starting this business is not to make a fortune selling these frames, but to provide a good quality product at an affordable price and make a little extra cash to finance my inventions. Also, it will be fun helping people get their quads setup and using the CNC machine to cut out the frames, doing all to the glory of Christ.
The Thunderbolt Mini Quad is a high quality quadcopter frame featuring durable carbon fiber, 4mm thick carbon arms, and a well-protected, forward camera mounting position. This frame was designed with both racing and freestyle in mind, being tested on both. Given its small size, this is the perfect option if you want to protect your GoPro and still fit though those small gaps. This frame also supports the Xiaomi Yi Action Camera and any like-sized camera
The Thunderbolt frame is constructed from 1.5mm 3k twill carbon fiber and the arms from rigid 4mm carbon. With such strong materials, I have found it to be unbreakable in all my testing. This frame has been a long time in design and I have gotten the kinks worked out. In designing this frame, I tried to get it as small as possible while still offering excellent GoPro protection. In fact, this is the smallest frame on the market with this amount of protection. Due to the small size, the battery must be mounted on the top plate. This has worked very well in all my testing and does not throw the center of gravity off enough to effect the flight performance.
Specifications:
1.5mm Thick Main Frame Plates, 3k Twill Carbon Fiber
4mm Thick Arms, 3k Twill Carbon Fiber
Strong Nylon 30mm Standoffs
M3 Hardware (Nuts and Bolts)
Supports GoPro 3, 3+, 4; Xiaomi Yi Action Camera and any other like-sized camera
Supports 5/6in Propellers
Weight of the hole frame including hardware is 6.3oz or 175grams
Full line of replacement parts available here in the store
Setup That I Recommend:
Cobra 2100kv Motors
http://innov8tivedesigns.com/cobra-cm-2206-20-multirotor-motor-kv-2100
Rotorgeek 20amp ESCS
http://rotorgeeks.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=34_43&product_id=315
1800mah High C Rating 4Cell Lipo Battery
These are really good quality batteries and I highly recommend them.
The Vector Flight controller is my personal favorite flight controller for mini quads and all my other quads, but you could also go with something like a Naze 32 which will still give you really good performance.
http://www.eagletreesystems.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=136
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=76_156&products_id=3066
DAL Bulnose Props are what I use.
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=534_700_701
Flight Controller Setup and Setting….
If you bought a Vector or already have a Vector you can download my config file and get all my pids and other settings.
Here are my pid settings for the Vector:
" PitchGain_Inner_I="16 " PitchGain_Inner_P="125 " PitchGain_Inner_D="14 " PitchGain_Outer_P="46 " RollGain_Inner_I="15 " RollGain_Inner_P="57 " RollGain_Inner_D="14 " YawGain_Inner_I="4 " YawGain_Inner_P="104 " YawGain_Inner_D="0 " RollGain_Outer_P="26
Here is an amazing guide made by Oscar Liang that goes through a lot of helpful info on setting up the Naze 32:
This website has some very helpful info for setting up your quad:
http://blog.oscarliang.net/quadcopter-2/
I am a teem Eagle Tree pilot and I took part in helping Eagle Tree get there vector working well on mini quads. We added some key features like oneshot and throutle based gain. The Thunderbolt mini quad has lots of room to be able to fit a vector inside.
Here is a video I did with Eagle Tree Systems that gives an overview of the changes we made to the vector.
If you have any questions regarding this frame please leave a comment or shoot me an email.
Here is some video footage of the Thunderbolt 230 in action:
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