I had just completed my Hellbender build when badness happened.

I decided to make an oldschool quadcopter using the Hellbender 204 V2 frame by Ready Made RC (RMRC). My plan was to use a mix of old favorite parts on this old “dead cat” frame with the newest DSHOT tech. Well planned 3-hour quadcopter build didn’t go seo well. Multiple part failures on the bench. Unbelievable! This what happens when you are working with older parts mixed with newer tech I guess. But it kinda goes both ways too. Enjoy the video below for the full story…

I had 4 part failures on the bench!

1st failure:

The flight controller’s serial USB connected fine to my computer, and I began programming in BetaFlight. Then it just locked out and never came back . This is a brand new/unused MotoLab Cyclone flight controller. So I had to order a Lumenier LUX V2 to replace it.

2nd failure:
I received four 30 Amp DSHOT ESC’s in my Done Drop Box and decided to use them. They failed to program. BLHeli Configurator (both 64bit and 32bit) failed to connect to them. All I could get was power on tones. It was like they had no pre-installed firmware. So I had to order four DYS XSD 30A V2 BLHeli-S ESC’s to replace them.

3rd failure:
I was going to reuse my old Lemon RX DSMX receivers in this build. Bad move. Both my 2 receivers died. So I pulled a Spektrum Satellite receiver out of my Chameleon quad for this build.

4th failure:
Not really a failure as much as an inconvenience. The blue standoffs supplied with the Hellbender frame blocked the USB connector on the LUX flight controller. This was an easy fix! I happen to have red standoffs with a narrow fluted shape. The red standoffs gave just enough clearance for me to plugin the USB connector so I can programme the flight controller.