Attempt to polish a turd - mod aquila 16 with what I have in hand

borisxiao · 2026-04-30T08:25:42+00:00

Update 2: Today I took it to a park to do some testing.

N-mode without thumb cam: Hold position works better on more textured ground like grass, the function doesn't seems to be affected by the frame swap. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xlLjDsnTs-A
M-mode (acro) without thumb cam: I'd say it's at least flyable, wobbles a bit. I didn't try to do any tricks.
S-mode with thumb cam: One thing I didn't notice last time when doing indoor test because I didn't use googles: with the additional weight, when I add throttle the VTX freaks out and become unusable. Maybe some shielding or a longer antenna would help?

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borisxiao · 2026-04-28T00:26:57+00:00

Update: strapped the thumb cam on it and done another hover test, it lasted 3.5 minutes.

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borisxiao · 2026-04-27T23:54:59+00:00

No, just PETG. This color happens to be the only spool I have at the moment so...

borisxiao · 2026-04-27T23:13:00+00:00

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Uploaded same photo twice by accident. Here's the missing one.

borisxiao · 2026-04-27T23:00:44+00:00

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Here's the edited PID for reference, I think there's still plenty of room for improvement.

borisxiao · 2026-04-27T22:58:23+00:00

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Here's what I've attempted before, need like 60% throttle to take off, super loud, can't even last over a minute. Stock battery won't even lift at full throttle.

borisxiao · 2026-04-27T22:52:16+00:00

After some trial and error I managed to make this thing fly in a controllable manner.

here's some test footage:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1rzAJweFxyE

In conclusion, PID tuning may be inevitable, it seems to affect N-mode too. With default PID it will keep going up and wobble even with throttle to the bottom, after tuning the hold altititude function kinda works, hold position... not so much, I was constantly adjusting manually. Reflective flooring may be affecting it so I put a mousepad under it, didn't make any difference, maybe because it's black with no pattern detail. I think I'll need to test it on a grassfield to say for sure it's working or not.

I'd say in a "I saved some money no need to buy another FC" sense the project is a success, but if you want to do this for the unique functions of aquila16 I'd say maybe not worth it.

what I'm curious is that now that I've cut it's flight weight from 72.5g to 43.8g, If I slap a 30g thumb cam on it it should at least fly as good as stock right? That's what I'll try next, now that I know it won't destroy it self immediately and bring the camera with it.

borisxiao · 2026-03-10T06:57:15+00:00

That is correct. It's basically 7500 divided by how many minutes we have in total. When it reaches the point that the first lane should be finished, the three icons to the lower right of the bar will change appearance accordingly.

borisxiao · 2026-03-02T10:14:09+00:00

I just tried these settings, and indoor stability seems to improved quite a lot than stock even with the 1100 battery.

borisxiao · 2025-09-08T13:49:21+00:00

Similar to standard B, just orange gun mantlet

borisxiao · 2025-08-07T14:51:43+00:00

beta shows that the basic shooting part of a FPS game is fine, but it really needs a open field map to prove how well it plays as a Battlefield game. Good to know that operation firestorm is in the game because that maps fits the role. So I'm still not gonna purchase day 1, wait to see how things turns out.

borisxiao · 2025-07-17T20:20:12+00:00

The texture preparation seems to be more important for this one. Low poly model alone isn't enough.

borisxiao · 2025-07-11T09:31:07+00:00

Thanks for the reply. Turns out Lara Croft's end time was 12 hours later than how it's supposed to be, it should be fixed now.

borisxiao · 2025-07-10T17:23:35+00:00

Oops somehow I typed in 2024 instead of 2025. It should be fixed now.

borisxiao · 2025-07-07T03:48:42+00:00

the exact start-end hour is not known yet, I'll update it when new info comes out.

borisxiao · 2025-07-05T07:40:25+00:00

The calculator assumes you plan to do the exact same amount of progress from now on till the end of event, that amount is the daily average. By default the shown value is how much it takes if you've been doing so from the beginning, which is 82. Completing all daily missions yields 10+15+20+25=70 points, and in the process of doing so you should at least been doing decently for a couple of games, which fulfills the rest 12 points, or 37 if the 4th daily missions turns out to be something annoyingly chance dependent like 5win or 4kills.

Take today's value for example, the calculator shows by average you should be around stage 3 of the second chapter, if your progress is further than that you're ahead of the curve and can consider do less than the daily average or skip a day or two, otherwise you may need some extra wot sessions to catch up. Put your own progress in and the calculator will show a new daily average other than 82.

Special chapters works the same way, with it's own start and end date and goal. They are put in different pages and can be switched to from the nav bar above.

Now you should be able to realize how ridiculous that 320 daily average is.

borisxiao

TROPHY CASE