I've just received the Eachine EX120 from Banggood. This is a 120mm HEX with full fpv.
I was extrememly excited to get this.
http://www.banggood.com/Eachine-EX12..._campaign=AliB


On opening the box, which was very well padded inside, you take out the hex, which is fully built with receiver of your choice,. I have the Frsky receiver.
You also get 4 spare props, a usb charger and Some velcro strap. The lipo is a 450mah 30c 2cell lipo





The receiver it came with is the Tiny Frsky receiver from banggood which can be used on ppm or sbus via the dipswitch. It comes out of the box with sbus selected. The board is a version of the SPRacingF3Evo and comes flashed with a version of cleanflight.

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Heres a quick video showing a flick through of the Immersion Tramp vtx control.

Stoked this is here, because i don't have a wand and the button sucks.

Betaflight IMRC Tramp HV comtrol (0 min 51 sec)

To set this up is really easy



1. Wire telemetry wire (T next to video wire) to any uart TX.
2. in ports page on config, change the uart to IRC tramp



This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1024x572.


3. turn on quad then access menu with Throttle mid, yaw left, pitch up

As easy as 1, 2, 3

I've just received this brush quad flight controller from banggood.

This looks a great little board and cant wait to stick it in a built.

Features:

Frsky sbus receiver built in
F3
OSD
Preinstalled betaflight


Opening the package it looks a well made board. Plugged into my computer and connected to betaflight config straight away.
Board comes pre flashed with betaflight 3.0.0
In out the box setup it running 8k Gyro and 2k PID @13% CPU

I upped this to 8k/4k and it uses 21% with accelerometer and OSD running. which is fantastic

I think updating betaflight to 3.1 will reduce this even further

I look foreward to putting this on a build

http://www.banggood.com/Eachine-AIOF..._campaign=AliB

Thanks to Banggood i have been able to test the Racerstar RF2205 2300kv.

Now these are quite a budget motor so i wasn't expecting great results, but i'm actually very pleased with the performance.

They come as a set of 4, and unfortunately you cant get them individually.
In the box, you get 4 motors, mounting bolts, and dome nuts. I am not a fan of the dome nuts as ive had them out of balance before, and you cant use a normal prop spanner.
They have counter rotating threads on 2 of the motors, which some may like, and some people hate. Luckily i had some left hand nuts so i am using standard nuts.

The actual thread length isnt really long enough for your standard props and to be ultra sure, you would need low profile locking nuts. But due to them spinning the correct direction im not to worried about my normal nuts. They have enough turns to keep the nut on, and in a crash, it only trys to tighten the nut, and not throw it off.

So thats basically the downsides of this motor.

Now the upsides, which i believe outweighs the downs. THE PERFORMANCE.
I compared this motor to my ZMX V2 2205 on 3 different props, and it outperformed on all of them. I was especially impressed on the 4x4x3 DAL BN

Here are the max pulls i got on a 16000mah 4s at around 16.3v

Dal 4x4x3BN: 950g ZMX=930g
Dal 5x4x3 V2: 1060g ZMX = 1030g
Dal 5x4.5x3 : 1130g ZMX =1070g

Now this to me makes it a great motor for the money. It has a couple of annoying features, but for a motor around half the price of the ZMX when it came out, im very impressed.

I have been using these motors for a while on my 4" indoor racer, and I'm very happy with them. I will be definately buying more in the future!

There are some times (such as senset on a sunday evening) when you just don't want to be climbing trees.

This was one of those times! Instead of cutting throttle like I normally did, I just kept the motors spinning and wiggled as much as possible to try and stop the quad from getting stuck. Thanksfully it worked

Tree....What tree (0 min 34 sec)

Since summer is fully upon us in the UK, I have really been enjoying my freestyle flying. Constantly trying to learn new tricks which is very rewards.

Here is my latest video from a school playing field not far from my house.
A lot of fun

Starry Eyed (2 min 53 sec)

I recently go the FQ777-124C MINI With 2.0MP Cam From Bang Good to review and test. So thanks BG

First off, heres the box it comes in




Open the box, and you receive a set of instructions, and the transmitter, which holds everything else
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Since we came out of winter, I've been very much flying freestyle, and not doing any car park flying.

It's been a new learning curve trying to practice tricks, and it's nice not driving home from every session thinking about the parts I've broken and need to replace. The carpark is brutal.

Now Smokin' Drones have had a couple of competitions recently with some good prizes and the most recent one was a speed challenge on the Multi Gp Tsunami track. At first i didn't enter this because i have no race gates. But on the last day, (when i realised not many people had entered ) i decided to give it a go.

I gathered everything in my house that i could use instead of gates (basically a bag of my clothes) and went to set up the track.


I used the local school field and it was about 20mph winds that day and threatening to rain, but as i had left it till the last day, i didn't have any choice, and had to get the flying and editing of video done in one evening.

Anyway, i had A LOT of fun. Its given me the racing bug and makes me want to give it ago.
When running the track i had to be really strict, and keep very low, because since i didn't have gates, i didn't want to be disqualified.
It was so much fun pushing to get faster and faster each battery and I'm quite glad with the way it came out

Multi gp tsunami track practice (0 min 59 sec)

I would love to now give this a go with race gates, since i believe i could shave another couple of seconds off, just by being able to see the gates, and also not having to fly so low.

If anybody knows the track record for this, i would love to know.

Peace out

Well my 30A Sunrise ESC arrived today. Very quick shipping. Shipped on Thursday and arrived wednesday which is pretty impressive for across the globe.

The packaging was very good with each ESC in a static proof bag, and bubble wrapped in a box



The 30a esc are similar form factor to the LittleBee 20a esc.



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Well my 30A Sunrise ESC arrived today. Very quick shipping. Shipped on Thursday and arrived today.

Here are some initial Pictures. I have just installed them on my quad but only flown it in the living room. All i have done is update the firmware from 16.0 to 16.1 and set min/max ppm and all seems to be working.

I will post a full review when i know more. So far it all looks very good.
Motors run super smooth at low throttle and my initial hover in the living room feels good, and it defiantly drops quicker than with my littlebees so assuming they are spinning at a lower RPM. Can't wait to fly outside



FIRST FLIGHTS> AWESOM!!!!!

So I've just flown a few batteries through LOS before dark, and couldn't get a death roll to happy which is a good sign to start with

feels awesome. locked in and i haven't even tuned. just went with same settings that i'de used before changing motors and esc

running stock 16.1 min throttle 1050
4k4k8k OS42

will keep updating when i fly more fpv

Back into the carpark and the recent outdoor practice has really been paying off.

Meridian Thursday (3 min 13 sec)

Check out my new vid "In the Area" filmed at my local park.

Its great now the evenings are getting lighter, so it's out of the carpark, and back into parks where trees are the new obstacles. I tried to film a good run all in one flight, but didn't quite get everything I wanted, so just added a few clips from a second flight. Much more difficult than making a vid of all your best clips from each flight.

Hope you guys like it

In the Area (3 min 27 sec)

Check out some new vids from the last couple of weeks. Inside, and outside, Can do it all with a little QAV 210

Evening Laps (2 min 5 sec)

Cloudy Windy Park (2 min 1 sec)

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Some footage from the Eachine 5046 BN props.
Nice stiff props, stiffer than the DAL5045BN v2. which leads to a more direct feel, but not quite as strong. Prop seems to always be weaker at the hub,

A Working Week (2 min 25 sec)

Received the antenna yesterday.
First impressions look very good. Nice solid construction. Will be good to see how the reception is and whether it handles a few crashes

Weighs: 13.25g



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Testing the new Eachine 5046BN props.

Just a short test to see how the video came out. Quite windy today at 20kts, so bit blustery, and in a small park so no massive punch outs.

No balancing done on the props. Balanced pretty well out the bag.

QAV210
EMAX MT2205
4S 1500MAH
20A littlebee.

540g with go pro and lipo. 5mins flight used 750mah

Eachine 5046BN Prop test (1 min 22 sec)

Just received my props so thanks to Jim and BangGood
I received one set of the 5046BN(green black) and one set of 6040bn(red black)


Ill start of with an initial look at the props and the balance.

Props come in the standard packaging.



The 5046 have the standard 5mm shaft hole through the centre and come with no adapters for different sized shafts.


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I just received my ET-25R to test today.

First impressions look great. The transmitter came in a very well padded box complete with useful hardware. It looks like the box and instructions are made for the full set including camera, which makes the box abit bigger than necessary.



One cable for connecting direct to 4s battery balance port and camera (if your cam uses the same connector) allowing very easy connectivity if you are new to FPV. No cutting and splicing cables required. However most people will use the second wire which has bare ends and wire into their PDB etc.



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I finally got my QAV210 wired up, so I've been able to do some thrust tests. Thought i would post the results here as i haven't got around to editing the video together yet.

Using 5045 BN DAL V1 props

max thrust 3s: 780g
max thrust 4s: 1170g


Thats pretty damn impressive. I wasn't expecting over 1000g of thrust with the Black base model, but it smashed it.

My QAV weighs 490g with a 1500 4s battery (no go pro) giving a thrusts to weight ratio of 9.55:1

Pretty insane. Took it for its first test fly, and its just a whole other level of power. Hovering at about 30% throttle.

Well I finally got my test motors which I'm stoked about. The build can commence.
I received the black base model which has slightly less power than the red base models so be warey if you are ordering. Make sure you get the ones your expect.

First impressions are brilliant. Great packaging. Lots of hardware and as you have probably already seen, they come complete with an Allen key wrench. Perfect.
Each motor comes complete with a set of m3 nuts for either 3mm or 4mm arms so no need to worry about using screws which are too long and ruining the coils

All m3 hardware with locking nuts. Cw or ccw depending on motor rotation. This is shown on the packaging and also on the motor bell. Perfect.
I will check the balance of the lock but once all wired up

I will also be testing the power with 5030, 5040, 5045, 5045bn props

That's it for now. Next post will be bench test, then flight...Continue Reading