Cinesplore Build and Discussion

Setup Recommendations
The following are only recommendations for building the CineSplore.  The primary improvement in flight performance compared to typical cinewhoops comes from the motors.

4S build:
FPVCycle 2204 3450kv
CineSplore
Gemfan Duct props
AIO Toothpick board
4S 1100mah 130C
Vista kit
Longer Vista antenna recommended

4S vs 6S on a CineWhoop:
The only reason we know of today for moving up in voltage is if you’re overworking the battery due to high weight or high load.  Unless you’re trying to lift 2+ full size GoPro’s, it’s not necessary to move up in voltage from 4S.  That being said, we have the FPVCycle 2204 2800kv that will work well on 6S.

On 4S this setup has so much power that if you’re not planning on lifting at least a full size GoPro, you may consider using 3S for improved throttle control.
3S 1100mah 130C: https://bit.ly/3hCKwhw

V3 Ducts:
The V3 Ducts are a genuine improvement in flight performance and efficiency however it is the 2203 motors that make the biggest difference.  An intermediate to experienced pilot will greatly appreciate the improvement from the V3 Ducts on top of the 2203 motors.  The novice pilot may not be able to tell as much of a difference.

Noise profile:
Just moving any cinewhoop to the 2204 motor with the Gemfan triblade duct props will reduce the overall noise profile a little.  It will still be loud but not quite as terrifyingly loud.  For the quietest possible build, use the V3 Ducts with 2204 3450kv and 3S 1100mah batteries.  The resulting noise from that setup is about a third quieter than the standard 4S triblade setup.
Gemfan Penta Duct props
3S 1100mah 130C

For tune setup see here:




The CineSplore Concept:

This goal of this design is to be lightweight, modular, cost effective, convenient and provide a high level of flight performance given it’s a cinewhoop.  While the frame is not weak for a cinewhoop, notice how ‘durable’ is not one of the primary goals here.  This is because in order to make a cinewhoop durable, a lot of weight needs to be added all over it which significantly impacts flight performance.  The duct options we offer for it so far are also not heavy.  They are designed for improved flight performance, not for resilience to smashing into things.  Sure the whole setup can take bumps and small falls no problem, but it’s not a basher.


We won’t deliberate much on the design here but one notable aspect is that this setup is intended to be run with an AIO whoop board plus the DJI/Caddx Vista unit.  It will fit 20x20 stacks and analog as well but the combination of an AIO + Vista is so simple it makes it a lot cleaner and easier to manage.  There are two stacks side by side and ample vertical build height.  The standoff height is 30mm which is a bit tall but unfortunately normal for a cinewhoop given the duct height.  The V3 Ducts are 22mm tall and if you switch the standoffs out for 25mm standoffs with the V3 Ducts, you will get a small boost in control performance.  There are some other features designed into the frame that improve rigidity and durability.  More details on this can be found in the following video about the frame.







The back story:
We've gone through a metric ton of design concepts for this.  Cinewhoops are loads of fun but have a bad reputation for their wonky performance.  They’re most well known for being constantly touchy on the throttle with unreliable altitude control and blatantly lacking on the yaw.  We set out to find a better way without reinventing the wheel.  While we were not fans of ducts for a very long time, after testing many ducts we found that they actually do have favorable flight attributes that make the cinewhoop style flying easier in some ways such as maintaining slow speeds and harder in other ways like throttle/altitude and yaw management.  After loads of unique designs, we went back to ducts and optimized the drive train, frame and duct to get the best performance we could manage.  Of course it’s still a cinewhoop so it’s not going to be a super acro machine but it’s genuinely easier to fly than anything else we’ve tested.

After loads of unique designs, we realized anything original would just get copied by China over night.  So we went backwards and looked at China's offerings to see what we could gain from their super budget stuff.  It didn’t even take three minutes to land on the extremely popular Cloud-149 design.  This particular design jumped out at us because it has moulded instead of printed ducts.  We appreciate printing but also despise it for it's cost, weight, durability and limitations.  These moulded ducts are readily available and so uber cheap it's hard to ignore.  They're also made of a reasonably durable material and weigh just 10.9g ea.  All that being said, it was the very reasonable mounting platform that won us over.  Yeah their performance isn’t the greatest but nearly every duct out there has similar issues.  With this now easy to use mounting platform, we had a starting point to design an improved duct while being able to offer the budget minded pilot something they can work with.  The V3 Duct is the result of this effort and it performs considerably better however has the downside of being more expensive.

There is no standard duct mounting platform right now. Considering how well the Cloud 149 platform happens to work, we’re sharing the pattern and mounting method so anyone will be able to design a printed duct to fit the hole pattern. In fact our goal with this whole thing is to get people to do the cinewhoop thing more.  It's for this reason that the frame platform is cost effective.  With this much simpler duct mounting platform we can also manufacture duct designs for DRASTICALLY less which will drops the retail cost significantly.

Build Guide:  <---click here


Build guide videos by the community: