GoldPaw 🏁

Operational: April 2019 – March 2023 (retired)

GoldPaw … named due to the gold bling motors. I wanted to build a new drone to improve upon some aesthetic and functional design issues of my Cragon drone build.

This drone flew very successfully for a number of years. I retired it as the retrofit to digital VTX wasn’t economically worthwhile. The drone motors were showing signs of overuse, twitching mid-flight, and irrespective, I doubted a new ESC install would match the available motor wiring lengths.

Posts

Posts related to Goldpaw.

• Pizzo Colombe FPV Flight Video Posted on: 8 December, 2020
• Wiring a Matek F405 to DYS Aria D45A 4 in 1 ESC Posted on: 22 March, 2020
• Armattan Marmotte MMCX and UBLOX GPS Holder Posted on: 2 February, 2020
• Armattan Marmotte MMCX Holder Posted on: 22 December, 2019
• Armattan Marmotte GPS Holder Posted on: 5 December, 2019
• Matek F405-CTR Wiring Cheatsheet Posted on: 22 September, 2019
• Gold Paw Test Flight Posted on: 1 September, 2019
• Kakute F7 to Matek F405-CTR Heart Transplant Posted on: 30 August, 2019
• Gold Paw - ready to fly Posted on: 1 August, 2019
• Flywoo 2207 Titanium Gold motors Posted on: 13 July, 2019
• It all begins with a flight controller ... Posted on: 10 July, 2019

Components

Components used in the build are as follows:-

PART	Component
Frame	Armattan Marmotte
Flight Controller	Matek F722-MiniSE (Matek F722-SE, Matek F405-CTR)
ESCs	Holybro Tekko32 35A 4-in-1 ESC
Motors	Flywoo NIN N2207 2450KV Titanium Brushless Motor Gold
FPV VTX	Atlatl HV V2 (Matek VTX-HV)
FPV Camera	Foxeer Monster Mini Cam
Receiver	TBS Tracer (FrSky R-XSR)
Extras	GPS, Buzzer

I’d seen some designs on Rotor Builds that look elegant and I wanted a crack at streamlining the wiring and to focus on improving some issues on my previous Cragon build, by:

• Using a 4-in-1 ESC to take the ESCs off the arms, to avoid dirt, dust and death
• Considering the location of battery connector to avoid snapping off or entanglement
• Improving view of sky through higher tilt angle for the FPV + GoPro cameras (the Marmotte frame allows for adjustment)
• Repositioning of GPS to avoid removing it every battery change

The wiring diagram for the Matek F722-SE to the components is as follows:

It flies in a much smoother manner to the Cragon build – I think due to the Flywoo motors and ESC pairing – and it looks pretty good also.

Update July 2022: I revised GoldPaw, adjusting the location of the 4-in-1 ESC to the rear of the drone, allowing a full-size Atlatl HV V2 VTX to set atop the ESC, and to balance out the weight of a GoPro 10 at the front. I exchanged the full-form F722 FC to a miniSE version in order to cut weight and fit everything into the frame. The build style is similar to the Megabat drone that I have recently constructed, using some of the 3D-printed parts for the battery & antenna connector, along with a tray for the RX.

Build Photographs

Flight Photographs