INTRODUCTION

After the ESC fiasco of the Eachine Assassin 180, Eachine decided to release relatively fast a new compact racer. Here with the Eachine Blade 185 (EB185), all the design have been changed. The only common thing is the presence of a GPS module to feed with extra informations the OSD. A lot of pressure over the Eachine's shoulders .... Let's have a look.


BOX CONTENT





+ 1 x Eachine Blade 195 (with a 3S 1300mAh LiPo with XT60 connector)
+ 1 x Transmitter (using 4xAA batteries not included)
+ 1 x Charger
+ 4 x 4040 Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 1 x Screwdriver
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)


With the original packaging



You cut the foam in order to install the quad with the props and cloverleaf antenna installed



OVERVIEW


The EB185 is a little bit similar but in a shrinked version of the Redcon Phoenix 210: a read 3Dprinted latteral ring. The EB185 is effectively a 185mm quadcopter size mainly 3K carbon based but not only as we will see.

-Front view

The general shape is a modified H format where rear arms have 120 degrees angle versus the main axis. Covering the FPV cam more or less correctly a plastic front, not strong enough to absorbe a major frontal shock.



I noticed, this front don't protect really the lens from dust and vegetation. You will need regulary to clean it.


with the front white LEDs turned on



Good news, they are less strong than the Assassin 180.. no more risk to become Stevie Wonder.



-Side view

The battery strap is pre-installed but in practice, when the LiPo is inserted, you don't have a lot of freeroom to correctly tight the velcro due the presence of the upper plate. You have to insert the band in diagonal then start to tight it more or less efficiently. It's tricky. Be aware, if not correctly blocked, the battery slides on the 3K bottom plate... and can be damaged by props.



Initially, the GPS is installed over a dedicaced plate and the Flysky 2.4G receiver below




-Rear view

Two cables are installed in the rear part. The left one is the PPM one connecting the flysky receiver to the FC. The right one is the GPS one.



Be aware also in practice, props can hurt them if not correctly bent.




RP-SMA connector for the VTX



When the antenna is installed, the extremity is longer than rear arms ones. Conclusion, in case of vertical falls, the antenna connector will be first in contact with the ground and will be broken.



-Upper view




The upper plate is 3K CF based with a thickness of 1.6mm





-Bottom view

The lower plate is not in carbon but glass based because it's welcoming the electronics. conpounds on the other side. The plate, 1.6mm of thickness represents the weakest part of the structure. Especially in case of frontal crash with an arms, I am afraid some cracks will broke connexions especially between ESC and the FC...




The rear LEDs can be programmed via Cleanfight



Out of the box, the right turn is not working, only the left one


The OSD connexion is done via this serial port







-Weight













1.6mm too for the lower plate



A little bit less than 380g AWG...



Arms

As said previously the lower part of the part is glass based while the upper 3K carbon based. As you can see through holes of the arm structure, the ESC SMD conpounds as well as the MOSFET.




For each rear arm, 3 individual LEDs can be programmed through cleanflight configurator.




Motors


1806 motors announced to be 2300KV



The thread is M5. For the first batch if EB185, provided props have a too thin hub diameter versus the shaft diameter. You can use a screwdriver to enlarge the situation but BG sent immediatly some fully working model



LiPo

2.4G receiver

A Flysky module, a FS-i6 to be more precise in PPM output mode.




In practice, it's possible to install the receiver inside front. You will need to free a bit the antenna but cutting the edge of the heatshrink tube






According to http://www.deviationtx.com/forum/pro...-it4?start=120

It would be possible to fly the AFHDS-2A protocol with DeviationTX as soon as yhe compatible radio have been modded with a A7105F RFchip. More by flashing a new RX firmware, it should be possible to read the RSSI by telemetry.



After modification











The GPS Module is better protected by the latteral standoff and the front clean camera mount too.





Clean Camera mount







Camera module

A compact CMOS 520TVL camera with a FOV of 120degrees. IMHO it's a right angle for outdoors FPV racing




On the rear side, a tiny button to turn the camera into NTSC mode. By default is set to PAL.



If you plan to turn it into NTSC, you will need to update the OSD options via the MWOSD GUI configurator.


OSD

After installing the last CP21x drivers, after plugging the USB, the EB185 will emit anoying beeps. To run the MWOSD 1.5 GUI configurator (http://www.mwosd.com/) you will need a recent JRE installed on your machine.

Eachine Blade 185 OSD configuration (4 min 6 sec)

If needed, just turn the NTSC option and write to the OSD.


Video transmitter

The DIP switches can be reached from outside the canopy via a thin screwdriver



Good news, the race band is here





Good news, the promised 600mW output power are here. For example for the E4=5645MHz Vfreq




Disassembling







The barometer & compass installed on a piece of foam but no other piece of foam covering them. In a future mod, it will be important to cover it to decrease interférences and increase compass/baro measurements. Good news, you have a buzzer (but you already know it if you tried to connect it in CF)



Here two groups of DIPswitches. The first 2 position one select either a PPM or a SBUS receiver. The second 6p is associated with the VTX.
The first 3 position selects the Vfreq while the 3 last ones selects the Frequency band, 5 in total (race band supported). The Video Transmitter is assumed to be a 600mW model protected by the metallic casing. The OSD, mwosd compatible is articulated around a atmega 328p and the max7476 video chip.







Voltage regulator delivering +5V is installed front. I noticed some video glitches/interférences with the FPV camera. Is the BEC section correctly doing its job ?




ESC are announced to be 12A (with a peak of 15A) strong enough for 3S but not for 4S.



Unfortunatly a very old BLheli firmware is installed and you will need BLheli flasher sticker like: http://www.banggood.com/Blheli-Hobbywing-Skywalker-USB-Constant-Speed-ESC-Programmer-p-937868.html to flash a more recent one. After, no more need of the sticker. Any new F/W update can be done directly by the BLheli suite.


Transmitter

A classic Flysky i6 model rebranded and locked by Eachine. 3 x 2-way swiches, 1 x 3 way one and two pots are installed on top. The AFHDS-2A protocol is a solid protocol offering around 500m of control range, largely enough for a racer.



In practice, you can't enter directly to the setup. Or it's very important to be able to enter and modify some parameters. The first bad surprize concerns the default failsafe behaviour. Out of the box, no throttle fail safe is programmed and if you loose the connexion, the quad will continue to fly!!!!!. You need absoluptly to set the failsafe. To enter into the setup: press inner horizontal trims (yaw right & roll left) while turning on the radio. Go the config page and change the failsafe behaviour to the CH3 (throttle) by applying a -100 value.
Another drawback concerns the choice of the right pot (VrB) to select the flight mode: turn on the left to be in acron to the right for the stabilized mode (you can hear a beep between the transition) Very strange in the sens you have an unused 3-way switch avaible just on the right. On more time, in setting, I advise to change the aux1 to the SwC instead of the VrB. Finally, I also advise to use the switch D to trhottle hold and Switch B to activate the buzzer (it's very important if you loose your quad into high grass).

Cleanfight settings

With last version of Cleanflight 1.1.13RC, with multiwii (rewrite) controller. For the GPS configuration, be sure to select the Ublox protocol, to turn on GPS in the list of feature and and enable GPS in the port section. An initial looptime over 3500 seems required (even if it can decreased later)



Notice if you install Betaflight currently the GPS is not working. OSD won't display all informations especially local coordinates.


FIRST USAGE

First attempt with Betaflight... PIDs settings are not yet perfectly adapted. As said previously, the GPS informations are lost

Eachine Blade 185 garden hover demo (Courtesy Banggood) (2 min 29 sec)

Even with the extra 50g of the runcamHD2, the EB185 keep a lot of power. The EB185 is fast !!!!

Eachine Blade 185 first demo flight (Courtesy Banggood) (6 min 35 sec)

Notice some interférences with the HDcam installed not/less visible without....

Eachine Blade 185 new demo flight (Courtesy Banggood) (9 min 25 sec)

With the quoted PIDs settings, the machine flies superbly, very precise in control.. In acro flips are so so fast... Notice the woobles in the runcam HD2 part. Bad PIds ? I don't think so in the sens that the FPV part is super smooth without any vibrations. With the 1300mAh LiPo and the HDcam attached, you can expect 6min of flight duration.

CONCLUSIONS

Eachine Blade 185 deeper analysis (Courtesy Banggood) (10 min 23 sec)

If you are looking for a good RTF racer, the EB185 is for you only and only if can adjust/set important parameters in both cleanflight configurator and on the radio. The more important, I would say, the hardware base is pretty good and equilibrated. That's the most important. A strong VTX, strong motor, solid structure, good FPV cam, OSD and last generation of FC board Only the factory settings are far to be optimized and requires 30-45min of tuning out of the box. Some small détails could be improved in the design like the position of the antenna connector, the non-support of 4S battery and the main open question is the robusness of the lower glass plate versus the strong carbon upper one.




UNBOXING

Eachine Blade185 Unboxing & Configuration (Courtesy Banggood) (31 min 46 sec)

PROS

+ Naze32 Rev32 board
+ Relatively strong frame
+ Good FPV cam with ajustable orientation
+ FlySky i6A
+ OSD
+ Buzzer
+ GPS
+ Programmable LED strip


CONS

- No Oneshot125 support out of the box
- No4S support
- 4045 Props can't be inserted (problem now solved by BG)
- Battery hard to strap potentially be damaged by props
- OSD not directly compatible with the NTSC camera mode (need to be ajusted via MWOSD 1.5)
- No default FS set (flyaway)
- VTX connector not fully protected for a rear crash
- Some inteferences in the FPV video



This quadcopter have been courtesy provided by Banggood in order to make a fair and not biased review. I would like to thank them for this attitude.
You can find it actually for 230USD at http://www.banggood.com/Eachine-Blade-185-FPV-Racing-Drone-with-Mini-NZ-GPS-OSD-5_8G-40CH-HD-Camera-RTF-p-1052503.html

Reserved

Added new photos, text and videos

Thanks for the very detailed review.

I am looking forward to receiving mine some time soon. I can see there is some work that has to be done to start. I hope I can see some way to replace that SMA connector at the back with an SMA pigtail and mount the FPV antenna more safely.

Nicely done. On the "new demo flight" when making fast turns, the motor sounds seems to be a little pulsing/uneven, but it seems to fly tight though. But when for instance at 6:25, you see the quad shaking a little when punching the throttle. So that would seem to indicate PID is not set 100% yet, right?

Originally Posted by unseen

Thanks for the very detailed review.

I am looking forward to receiving mine some time soon. I can see there is some work that has to be done to start. I hope I can see some way to replace that SMA connector at the back with an SMA pigtail and mount the FPV antenna more safely.

Yes it's an excellent idea

Originally Posted by SoloProFan

Nicely done. On the "new demo flight" when making fast turns, the motor sounds seems to be a little pulsing/uneven, but it seems to fly tight though. But when for instance at 6:25, you see the quad shaking a little when punching the throttle. So that would seem to indicate PID is not set 100% yet, right?

Probably but not sure coz in my goggles it was not vibrating... maybe it came from my extra system surelevating my runcam HD2. I will make more testings

Originally Posted by SeByDocKy

Probably but not sure coz in my goggles it was not vibrating... maybe it came from my extra system surelevating my runcam HD2. I will make more testings

The FPV cam might have better damping for vibrations. But apart from image, I also hear the motors oscillating a little, the moment the image starts to shake. So there must be some extra vibrations when you punch the throttle, I think. Either from props unbalance, or P setting maybe

Originally Posted by SoloProFan

The FPV cam might have better damping for vibrations. But apart from image, I also hear the motors oscillating a little, the moment the image starts to shake. So there must be some extra vibrations when you punch the throttle, I think. Either from props unbalance, or P setting maybe

Yes maybe incrase a bit P values

Originally Posted by SeByDocKy

Yes maybe incrase a bit P values

Should that not be decrease P values?

Originally Posted by SoloProFan

Should that not be decrease P values?

I already decreased them from FyreSG values

Originally Posted by SeByDocKy

I already decreased them from FyreSG values

Still each quad may have it's own sweetspot, even when the same model. I'm no expert, but from what I've read everywhere, vibrations on throttle punch are a sign of P too high. Or you have an unbalanced prop maybe.

I am building my Blade ARF and I see how to insert the OSD prongs into corresponding holes as you show in your photo. But that leaves the OSD module sticking out at a 90 degree angle.
My assumption is that it should be soldered into place and then bent flat against the base of the quad, protecting the chip. But it seems the prongs are stiff and might break if I do this. Am I right? Should I just bend them? Did you solder them in?

Thanks from an aerial photography veteran, but newbie racer.

G

Originally Posted by gustinfs

I am building my Blade ARF and I see how to insert the OSD prongs into corresponding holes as you show in your photo. But that leaves the OSD module sticking out at a 90 degree angle.
My assumption is that it should be soldered into place and then bent flat against the base of the quad, protecting the chip. But it seems the prongs are stiff and might break if I do this. Am I right? Should I just bend them? Did you solder them in?

Thanks from an aerial photography veteran, but newbie racer.

G

The OSD is already part of the integrated electronics. The board that you insert into the holes in the bottom of the PCB is used to configure the OSD or flash a new version of the OSD firmware and is not connected during flight.