Armattan’s done an excellent job developing both the F1 series and Fusion 5 frames. It’s great to have the opportunity to review the limited edition frame from Armattan, the “Fusion 5”. At the moment, there’s only 7 of these frames that went into production, let’s compare it to the F1-5 acro frame.

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This article is written by trojanGoat.

Armattan F1-5

The F1-5 is an “X” mini quad frame that has an attachable “acro pod” for your FPV setup that can be purchased separately. While it does boast a hefty price tag, Armattan’s awesome customer service and lifetime warranty makes up for the extra cost.

Besides you’ll have trouble cracking this frame with 5mm arms and 8 standoffs holding them in place. The acro pod and surrounding standoffs acts as a protective cage for most of your electronics. The arms have a wide mounting pad for motors, they are also bevelled on the underside to prevent your motor bell and screws from hitting the ground. The frame by itself weighs 115 grams, my build ended up weighing 460 grams. The battery will be bottom mounted.

F1 Flight Controller

For those who are keen on having a clean build, Armattan offers an optional “F1FC integrated” flight controller. This FC is equipped with a built in PDB and ESC solder pads, you which takes power directly from your 4S lipo. Using the F1FC integrated will also leave plenty of room in the cabin for your OSD, receiver, buzzer, and an LC Filter.

FPV Setup

The acro pod is made to fit the HS1177 camera, it screws directly onto the frame. Adjusting camera tilt is made easy by using flat head screws that slide on the pod. There’s also plenty of room for a VTX. For racing purposes, I needed to be able to change my frequencies easily. I ended up mounting it on the outside of the pod. There’s an optional LED strip that can mount nicely on the back of the acro pod. Once all your FPV setup is mounted on the pod, it fits nicely on top of the F1-5 or F1-6 acro frame. The build felt and looked like an armoured tank.

Crash-resistant

If there was a multirotor destruction derby, this would be my frame of choice. I’ve run into a concrete wall, football posts, and plenty of trees and the frame is still in tact. With all the abuse I put this frame through, some damage on the parts is bound to happen. These are problems are more of a nuisance, and did not keep me grounded by any means.

Cons

• On a hard crash the pressure and impact cause the bottom screws to loosen and falloff, use thread lockers to keep them in place
• If you crash sideways or upside down on the acro pod, the tilt angle might change or loosen. The screws will need to be tightened again
• If you are not using the F1FC integrated, it will be difficult to use header pins on this build, the standoffs will get in the way
• The screw mounts on the frame and arms are very unique to this frame. You can’t walk down to your local hobby shop and swap them out with a non-Armattan arm
• Since the battery is bottom mounted, a hard crash can cause the XT60 to fracture or tear off the board. Don’t mount the XT60 directly on the board
• Bottom mounted batteries also means your lipos are likely to get damaged from crashes
• ESC are mounted on arms and can be susceptible to accidental damage from bent props. Use zipties, a protective sleeve (comes with dys xm serires), or the “reach around” esc wiring to give some impact padding to ESCs

Pros

• Rugged frame
• Integrated FC and PDB makes a very clean build
• Design of frame and standoffs protects most electronic parts
• Life Time Warranty and impeccable customer service
• Adjustable camera mount
• Non unibody design allows for quick replacement of damaged arms

Armattan Fusion 5

Alright, enough about the F1-5. I present to you the “Fusion 5”.

This frame uses a “fusion” of Moulded aluminium, carbon fibre tubes and rubber. The frame weighs 128 grams with the pod. My build ended up weighing 346 grams. Max prop size is 5 inch. Battery will be bottom mounted.

It looks as though Armattan took what was working on the F1 Acro frames, made improvements and implemented it on the Fusion 5. This frame holds a unique look that stands out from most of the frames you will find in the market.

This build is fitted with the parts below:

• Armattan Fusion 5 frame & Mini Pod v2 with programmable LED
• Armattan 2204 2300KV motors
• Armattan F1FC (Betaflight 2.8)
• LittleBee Pro 20A ESC (BLHeli 14.6)
• Frsky D4R-II (PPM)
• Fx799t vtx
• Foxeer HS1177 (PAL)
• Active buzzer

Design Improvements

I haven’t had the chance to race with this frame yet, but there are some visible design improvements that are worth mentioning.

• Moulded aluminium frame means, no more fraying on the edges of carbon fibre arms.
• Carbon fibre tubes are easy to replace and available at most local hobby shops and online retailers
• Motor mounts are recessed into the design of the aluminium moulded motor mounts. This will keep your motors from absorbing impact on the ground.
• Carbon fibre tubes act as structural support and bumpers.
• Overall shape is a lot less bulky than similar sized frames, this means less air drag and sleeker look.
• Vertical mounting design makes this frame ideal for 4 in 1 esc modules.

When the frame arrived, it was already pre-assembled. The power distribution board and a placeholder for the flight controller was already mounted in place.

Electronics on this frame

Soldering components to the PDB was fairly straight forward. I just made sure I had 12 volt power supply for the VTX and FC. For racing purposes I connected wires to supply 5v to a removable transponder.

The F1FC is basically a Naze32 Rev5 board. It can take 4s power supply directly, but it’s best to power it from a PDB anyway to avoid potential damage from voltage spikes. The board also comes equipped with an 8mb internal memory for “Blackbox” logging.

As with most speed controllers nowadays I’m using “opto ESC’s“. The only wire that needs to be soldered to the FC is the white (signal) wire. Wiring for the buzzer, programmable led (pin 5, +5v, gnd) and tx/rx (for OSD) are also soldered in place.

My go-to On Screen Display System is the micro-minimum OSD running MW OSD firmware. It’s cheap, small and easy to use…. once you figure it out that is. Even with the small form factor of this OSD, there was no room inside the Mini POD that would allow easy access, I made a conscious choice to mount it externally.

I’ve had good experience with the reliability, size and ease of use of the d4r-ii. It was a no brainer to use it on this build. Once again I couldn’t find any more space inside the mini pod for the RX, it was mounted externally as well. The cppm feature keeps my build clean and simple by only having to use 3 wires connecting to pin1, +5v, and gnd.

FPV Pod

The Fusion 5 is equipped with a “mini pod v2”, basically a new version of the MRP pod. The mini pod has multiple mounting brackets for a variety of VTX’s. However, the fx799t can only fit in 1 way (vertical). The 5.8 ghz antenna is mounted horizontal to allow better signal when the quad is flying at a 30-60 degree angle. The carbon fibre tubes should serve as a good protective barrier anyway for the main pod and electronic components.

The hs1177 camera fits perfectly on the pod and lines up with built in mounting screws. There are rubber mounts that should prevent vibrations during flight….or you can just tune your quad properly and not get any vibrations ;)

Building challenges

There’s a few obstacles I ran into while building this multirotor. Most of the difficulty building this was derived from the tight working space of the pod and stacked components. In order to have a clean build, you will need to remove all the excess wiring and solder in all the components. Mounting the pod with all the wires hanging at the bottom of the pod was a tight squeeze.

As with any new build or electronic modifications, a multimeter was used to test for shorted connections. The Fusion 5 was eventually powered up, I’m happy to say a genie did not poof out of my electronics (no magic smoke). A quick hover test was done and now here it is…..

Comparing the Fusion 5 to F1-5

Overall I prefer the Fusion 5 over the F1-5 acro frame The design is more compact and lighter. The min pod v002 is fixed onto the frame and will not accidentally move from crashes. Motors have a lot of clearance from the ground which should prevent damage to the motors. If the aluminium moulded parts can withstand abuse, downtime can be minimised. I’m waiting to test out how it will perform in a race and hard crashes. Subscribe to my channel for performance and video updates on this build. I would like to know your thoughts about this frame. If you find the Fusion 5 interesting, let Armattan know and maybe they will roll this frame into full production. Even better for me if they don’t since only 7 of these exist :p .

For a more up close and personal look at these 2 frames, follow the links below. If you like what you see, subscribe and it encourage me to do more of these types of videos.

FUSION 5:

F1-5 Acro:

Author : trojanGoat Bio: It all started with with a proto x slt.  After discovering the joy of flying and building multi-rotors, Jorge a.k.a "trojanGoat" has been involved with the community competing and helping others discover art of multi-rotor flight.  His goal is to be one of the top contenders in racing.  Jorge has extensive experience in working with a variety of 3d software packages both in a technical and artistic manner, hence learning Cleanflight, BLHeli and PID tuning was a breeze.  He enjoys the challenges of both flying and solving technical problems with multi-rotors.   Join us as a guest writer and help move the hobby forward.