Flying Cinema Cinetank MK. II

When Flying Cinema's Cinetank MKI came out in late 2013, it was instantly considered one of the "greats", quadcopter wise that is. With its carbon fiber tube arms or its honey-combed support for its "dirty" section, it was and still is a great quad all around. Flying Cinema has reintroduced their Cinetank into the Mark II version with over 20 new upgrades, most of which were community based. I had always loved the design of the Cinetank and had wanted one ever since it came out. But then the craze hit. The mini quad craze that is! Everybody was getting mini quads as they are amazingly durable, small, and extremely aerobatic. I myself had to see what all the fuss was about and set back my Cinetank project to buy a QAV250, which I love by the way. As the year was drawing to a close and I couldn't fly any longer as I live in Michigan, I was trying to decide what my latest winter project would be. I was surfing the web one day and I saw that Flying Cinema had released Mark II of their Cinetank instantly jogging my memory as to what I had wanted to build earlier that year. I started communicating with David, one of the founders of Flying Cinema, through various forums, and to my pleasure, I ended up buying a brand spanking new Cinetank MK.II!

I decided that since this is a top quality quad, I would really need to be buying top quality equiptment for it as well. Unfortunatly, that meant the price tag kept shooting up. I just kept telling myself as I kept clicking the "Buy" button that it would all be worth it in the end. 

I also wanted to switch my frequency for this quad as I wanted to be able to punch around trees and have the ability to explore farther ranges. I decided on 1.3ghz as 2.4 is what a few of my buddies fly on and I really wanted to be able to fly with them so 2.4 was out. Since I went with 1.3ghz, I decided that I should probably be buying an LRS system. After another couple of weeks of research I was stuck between the EZuhf and the OpenLRS from Hawkeye. After lots of consulting with members of various forums, I decided to go with the EZuhf as I felt like it was the most developed system and I can just plug in the JR module into the back of my FRSky Taranis.

So I feel like I rambled on enough with the details. Lets get into the build!

Firstly, I have to give Flying Cinema their first appause. This is how kits should come. Each part is individually packaged in its own pouch to avoid hardware mixup. Those cheap chinese, as well as some higher grade quads have nothing on how this was packaged.

For the ESCs I went with Afro 30amp's flashed with the BLheli 13 firmware. There's been a lot of hype going on about BLheli and how it's going to be taking over Simonk. After flashing these ESCs and flying with them a little, I totally agree. They have very crisp and responsive throttle control. The software that you flash the ESCs with is also much better than Simonk's. You can go in and change every single parameter in the ESC from active braking to the motor direction. I highly recommend buying these ESCs and flahsing them with BLheli or the Rotorgeeks preflashed ESCs. Remeber to buy the flashing tool for either of these ESCs

Like stated before, I wanted to be buying the best for this quad so I bought Tmotors. Or Lumenier branded Tmotors that is. I read up on the different brands of Tmotors and It looked like these were pretty good. The bearings are a little nicer than the regular Tmotors. So these are the Lumenier FX2216 1100kv motors from GetFpv.

The Cinetank can be flown on a number of different motors. The recommended motors are the 2216 1100kv or the 1250kv motors. I chose to go with the 1100kv's mainly because the slightly lower kv gives me slightly longer flight times and still have the speed that I want. And that Tmotor doesn't have a 1250kv version. Only 1100kv.

All the motors prepped and ready to be fit to the arms.

The are clamps are injection molded and very nice and tight to fit over the arms. I do recommed that you take an exacto and cut off all the little tabs that were left over from the mold. The clamp on the left still has the tab (top left of part of the clamp) and the clamp on the right has the tab removed. Since the clamps have a circular "nub" in the middle of it, it is impossible for the motor to be angled improperly as the carbon fiber arm has a hole that the "nub" fits into.

Here's a picture of the motor clamped down to the arm.

Like stated earlier, these clamps make for a very tight fit so nothing will move.

All of the bobbins installed on the "dirty" section

Motor wires may have been a little long but it wasn't to big of a deal. I just tucked the extra wires back into the arms.

 There are six standoffs throughout the dirty section as well as the motor clamps and honeycomb plates. The honeycomb design adds a crazy amount of strength the the dirty section.

Closeup of the Flying Cinema logo which I installed upside down. Oops (-;

The Cinetank doesn't have landing gear. It does have these landing pads which can be both a good and bad thing. Depending on where you're taking off from. I actually really like them. It just sets this quad apart from many others with its uniqueness.

The "clean" section assembled.

I personally felt like the stock standoffs, which are 30mm, are to short and bought 35mm. Not to much of a difference but it helped a lot with placement of the electronics. I recommend picking up some 35 or 40mm standoffs.

Picture before the bobbins were joined to the clean plate.

This step of pulling the bobbins through took a lot of time and me wanting to throw the thing against the wall. I found it difficult the first time doing it even with the servo wire trick but once I did it again(I had to take it apart to put the longer standoffs on), I found it a little easier. Still not easy, but easier (-:

Another awesome thing that I love about the design of the Cinetank. They put in "stoppers" in so the clean and dirty plates won't separate in the event of a crash.

The completed frame.

I went with the optional camera pod to hold the board camera.

At first I thought this thing was awesome. That was until I turned on the camera. Since I am using the recommended placement with the pod bolted down with the camera plate for my Gopro, the ultra wide angle lense for the board camera made it so I had to see the camera plate through the goggles. About 1/4 of the top of the screen was covered with the plate. I was instantly bummed as I really didn't want to have to just use 3M tape to stick it on a little farther forward but I did it anyways. You'll see in a later picture how far up I had to put it in order for the camera to not see any of the camera plate. Even though it wasn't what I originally wanted, it was worth it because I won't be looking at a black plate whenever I'm flying.

Picture of the front of the copter.

The Flight controller was also one of the hardest parts about this build. Not setting it up but trying to figure out which one I was going to use. I was torn between the Naze32, CC3D, and Eagletree Vector. I went with the Vector pretty much just for the OSD and current sensor. I also liked that there was a home arrow that points to where I physically am.

Unfortunatly I didn't take any pictures while I was installing the electronics. Sorry for that. But heres a picture of the quad while I was just test flying it around. I didn't end up using the GPS stand because I was getting just as many GPS locks when it was just double sided taped to the top of the frame. I also scratched that pink ziptie that held the video transmitter in and moved the LRS receiver to the other side of the copter.

Heres a picute of my completed quad. I don't have the green ziptie anymore. I just taped that onto the top of the frame as well. 

Another shot just a little lower.

Here is the picture of the camera pod much further up than originally. It's a good 2-3 cm farther forward that the original.

I really liked the way I installed the Gopro. I used a flat adhesive mount and permanently stuck that to the frame. I have the ability to just squeeze the clips on the mount and pull the Gopro out as well.

Picture of the Vector mounted up the the frame.

Back view of the quad.

I went with the EZuhf 4 Channel receiver as I can use it in PPM mode to get all 8 channels that I need for the Vector as well as 4 extra, two of which I use for the RSSI to be displayed in my goggles.

The motors went on very cleanly!

Side view.

Bottom view of the electronics cover. Another very nice feature as it allows for very easy access to the electronics of the quad.

Here's a quick video of one of the flights. Note that these clips were taken on a very windy day and I still have some gain adjustments to do with the Vector. And no I was not flying above those people at the end. It just so happened that many of them were still at my church after it ended and wanted to see my new quad!

To sum it all up, I am very happy with this quad. Would definitly recommend it to someone who is looking to get a quad around this 400 size class of quadcopters. The design quality is beyond anything that I have ever experienced. I can't wait for the weather to warm up and the snow to melt so I can really get into the full potential of the quad.

Let me know if there is anything that you guys would like to see. I know FliteTest did an overview of the Vector but if there is enough requests, I can do my own version going in depth with setting up the EZUhf reciver. 

More flight videos will be coming!

Equiptment used:

-Afro 30 Amp ESCs

-Lumenier FX2216 1100kv motors

-EagleTree Vector with Wire Leads

-EZUhf JR Transmitter Module

-EZUhf 4ch Lite Receiver

-VAS Dipole antenna for Receiver

-Diamiond SRH771 Antenna for Transmitter

FPV Equiptment:

-Fatshark Dominator V2s

-1.3ghz Receiver

-1.3ghz 400mw Video Transmitter

-VAS Bluebeam Cloverleaf on VTX

-Circular Wireless 1.3ghz Patch Antenna

-Fatshark 5.8ghz Repeater for groundstation

-Sony Super HAD 600TVL FPV Camera with 2.1mm Lense

-Gopro Hero 3 Black

You can get your Cinetank MK.II here at www.flyingcinema.com 

Happy Flying!