Here is a quick walk though how to build the Eachine Tyro69 Toothpick Micro Quad, and some thoughts after flying it a few times. The Tyro69 is probably the cheapest DIY FPV drone kit you can get on Banggood.
Where to Buy Tyro69?
Banggood: http://bit.ly/tyro69-fpv ($7 off with this coupon: BGET62)
It comes with the following components in the box:
- Frame: 2mm carbon fibre, 105mm wheelbase, supports 2.5inch props
- Eachine F411 OSD Flight Controller (20×20 mounting hole)
- Eachine 20A BLHeli_S 4In1 ESC (20×20 mounting hole)
- Eachine 1104 8600KV 2-3S Motor
- Caddx Beetle V2 Camera AIO VTX (more info)
- 5 pairs of 65mm Kingkong props (didn’t show in the image below)
- 18AWG XT30 pigtail
- Cables, nylon screws, nuts and rubber standoffs
It doesn’t come with a radio receiver, if you are running Frsky, the best RX would be the XM+: http://bit.ly/2nx0pe6
You also need to get your own batteries, 3S 300mAh and 2S 450mAh are recommended.
A Quick Overview – Good or Bad?
Here is how it looks after building:
Weight without battery is around 49g – 52g depending on the amount of zip tie you use :) The frame is 2mm thick carbon fibre, but as you can see, there is absolutely no protection to the FPV setup. Perhaps with such light weight, impact is small enough that it will survive some crashes, if you fly carefully.
FPV setup is mediocre, but I am surprised the ESC is actually decent quality, together with the F4 FC makes the highlight of this $69 kit. The motors are total trash honestly, very noisy and the wires are the worst quality, you can upgrade later if you must. Anyway can’t complain for the price we are paying for.
Is this worth the price? Maybe, you do get a working quad with these cheap components, but don’t expect top performance from it. And the amount of thoughts that go into the design is minimum, guess that’s why it’s so cheap.
For absolute value, the Happymodel Sailfly is still on the top of my list. Because with the Tyro69, you have to spend extra for the receiver, and battery, not to mention the time you have to spend to build it!
But If you enjoy building stuff, and want to learn how to build a quadcopter from scratch, you will get a sense of achievement from the Tyro69. It’s super easy to build, only took me about 40 mins. I also think this can be a good project with the kids :)
How to Build the Tyro69
Although the Tyro69 micro FPV racing drone is very easy to build, I documented how I built it anyway in case anyone need help or tip.
There are only 3 things you need to solder, motors to ESC, battery lead to ESC and receiver cable. That’s all the soldering you’ll have to do. Everything else is just plugging in cables. I have a tutorial if you want to learn the basics of soldering.
There is a manual for the Tyro69 by the way, go through it before building.
Table of Contents
Soldering ESC
First thing is to solder the battery lead to the ESC. watch out for positive and negative (red and black wires). There is a 25V 150uF capacitor already soldered to the ESC for you, how handy!
The capacitor is there for reducing voltage spikes and noise in the power.
Next, solder the motors to the 4in1 ESC, but first you want to tin the pads with a good amount of solder.
Then solder the motor wires on the pads.
I decided to do this from the bottom side of the ESC, with the wires pointing inwards, so I can hide the excess wires under the ESC later. The only benefit is tidiness. You don’t have to do it this way, you can just solder the wires pointing out, whichever way you find easier.
Make sure you do not bend the wires at the solder joints, these wires are very stiff (and low quality) the joint will likely to break. Only bend the wire at the plastic part.
It doesn’t matter which motor wire goes to which ESC solder pads, this will affect the motor direction, but you can change it later in software.
Use “blue tack” to hold the ESC steady on the bench while soldering.
Frame Assembly
Prepare the frame, install the four long bolts and put a rubber standoff over each of them. The two cut-outs in the frame is for the battery strap.
Install the 4in1 ESC, make sure the arrow on the ESC is pointing forward, this ensures the motor ordering will be correct.
Flight Controller
Next up is the flight controller. you should bridge the tiny solder pads on the FC first to select the receiver protocol you want – SBUS or PPM. For the XM+ select SBUS.
Put the FC on top of the 4in1 ESC. Don’t forget the rubber standoffs in between the boards. Make sure the arrow on the FC is pointing forward, same as the ESC.
FPV Setup
Install the FPV camera and VTX inside the TPU mount. Be careful don’t put the camera in the wrong way, or your image will be up side down. The below image shows the correct camera orientation.
Connect the FPV setup to the FC as shown in the below image. And connect the 4in1 ESC to the FC with the 6-pin ribbon cable.
And now you can install the motors on the arms.
Installing RX
Solder the cable provided in the kit to the XM+ receiver, so you can plug it straight into the FC.
But then I realized there is no where to install the RX.
So I decided to put it under the ESC, it turns out there is just enough space for the XM+. Yes you have to take the whole quad apart again… it can be frustrating, but it’s completely normal, happens all the times when building a quad :)
Sometimes when you finish a build, but you find a better way of doing things, then you start over, until you get it perfectly :)
While I am here I also install the battery strap which I forgot earlier. As you can see, it’s way too long but you can cut it later.
Finishing
Put everything back as I showed you before (you should be kind of familiar with the hardware by now? :D )
Mount those RX antennas on the arms with zip ties and heatshrink tubes so it stays away from the spinning props.
Improvements
Put some foam on the bottom plate so the bolts doesn’t dig into the battery. And battery strap is probably too long, install your battery, and see where it should be cut.
You might want to put double sided tape behind the VTX so it doesn’t pop out in a crash. You should also use zip tie to secure the VTX antenna better.
BF Setup
FC firmware target: MATEKF411, comes with Betaflight 3.5.5. No need to upgrade Betaflight IMO.
And if you followed my guide exactly, you will have to reverse two of the motors, setup modes for arming and OSD screen and you are good to go.
Not sure what to do? Following my tutorial on first time software setup on a quad.
13 comments
Does the flight controller that comes with the tyro69 need to be programmed
You need to bind the receiver, then follow my tutorial as linked in the post to setup Betaflight: https://oscarliang.com/betaflight-firmware-setup/
Can I run 4s batteries on this?
Hi Oscar, just need some assistance. I bought the Tyro119 to build and installing the upgraded R720X receiver for it as I use a Spektrum transmitter. I have build it but couldn’t figure out if things are done right. When I smoke check the build, everything lights up as they should but the receiver only light up once and then is not lit anymore. I am not sure if the receiver is soldered to the correct part of the FC.
Also, when I plug the kit to Betaflight, the computer recoginize the FC but Betaflight cannot connect to it when I press the connect button. Am I doing something wrong?
Please help.
Thanks.
Hello!
I’ve a good part of your posts and decided to get a drone too (tyro69 kit with a Frsky XM+).
I saw another post where you’ve presented some radio controllers and decided to get the BetaFPV lite radio 2 (came with a Fd800 Frsky SBUS rx).
I’ve managed to update the firmware on the radio controller and on the flight controller.
Now my problem is that, after i’ve enabled telemetry and serial rx for the uart1 port, configured the receiver as SBUS capable, i can’t read anything on the receiver tab in the Betaflight Configurator. The FD800 is binded with the remote but there is no data coming to the flight controller. The remote is configured in D8 mode, same as the FD800.
I’ve tried binding the Lite Radio 2 with the frsky xm+ but seems that they don’t like eachother.
I would greatly appreciate a response :)
You need to put the radio in D16 mode, as that’s what the XM+ uses.
What is hex key size for motor screws ?
I don’t understand the smart audio mod. According to description of Eachine Wizard X140HV (e.g. banggood.com/Eachine-Wizard-X140HV-140mm-FPV-Racing-Drone-Frame-Spare-Part-Betaflight-F4-Flight-Controller-OSD-w-5V1A-BEC-20x20mm-p-1471337.html ),
PPM/DSM/IBUS/UAR sharing: UART1-RX .
In the ports config of betaflight, I set receiver to UART1, which works pretty well.
The black cable in the plug is connected to Tx2 by default. So, there should be no conflict at all…
SMART AUDIO MOD:
VTX;
There are 2 sets of plugs. 1, having 3 plug & 3 wires (red, yellow, black). The second, having 4 plug 2 wires (yellow and black).
For smart audio to work properly, take the 2nd plug that has ONLY the yellow and black wire. Remove ONLY the black wire from the plug. Notice on the FC 2 behind/ below the markings “VTX” you will see 2 solder pads labeled “tx1” and “rx1.”
Solder the black wire you removed from the plug to the TX1 pad. NOT THE RX1 pad. This will give you uninterrupted connection to the smart audio feature.
As it sits before the modification, that black wire actually connects to the tx2 same as your receiver input. Which inevitably will cause issues while flying.
DONT FORGET to also make the change in BetaFlight under the ports tab after making the modification.
I want to build as I have never built before
Confused what to do whether to buy this kit or there is some kit which I can buy to build with better quality components
You can follow this guide: https://oscarliang.com/build-racing-drone-fpv-quadcopter/
I own and built this little guy and it’s pretty good. Flies great, little oscillations. Get the 65mm HQ props. The motor wires are awful but useable. The camera is pretty bad, maybe replace it with a runcam nano 2. The VTX is good and has a decent range.
the problem is when you replace all those parts, you might as well just get yourself a decent pre-built micro quad :)