This post is mostly about what i changed (or modded) on Tinyhawk 2 to be able to make it last longer.
I have been flying with Tinyhawk 2 for about 2 months now. Pushing the limits of Tinyhawk in terms of durability and pushing the limtis of my wife's nurves with the sound I am making in the house with this little drone :)
First of all I crash a lot. And even the drone is tiny, it has great speed and I always clip the antennas so i needed to find an easier way to change the antennas other than soldering it to the main board everytime. Its not good for the mainboard and also its really frustrating trying to solder trying not to touch the nearby components.
1-Antenna Connector So i decided to solder UFL connectors (which most antennas come with anyway) to the board for the VTX and RX once and all. So it will be much easier to change the antennas. I used the old type (U.FL-IPEX 1) UFL connectors. The newer ones are smaller and harder to solder. Also the antennas with the new type (U.FL-IPEX 4) seem to be a bit more expensive than the old ones. And as the new VTX antenna im using a Linear antenna. Solering process was easy on the VTX part but it is a bit tricky in the RX part since there is not much space there even for a 3mm connector. So if try to do this please be carefull.
I know its not the best soldering but hey, I am learning as i go.
2-Frsky XM+ Holder I also added cable connection for future Frsky XM+ mod for a better RX range. Im still trying to find a proper connector to use between the drone and the XM+ but the modified battery holder with XM+ slot is 3D printed and ready (might change the design a bit when i decide to the connector though.) I didn't want to solder it directly since I will need to upgrade and match the firmwares with the Jumper T16 Pro controller later. Also XM+ doesn't have telemetry but just RSSI value through channel 16 or 8. And I am liking seeing my battery voltage at the controller. Here you can find the STL file if you want to print it yourself.
3-Cut The Head
Since i crash a lot I also thought it would be a good idea to cut the buttom part of the camera holder to give a little bit more space it to move. This way in a crash when the camera turns violently it will not touch the antenna below and will not stress the connections.
4-Battery Connectors
I also changed all my battery connectors to BT 2 connectors to be able to get more constant voltage in the flight with less sagging. When you receive the plugs it comes like in the first picture and it makes it easier to solder if you turn them like in the second picture. (You can use a pliers with a small grip for this.)
This is how it looks right now. I used insulating liquid tape at the connectors to keep them safe and hot glue on the VTX antenna to keep it firmly attached to the frame. Also moved the RX antenna to the side of the head and applied heat shrink to the half of the antenna's unshileded part since covering it fully was lowerig the range.
And as a bonus here is one of the latest flights :) (In this one I am listening to the song and trying to match the moves to the beat of the music while flying.)
Happy flying
Hurcan