Month: April 2025

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Nano Long Range V1 Update

The Nano Long Range V1 that I am working on with my dad is a combination of the original Nano Long Range design from Dave_C_FPV and the boot strapped rubber band assembled design from Unboxingexperience7 that are both hosted on Thingiverse .

Nano Long Range V1 fresh off the 3D printer.
“What is this a frame for ants!?”

I used Dave’s print file for the body of the drone because of the enclosed belly pan. I still may need to add additional landing apparatus as my time in the FPV.SkyDive simulator has been fun, but hasn’t exactly made me Top Gun material yet. My dad thought that the whole frame was so small initially that I may have made an error with what print file that I sent him.

My first FPV (First Person View) headset fit check.
Eagerly test fitting components as they came in.
Checking the flight controller fitment as soon as it came in since it and the remote were the last components to arrive and that took almost a month.
Getting some flight time in the simulator with my actual flight controller. Mess in the background courtesy of a failed sump pump.

One of the parts of the build that excites me the most is the fact that the design was created to run on high discharge 18650 batteries that to date run about $7.00 per cell. Not only are the cells cheap, but from what I’ve seen they should provide approximately 20 minutes of flight time per charge. The other big advantage is the ability to print a new frame from a variety of materials as I iterate on the design.

Desoldering a stock plug from the flight controller to replace it with one having a better orientation for assembly.
Removing an over sized pinout on the 5V step up board so it can be assembled in a tighter package.

Last weekend was our first big push at finalizing the design and assembly of the components. The small area of the pads to solder and ensuring that we had the correct connection terminals, since neither of the original designs use a BetaFPV 2022 F4 1S 12A AIO Brushless Flight Controller, were the most time consuming aspects. We were able to use the stock harnesses on the 11000KV EMAX TH12025 1202.5 Motors from getfpv.com that are originally intended to be replacements for the Nanohawk X drone.

While some of the component selection may seem arbitrary, I used Grok from xAI to assist in comparison of the parts, considering the age of the source materials provided, to make choices based on the current state of the art while ensuring that the parts stay within the operational limits of the original designs.

I’m looking forward to making more progress with the build in the coming weeks and getting it airborne as soon as possible.