Apart from lots of new releases in the 85 to 100mm class, also some smaller new FPV quads start to appear on the horizon. 90 to 95mm seems to be the sweepspot at the moment, with enough room for extra features, like a buzzer, leds and be able to get a decent flight time. Smaller tends to reduce prop efficiency, smaller motors that don't run as smoothly as a good 1104, etc. This new "monster" of a quad, made by Lanchi, is making an attempt to fix this. Will it be a design that has a real "bite" to it, or will it more be a "monster of a quad" in that it is horrible? Let's investigate...


Disclaimer: I don't get paid, or in any other way make money with reviews like these. Product specifications and quality may vary at the manufacturer's discretion, and are beyond my influence. I cannot guarantee you will get a product that performs exactly the same as seen and described in this review. There is always room for a general discussion on the reviewed item, feel free to comment, but if you are planning to add a long review, instead of some summarizing remarks, it would be appreciated to put these in a new review topic or on your RCG blog page. And please, no affiliate links!

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For easy navigation, here's a list of contents:

1: Specifications (posting #1)
2: Unboxing (posting #1)
3: Transmitter/Preparing for 1st Flight (posting #1)
4: Flying Performance (posting #1)
5: Preliminary Verdict (posting #1)
6: Suitable for a Beginner? (posting #1)
7: Camera & FPV Performance (posting #2)
8: Additional Tuning, Modifications & Other Info (posting #2)
9: Suggestions for Improvements (posting #2)




1 - Specifications:

First, let's start with a picture and a link:



https://www.banggood.com/LANCHI-Mons...p-1152287.html



2 - Unboxing:

The Lanchi comes in a very strong box. Maybe they were afraid this "monster" might escape while in transit to it's new owner?




Anyway, it's highly likely to arrive undamaged at it's new home, even when in this case, the box was only wrapped in some thin foam, and just a plastic bag around it.

Inside the box is a small manual, that lists the specs, in short describes the binding procedure, how to arm and disarm throttle, and some warnings about not flying near people, animals and power lines. No info on setting the VTX, or the function of the buttons near the leds.

Apart from this mostly useless manual, you get 2 sets of extra props, transparant and yellow, giving multiple options to mix colors with the red ones, that are installed on the motors. A 2S battery, with no visible markings, and a USB charger, conclude the contents of the box.




The bottom frame plate is 2mm CF, the side-plates, that hold the camera, are 1.5mm thickness. The quad is designed to look quite "stubby", due to the relatively big 1104 motors, the wide-wing 3-blade props, and the "camera tower". It looks tough and powerful.




The finish looks mostly good, the screws that hold the FC stack for instance, are countersunk. though the motor screws are protruding from the bottom.




Despite being a compact quadcopter, there is very good access to the USB port and if the plug on the cable isn't too wide, it's even possible to run the motors with the USB cable connected. Which isn't always so on a small brushless quad.




3 – Transmitter/Preparing for 1st Flight:

Well, binding the receiver was easy, but getting any reponse when moving the stick, was just about impossible. For some reason the receiver was wired in PPM, both on the receiver as on the FC. But when looking closely at the receiver, the solder bridge at the bottom was joining the 2 pads marked "sbus" so the receiver was in sbus mode. So the wire on the receiver going to the FC, was relocated to the pad marked sbus, uart was set to serial rx, etc, but still no response.

As final attempt, the receiver was set to ppm, by removing the solder bridge on the pads marked sbus, and connecting the pads with ppm label, and the wire between receiver and FC was put again on the ppma solder bridge was created on the pads marked ppm. Settings in Betaflight were adjusted accordingly, but still no response on stick movements.

Some research revealed this FC board tends to have a rather high failure rate, so it's likely my FC board is DOA...


Update 7 july 2017

The replacement Monster 76 did also arrive with the receiver wire soldered on the wrong spot, but after correcting this, it did show movement on the receiver tab. So finally the review can continue.




4 - Flying Performance:

The first flight showed a somewhat jittery quadcopter, so PID settings were changed to those that I found in another review, on Youtube, by AndyRC. With these settings it did handle a little better, but somehow it still felt unresponsive, and when throttling up, one motor would start much later than the others. I checked the configuration page, and found that the ESC was still set to OneShot125, while the 4 in 1 ESC is Dshot600 capable. This setting was changed, and the quad flew much better.




5 - Preliminary Verdict:

The Monster 76 is not an easy quadcopter to get going. Apart from all units that I've seen or heard about so far, coming with a receiver wired up incorrectly, my first sample wouldn't do anything, even when this error was corrected. It gets bundled with a nice supply of spare props, but if those props are unbalanced and created a lot of jello in the FPV feed, these are of little value, unless you want to display the quad on the shelf, and change prop color every now and then, for variation.





Pros:

- OSD
- Buzzer
- Smooth motors
- Leds
- Good camera
- Extra props, 8 in 2 different colors



Cons:

- Receiver connected wrong
- Low power battery
- Not well tuned
- Jello in video
- Props are not very good




6 - Suitable for a beginner?

Looking at how much trouble this one gave to even get it working, due to the receiver being wired up incorrectly, it doesn't score points here. No prop guards, and the stock props needing replacement to get a decent flying performance, also detract from the beginner friendly rating.


(to be continued)

7 - Camera & FPV Performance:

Lanchi Monster 76mm - First FPV flight, Stock Props, different PID settings (1 min 48 sec)

8 – Additional Tuning, Modifications & Other Info


The stock props generate some jello and tuning issues, has also been the observation of other Monster 76 owners. AndyRC uses T1.9x3x3 props from HQ Prop, cut to 1.6 inch, and gets better performance with these. I don't have a reliable prop cutter yet, so I tried something else, the 4-blade Aurora68 props. With these, the quad is more stable, but flight times are around 2 minutes. It does fly much better though, rolls in acro are quite snappy now:

Lanchi Monster 76 - Aurora 68 props (2 min 27 sec)

9 – Suggestions for Improvements:


- Better props!
- Deliver a working quad without wrongly connected wires

I have high hopes for this one. Looking forward to your updates.

Me too ..... Oopps I forgot to ask for this one

Hmm, can get the receiver to bind, but no control response. Receiver is wired up in PPM mode, all settings correct. Might be they either forgot to bridge the solder pads on the bottom of the receiver, to select the mode (it's this receiver: https://www.banggood.com/2_4G-8CH-Mi...p-1104843.html )

Or the receiver is actually set to Sbus, but accidentally wired up in PPM, and all I have to do is move the signal wire to the Sbus solder pad. Anyway, no time for that now, so no test flight today, I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by SoloProFan

Hmm, can get the receiver to bind, but no control response. Receiver is wired up in PPM mode, all settings correct. Might be they either forgot to bridge the solder pads on the bottom of the receiver, to select the mode (it's this receiver: https://www.banggood.com/2_4G-8CH-Mi...p-1104843.html )

Or the receiver is actually set to Sbus, but accidentally wired up in PPM, and all I have to do is move the signal wire to the Sbus solder pad. Anyway, no time for that now, so no test flight today, I'm afraid.

In theory the binding is nothing to do with the type of receiver connexion to FC. ... It's a FrSky ? model ? D8 ? D16 ?

Binding as easy. I have bind, but no response on the receiver tab. Found out the receiver had indeed the solder points for sbus connected, so it's in sbus mode. Moved the signal wire on the receiver to the solder pad for sbus, tried every single uart set to serial rx and selected serial receiver + sbus on configuration tab. No response on transmitter sticks. Even soldered a new wire between receiver and F4 Omnibus board, since it came loose very easily when moving the receiver, I was hoping it was just a broken wire. Still no response on transmitter stick movements... Tried with and without battery connected, no luck.

Either the receiver is broken, or the board is somehow not able to work with sbus due to some hidden setting, or it is broken. Anyway, out of the box, it could never have worked, as the receiver was set to sbus, but the wire between receiver and FC was connected to the ppm solder pad of the receiver...


Edit: final thing I can try is set the receiver to PPM mode, by removing the solder bridge of the sbus pads, and connecting the ppm solder pads. Better have working ppm, than non-working sbus protocol. If this will actually work at all.

Switched receiver to PPM mode, by removing solder bridge between sbus marked solder pads, and making a new bridge between the pads marked PPM. Wire between RX and FC is connected to PPM solder pad on RX side, and RCin on the F4 FC's side. Set to PPM receiver type in betaflight, nothing...

Receiver is bound, when I power on the blue led goes solid, if I switch of the Taranis, the led starts to blink, and goes solid again when I switch the transmitter on. But no movement on receiver tab.

Even tried soldering the wire to RX1, which according to a topic on Banggood forum, has helped another owner of this FC. No effect...

Was expectable .... there is no reason to have a partial failure of the firmware ... working for PPM and not for SBUS... Can you check voltage at input pads ?

The receiver gets power, led is lit bright. I was hoping that there were maybe some special settings for sbus, but not for PPM. I tried to find info about this board, as it's been available for a while already, but no direct info yet. Except some hard to understand notes:

"-DSM, SBUS and PPM receiver input, please configuire RX1 as input interface."

Originally Posted by SoloProFan

The receiver gets power, led is lit bright. I was hoping that there were maybe some special settings for sbus, but not for PPM. I tried to find info about this board, as it's been available for a while already, but no direct info yet. Except some hard to understand notes:

"-DSM, SBUS and PPM receiver input, please configuire RX1 as input interface."

Remind me the FrSky receiver of the jumper X68S ... worked a cuple of time than died ... despite being bound ...

I think it's something weird with setting up the board. When I select serial rx for uart 3, suddenly uart 1 appears in the ports list. It disappears when no uart is set to serial rx, and then you only see 6 and 9. Never seen that before.

Added pictures, done some more testing, but no progress, so it's highly likely the FC in my Lanchi 76 sample is DOA...

Tried some more, but even with info from other Lanchi owners I can not get mine to come to life...

There is also some good news though, a replacement has just been ordered.

Sounds exactly like what happens when you don't set CLI command: set sbus_inversion = OFF on F3 boards but I'm guessing you tried that already?

I know we talked about this the other day but I never heard if you tried it or not.