Quad Arrow 3 - Getting Back Into The Hobby

Tony

Staff member
Getting back into a hobby that you have spent more than a decade in is quite easy if you still have what you had before, but remembering all of the things that you need to do to setup a model is a little more difficult. I didn't think I had forgotten much about the hobby, but I was quite humbled during the live streams when D.O.G. & bigone5500 helped me setup the quad on stream. I have forgot almost everything. This definitely has me worried about flying, not going to lie. And because of that, I want my first flight to be with something that can take a crash and either it won't break, or it won't matter much. And thus, enter the Arrow 3 Quad from HGLRC.

I received this quad a long time ago from a vendor that sent it to me and I never even took it out of the box. Too much life and not enough hobby. So it sat there in that box until just a couple weeks ago when I finally decided it was time. I had asked what receiver to put on it, and D.O.G. to the rescue once again! For more information on that, check out the thread What Micro Receiver Do You Use?. With that in hand, the first live stream was set and we soldered it on and we were off to the races.... Kind of.

Soldering, not a problem. It's like riding a bike and that went off without a hitch. Remembering that the FRSky receiver and the Spektrum receiver must be on different ports, yep, that one slipped my mind. Once I moved it to the correct pad on the FC, everything started working as it should. And with that, all the soldering on the quad was done. But didn't have enough time to do any further setup like flight modes, arm mode, and I'm sure I'm still forgetting something, so definitely post up if I am.

Today, I'm still recovering from an illness that I have had for a few days that had me pretty much down and out. If I had to "go" to work, or even if I still had to talk to customers or my agents, I would have had to call in, but with my new role in the company I was able to still go to work, saving my overtime that I had worked for and was able to do my job. And for that, I am quite thankful. Because I'm still recovering, my voice is not quite all there so no live stream today, but I am still going to do a little work to the quad.

Twice now I have run a battery way too low on voltage so I decided to put a pack on charge in order to do some setup because the quad will have to be on. I'm going to try to get it setup with the flight modes (yes, I'm going to have to put the 'B-Mode' on there) and get the arm switch setup. I'm going to poke around some more to try to remember what else I did to these, but I honestly think that is about it other than checking motor rotation. If you all have any input, post up!

And don't worry about the blue tape, I needed a hinge and it works lol. I'm trying to come up with a design for a print in place hinged door that I can replace that with, but that is proving to be a challenge.

Screenshot 2025-09-08 193521.png
 
Over here trying to figure out why in the world this quad would not arm when I only had it on one switch. Then I remembered there is a 'status' command you can run and it stated CLI and MSP. I forgot to unplug the USB cable lol. It's the simple things lol. But, I think the quad is ready to fly, just need to get the time to do it now. I still need to setup some OSD settings, but I will work on that later. First flight will be LOS, then maybe I will toss on some goggles.
 
It's just like riding a bike plus it's the closes you can get to flying when using your goggles. That how I feel when I fly FPV.
 
That's what I'm hoping! But just in case, starting with a small light weight quad that can take a crash. Might have to buy some arms or props, but those should be cheap (if you can find the arms lol). I have another 3.5" quad that has a bent motor shaft. Might make that a project to replace that motor. That little guy was fun!
 
I use that to fly in tight places like the kids playground, No kids around and through the woods plus inside of the house lol.
 
First flight is in the books. No camera, just wanted to get a feel for the quad for the first few packs. To say I'm rusty is an understatement. But, I don't think that was entirely me. The flight was a LOS flight only just to feel it out. It went into the air super fast with way less throttle than I thought it would take. I was hovering at about 15% stick so I was getting that beautiful constant beep trying to keep it in the air lol. So I lowered my timer down to about 5% and that solved the issue of the beeping.

The throttle is horribly touchy and for the first time ever, I think this quad actually needs some expo on the throttle... It might just be me being rusty, but it was just so twitchy down low on the throttle. It also had a drift back and right (yea, I was testing in Angle lol. And glad I decided to put it in there because I'm way more rusty than I thought I would be). So I do need to recalibrate the gyro's to perfectly level...

Or... I did also prove that it can take a crash lol. I could just remove Angle and Horizon mode and only fly in Air mode and force myself to either learn or crash.... After a few flights, I think that might just be what I need to do since I got way to comfortable with self level.

But the first flight is in the books and I have a couple more batteries charged and ready to go. I did the first flight after work and then had to make dinner. Wife decided I couldn't be the only one to have fun with whatever that sickness was that I had lol. So I didn't want to be running in and out constantly. But more flights will come! Just need to get my fingers back!
 
That's exactly right! Just need to get back into the groove. Juts gonna take a few battery packs to get back, but I am glad I didn't just jump into the 600 again lol. That could have ended badly....
 
Little more information now that I'm not fuming lol.

Today, I knew that I was going to do the first FPV flight of the Arrow 3, and that is what I did. When I sat it down and went and sat on the steps, I knew something was not right. Not 20' from me was the quad and the video was breaking up. But I thought whatever, probably just reflections off of something. Nope. As you saw in the video, I popped it into the air and about 100' out, my goggles gave me the RXLOST warning. I went ahead and hit the disarm switch and let it drop and that was the end of the first FPV flight with the Arrow 3.

I did walk out there and located the quad, it was up right, so I flew it back to the house then finished out the battery pack by just flying it around for the rest of the 5 minutes. I then came inside, removed the battery and that was that. At least I flew today. Just sucks I didn't fly the way I wanted to.

It very well could be the VTX that is bad, but more than likely it's the cable because they have it absolutely crammed in there with multiple hard kinks. I'm hoping it just has a broken wire inside it causing the issue. I'm sure I have other antenna wires around here, I just need to find them and swap it out. Where they are though, I have absolutely no idea...

Ah well.
 
Sorry about the video coming out shitty. If you need something like fpv antenna or so, let me know. Atleast you got some stick time in. It's a start. Yeah those little quad, they do cram everytjing in that small area. Oh yeah, make sure the vtx and goggles are on the same channel. Just a thought.
 
They are 100% on the same channel. I do a scan every time I fire them up to get the best channel, and it always lands on the correct channel. I have my other little 140mm quad that is also a 3.5 that I might just fly tomorrow, and if that one has a better picture then I know it's a VTX or antenna cable issue. I might even swap over the FPV antenna to see what happens there. Both are RHP, or should be.
 
Today the high was in the 90's and the sun was just roasting everything under it, so I didn't do any flying. Thinking about pulling some other models off the wall and giving them a once over, and also, getting back on the electric 600 that needs to be done in the worst way! I will have another thread on that one.
 
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