i'm one of the guys who wants one of these for no reason, just because it seems very cool putting a 18650 and make a cruise flight without have to change the lipos every 2 min. In any case Dave has make a really interesting project..
I'd rather deal with lipos than use a quad where it's easy to accidentally plug the battery in backwards & fry the whole thing. I mean, I have a 7" quad, I plug the battery in, I fly for 20 mins or more, I plug the battery into the charger, I press start and it charges. It's pretty simple: I only have one size & voltage of battery for my quad, so I set the amps & voltage once on the charger & never worry again. Yes, it's not sub250, but I don't need it to be.
i was flying with someone who had the flywoo hexplorer hexacopter and was running on 4 18650s in a battey tray like this! was rippin it too and on a windy day!
I just finished building the thingiverse version of this guy out of spare parts - it's a fun little quad! There's a remix that incorporates the 18650 holder to the frame so there's one less part to grab. Having the right battery cell makes a huge difference, although the fact that yours browns out at 3v I think yours is missing the 5v step-up because I can run my battery down to like 2.7v
Its not bout e voltage numbers IMO, its e voltage cant be delivered. He used an average 18650, so e deliverer of that voltage was weak amperage, and so e quad browned out. Sony VTCs are hailed by vapers for their high current discharge rates and so led to Bardwell's successful test flight. High discharge 18650s are e way to go for this quad
@@TheReelRahim yeah the high discharge cells are absolutely the way to go, but at the same time having that boost converter helps smooth it out, especially for some of the more sensitive vtx's. I had a vtx a while back that I tried to use for a custom 1s tinywhoop that just crapped itself if it went under 3.3v, which was a bit of an issue for me back then because I was used to abusing my lipos and running them down to (and sometimes past) 3v lol
HGLRC decided not to install a 5V stepup-module. With this little improvement (which is part of the thingiverse description) you can run this little bad boy until you hit 2.5V and even lower Volts. So 10-15 Minutes cruising around with one simple battery is totally fine.
Sure, but it starts to shake seriously on descents and barely holds itself in the air when flown with voltages lower than 2.8. But it‘s definitely a unique experience to land a quad at full throttle 😂.
Dave said he didn't experience any increase in flight time with the stepup module. I think it was because he was using a really noisy module, and had to use a filter board. I think if HGLRC could integrate a good, filtered 5v or even 3.3v step up, and find someone who will make a 3v3 Camera and VTX, they could get more out of the LiIon Cell. in my opinion though, 1s LiIon just isnt worth it, 2s is the bottom limit right now for LiIon. both cells can get down to 2.5v and still manage a 5v supply without a stepup.
@@xymaryai8283 21700 cells have 20% higher energy density, at least the Tesla ones, I think we are at the mercy of EV manufacturing advancements to pushing this 1s-2s envelope much further. That 20% is enough to make some good design changes or accommodate something like a naked GoPro.
tested my nanolr with a variable power supply. at 25mw the vtx stayed alive until around 2.2v although it started to noticably decrease in output power at around 2.5v. havent tried it in flight with an actual battery yet because still waiting for my motors to get here. ( ua-cam.com/video/I9CXo6LVoUk/v-deo.html audio warning and skip to 10 seconds in if you dont want to sit through 10 seconds of static audio and a blue screen)
I built something similar at the beginning of last year, I used 2X18650's on 4inch prop. flight time was 50 minutes :-) I'm now currently running a Hexa with 3 X 27100 and get 60 minutes!!! Welcome to the future!!!!
I printed it, built it myself, and its a lot more powerful it seems, and I can just re-print the whole body in ~15 mins! It's great when you DIY this, it's a bit weird to be sold if it still breaks easily...
We haven't adopted a BMS(battery management system) in fpv because it would literally double the weight of your battery. For most drones this isn't a problem because you don't even need a 10c continuous discharge to hover and slowly fly around. Because of this a 5 pound drone battery might have a 1/2 pound BMS, but I'm fpv we need about 100c peak discharge. This means that a BMS for an fpv battery would weigh about the same as the battery itself. On top of this it would double or triple the price, triple the volume of the battery, and make it much less crash friendly.
@@cinialvespow1054 that little BMS needs to regulate about 130 amps. That alone would make it bigger than a 4 in 1 esc. You then need a balance board to balance the cells, a computer system capable of controlling the whole thing, and a heat sink to cool the system. I can assure you that a BMS for a 200g fpv battery would be really close to 200g. Also not sure what you are talking about with unnecessary circuitry. I built and design electric paramotors rated for human flight, and everyone in that industry knows that you should put a BMS on your electric paramotor. If you don't, you are just asking for a big fire on your back.
Josh I love what you do and how you do it! Especially how your style of flying . It's jaw dropping Imo your teaching 1000s of people including myself Thank you! I'm sure in the next 5 to 10 years fpv and gps drones are going to change to a point to where I hope acro goes into an effect to where the drone never crashes with stabilizing protocols & sensors even on drones that go so fast that today's nazgul5 looks like childsplay
Sort of. Mosfets require 7-18 volts on their gate to fully turn on. So you'd need either a very specialized trench mosfet, something like a high current Jfet, or a gate drive circuit. But, yeah, it wouldn't really be that hard. And it wouldn't take much weight or PCB room.
@@gizmoguyar What do you mean "fully turned on"? I've used lots of mosfets in low-voltage circuits (5V or lower) and never had any troubles with that. Or is that a shortcoming of the specific application @licensetodrive is mentioning?
@@TheElhorn If you look at the datasheet for your mosfet there will be a drain current vs gate voltage curve. typically a log chart. Most gen purpose mosfets need 10 volts before they meet their rated on state resistance. There are so called "logic level" mosfets that turn on at lower voltage. But generally they sacrifice in other areas. Often, logic level mosfets are simply regular mosfets that have been derated to run at a higher resistance. For active rectification.You usually want a charge pump or a boot strapping circuit to provide a higher voltage to the gate than what is available at the supply.
@@gizmoguyar You MIGHT get away with some laptops, my laptop pulls around 200w (its about 230w constant with it plugged in), and it can drain battery from full to empty pretty fast (even just updating Steam games I had a hard time getting over 45 minutes without under-volting the processor as well as removing the HDD and replacing with an NVME SSD just so my games updated within 30 minutes at McDonnalds before it died). It has some Panasonic cells in it, I forget the number but I think they are the high drain variety, so you just might get away with finding some of those in the high end gaming laptops, however they like to deteriorate rapidly so salvaging cells from a high end laptop that's still fairly new is less likely than a low end model that someone decided was just too slow to bother with. At least the batteries are cheap, usually under $10 per cell so $50 you could fly for over an hour (which is like half the price of a single really good 4s graphene pack). I think the 26800 cells are going to be the way forward, they are incredibly cheap at $6 and have like 6.8 Ah per cell with decent c ratings, so you've got a bit more oomph to work with however you'll need to find some high KV motors that have the torque to spin large props because they are like having 2-2.5x 18650 in parallels.
I used it once in my bb gun arena as scout drone everyone was amazed with its flight time and size, it's pretty much quite and for me last around 10 min, I used this to flank protection and it's worked some time after my enemies try to push us if they hear iav sound,
The things I like is that I can print up a new chassis anytime I would need to, it would be cool to just to laps around the outside of house, with long fly times, and quick batt change no stress
I think the risk of reversing the battery could be fixed with a MOSFET by connecting the gate and the power feed to the positive connection. which would have the gate close when powers are applied properly and have it cut off when it's not.
Don't underestimated the advantage of the quietness of the quad for those who live in more populated cities. I have it and enjoy it since it doesn't freak out the neighbors and pedestrians. Its also not as high pitched of a sound like you get on the tiny whoops .
It seems more fun as a tinker project than something that’s actually fun to fly. Love your honest review so purchasers can be well informed what it is, and what it’s not.
And, if one of your cells is damaged you don't have to worry about wasting throwing an entire battery out of a single cell, because it is already a single cell. Loved the idea!
The simple fact you can leave the batteries charged for an extended period is cool. Everything about the quad is interesting. Sure the flight characteristics might not be impressive to people who have awesome options. But this has that field expedient allure to it. Nothing like the random hey I wanna fly and its all ready to go. No need to plan packs and make time to baby sit a charger. I fully understand your take on this, but i think this offers a certain utility that's is being taken for granted. I want one, its just not my first choice, or what I'm most excited about getting in the air with. Thanks.
I built my first quad right when the very very first FCs were coming out....... It's the only quad I've ever flown. Heh thing thing flies much better then anything I'm used to
As a reconnaissance drone in a armed conflict the concept is perfect as you can just source your batteries from old laptops. Personally I would scale it up to a 2S.
@@ulliu.3200 Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. For sure I wouldn't bet my life on old batteries from unused laptops. In an armed conflict, where people with shoulder-fired missiles are trying to kill me and my family, I'm going to spring for a new battery. Of course, I'm also going to want to do reconnaissance further than a few hundred meters away. :)
If you're not mistaken about your Crossfire module being set at 1W, you've got something else going on. It shouldn't be dropping to RFMode 1, losing LQ, or showing RSSI LOW warnings for quite some distance! Crossfire, and LoRa in general do amazingly even when the circumstances are terrible, like broken antennas, etc. For reference, at 500mW with a suboptimal antenna setup, I drop to RFMode 1 at ~700m distance in open air. Make sure your gear is good before you lose something expensive!
Expanding on this mathematically: an RSSI LOW warning indicates an RSSI value below 20 on the 0-100 scale (by default), which scales to -103dBm. Doing free-space path loss calculations given 2dBi antennas and 1W tx power, in an ideal world, that means you'd have to be roughly 114 miles away from your transmitter for that warning to pop up.
Man I do like the concept of flying around on a single 18650. Not because of the lipo hassle. It's just some what freaking cool that this drone is working off that single cell.
I built three when Dave released the files on thingiverse. Had a lot of fun flying and crashing them then fixing them with the kids. But I ordered mine on the pre-order April 12th and I still haven't gotten production model. I'm trying to be patient because I really like Dave C. But if it was any other company I wouldn't have that much patience.
I wished I didn't receive mine, as it came with so many assembly faults, inc a complete absence of any setup/tune, one motor running reversed and the worst CADDX camera I have ever experienced. Finally have it running well, getting over 15 minutes of fairly high speed cruise with the odd flip out of a VTC6 which is OK for the first half of a battery. Finally also got the motors to build my own after very long delay. It's 2g heavier than the Rekon, and flies if anything better. Range is better than I need, performance for some pleasant quick cruising quite enough (its speedy given its small power supply). My Rekon 3 goes down to 2.7v easily, as does my build with voltage hold up, etc (not pushed it more). Its great around my garden being very quiet.
2:55 that red tape is for pull out the battery from the tray and you must stick those ends together like tongue. Best 18650 battery is Samsung INR21700 50E 5000mAh, for Drone. you did learn something today :))
Wonder if the form factor would work better with a pair of 18350's, for the higher voltage of two cells. Might be more interesting to see what the fixed wing or heli equivalent of this is.
As a concept I think it's a cool design. I remixed the Thingiverse frame, added a GPS, Ghost link and Tramp Nano VTX and flew this little sucker 5km out and back! So longrange is possible on 1S!
Did you just use the stock pids that davec provided? I had to fiddle with them a bit but I'm still getting some oscillations. Not quite confident enough to send it long range yet... Mainly because I don't have a gps on it yet lmao Did you post your remix to thingi?
Thank you. I was considering this as my first quad mostly Bc of my worry about lipo batteries and I vape so I have several 18650 batteries around but now I know I shouldn’t so thanks!
This is going to be my first fpv drone, and the biggest reason is the RC hobby community where I live is very very limited, so it is almost impossible to get high discharge lipos. Getting them from abroad is a whole ordeal with customs and it will not work 90% of the time. Guess what does have a pretty big community here? Vapes! So I can get high discharge 18650s very easily and way cheaper than any lipo I can find. This is honestly a game changer for people in my position (more than you think!)
@@onnovannoort7690 it can, of course. I can even describe development plan: 1. Replace frame to something airworthy and durable; 2. Get rid of heavy 1s liion battery and replace it with 2s lipo; 3. Remove useless stepup and lc filter. 4. Replace props to some 3-blade. After these steps you ready to rip with this cool toothpick, durable and agile. It was the way I developed this thingie. Honestly I see nothing revolutionary in this “invention” as it doesn’t serve it’s purpose well so for me it’s a fail. Deadcat frame? Invented before. Liion packs? Also been used in quadcopter world a long time before. As an another concept of same level I can propose installing solar panels atop to charge liion battery inflight (sarcasm).
I just realized for whom this qwad is intended for!! This might be the perfect first / beginner qwad!! You can postpone the whole lipo learning curve and invest, is RTF., not too powerful, fast, heavy or dangerous.
Received a rekon 3 nano and on the 4th flight had to disarm in the air and the bottom cover shattered on sidewalk. HGLRC didn't seem to have any STL files, so put the motors and electronics on dave_c's model from thingiverse with a few tweaks (immortal t mount, reinforced the camera walls, 45° antenna mount on the rear). No, the bottom plate on thingiverse doesn't fit the rekon. Took that garbage dipole antenna off (rf doesn't penetrate an 18650 and we all like flying home) and replaced it with a TBS triumph pro on a 45° mount. Put bi-directional dshot on the esc's for RPM filtering and am slowly trying to tune it. For something I can just reprint the breakable stuff it's nice to be able to focus on the flight instead of the voltage reading on the OSD. I had a 14 min flight yesterday on a 3000 mah at 2.8v, battery was warm but healthy. The production model needs some work, no argument there: Price is too high, and for how fragile some of the parts are I'd expect some spares, at least of the 3d printed stuff if the STLs aren't available online.
All of this and a lot more can be done on a light 2s toothpick with naked vista and a slightly larger LiPo (I can get 10 minutes in the new 600mAh GNB)… And that can actually get some serious range. Yeah it’s a tiny bit louder so you can hear it a few meters further away from yourself 🤣 But I definitely wouldn’t trade the convenience of just being able to put a cell in the holder for literary everything else…
I'm not a pro by any means. However, the idea of flying 15 minutes on a 18650 battery was appealing to me. I pull the trigger and purchased one. Got it a couple weeks ago, and flew it on a 3015mAH 18650. I wasn't flippy flopping or performing any special moves. Just cruising around. I did manage to get 15 minutes of flight time on one cell. I agree not a fast quad but being able to fly off of an 18650 battery for 15 minutes is pretty cool. Advice, if you cannot get 18650 batteries, head to your local vape shop. They stock plenty on had.
the main problem with high energy cylinders like 18650's is the positive terminal is right next to the negative terminal outer body, they're regulated as industrial use
I just got back into drones, and this was the build I chose to do it with. I found the frame design on thingiverse and downloaded that, printed it and went through the creators shopping list for recommended hardware. I am a vaper, and have somewhere around 10 of these batteries laying around. Turns out, only two of them had a high enough amp dump to get off the ground for any real amount of time. Even when you do, its a bear to fly. I ended up opting for some 1s batteries meant for this size and going with that. I did get a few good sessions out of the drone, but no matter what material I printed from the camera mounting always broke in a crash. always. I am at a point now where I will be rebuilding it for the 4th time. (fortunately with a 3d printer its just a few hours before I have another one ready to go) So I am looking at taking the hardware and moving it over onto a different frame, I modified a little v-tail drone that was meant to have brushed motors in it with the arms on this drone to fit the same motors. I think that will be a good fun little build, with the camera mounting inside the body rather than exposed out in front.
Joshua, I do like the idea behind the 18650 battery. It makes it more simple easy to charge, and a little less daunting for people not familiar with lipos. I also do see where once you get it going, yes I have my drone, I have my setup let me push it a little more. The idea in my opinion is a good idea but this is more of phase 1 - 18650 drone. I would love to see more updates done and builds so it can have maybe 2 batteries and push more power and better tech used just to see what we can come out with and how good it works.
Im making my first RC. Going to use 2 18650 20a CDR 3000mah in series because i have alots of.those from vaping. You also have 21700 with 40 or 50amps CDR and up to 5000mah.
No disrespect to Dave C's work, I am very interested in the progress but this is just my opinion on the drone right now: it does not have a gps or amazing video range (even on 350mw the dipole and position of it will be limiting), no gps, not good at fighting wind and not fun to fly, so what is the point of having a 9 minute flight time? If you are not doing proper long range, surely it would be way more fun to have something that is fun and can cover the same range as it. A good example is the tinyhawk 2 freestyle - reasonably durable, up to 8 minute flight time cruising with 2x 1s in series, can be modded with tbs vtx and receiver for excellent range. It will fly pretty much smoother than any other micro bnf and it can really do freestyle. As for batteries, the 1s lipos are super easy to charge and low risk! So although I think this is a really cool concept, I think it does not have any real attraction or advantage to other options. If there was a gps and more power so it could fight wind, then it would be a lot more appealing.
I think this is the way forward, especially if hobby drones want to compete with DJI on flight time. I'm pretty sure their smart batteries use Li-Ion chemistry instead of LiPo, which lets them get those insane flight times. With improving power density on 18650 style cells and more high kv motors for low cell quads, something like a 2S or 3S 18650 mild acro quad will probably be a thing in the near future.
The draw of this for me was definitely the simplicity + flight time. I have some interest in the baby tooth as well, you kept saying it can do this as well but every video I've seen on babytooth is 4min flights?
Correct, but the electronics on the quad shut down around 3.0 volts. Which is why the step-up regulator that DaveC uses is so nice. But the Rekon doesn't have it.
In a crash, the force is proportional weight. If it crashes, I WANT one of the heaviest parts, the battery, to pop out rather than applying all that force to the arms and other parts. Consider the difference between dropping an empty foam cup to the floor, vs one that has rocks taped inside. For my plane, I even considered having a "oh sh*t" switch which would unlatch the nose containing the battery and motor. The rest of the plane would then be essentially a piece of foam, floating gently down.
I built a similar 3D printed one (Nanofoot on Thingiverse) that uses two 18650's. It flew okayish, but only ~8 minutes at near 16A cruising. I put a 2S 850 LiPo on it and a world of difference...now much more fun to fly, but only ~5+ minutes fly time and doesn't 'jitter' like the 1S one. The 18650's are just to heavy for such a small quad.
Awesome flying and review, Joshua! 😃 You know, even with all the limitations, it's a pretty interesting little quad! As you said, it's pretty easy to plug and just freaking fly! 😃 And who knows? Maybe tomorrow we can have a new and better battery! 😃 Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Got 2km away and back on a Trashcan with crossfire and Gnb 2s 450mah…also got the Rekon3 but I don’t trust it enough to try the same…and the Trashcan it’s a tiny with a 450mah battery 🤷♂️
Hey, I'm just building one. For me it's mostly enjoying the process and learning about drones in general. I don't think I'd just go off and buy a pre-built one to be fair.
My 18650s (Samsungs I think) used in the Fat Shark case hardly last half the day before my goggles start beeping. I started using a 3S lipo with a DIY XT60-to-barrel plug and it lasts more than a couple of days. I have some Sonys that don't fit in the Fat Shark case so if I got this Rekon to cruise around with, I'd have cells to use.
15 min flight with 18650 is awesome, but at 50% throttle to hover i feel i would be getting bored quickly. it needs gps and a split style cam for anything running 50% throttle and cruising to have any purpose IMHO. but after falling over quad 66's and kebabs builds, i decided to make a good performing 2s toothpick.
I'm new to drones (as in 0 experience at all) and have a 3d printer. I saw this and thought "this would be a fun intro into the hobby and I can have a replacement part printed in an hour or so". I'm still on the fence as if it's a good time investment.
I almost never charge my goggle battery, because i use a 2500mAh battery - so it's not something I really think about or that makes me wish everything was powered on 18650s.
So I wonder what your conclusion would be had you tested at 350 instead of 25. NO JUDGMENT! just thinking of myself and how I would have concluded this craft. I think this is really neat myself even with a crap transmitter. Thank you for all your work. I love the content.
I think his opinion would be the same except that you get farther flying range, however its so under-powered that you couldn't do cool things like flying between trees exploring unknown locations since it doesn't have the oomph to get out of the way of a ghost branch nor the durability if it hits a twig. It has a very specific purpose and use case, it would be good for someone that likes cruising very boring open fields (think AMA foamie guys, though many of them hate quads so I don't see them enjoying it unless you told them it was fixed wing), or I can also see this useful for inspecting cows and always keeping one in the glovebox of your side by side ATV because that's what you do, explore a large open field counting cows and seeing where they are, plus less likely to catch fire being that it will be improperly charged all the time. That would be an excellent use if they had a way to discharge batteries after an hour of the ATV off and then quickly charge when the vehicle is started but that's more system integration design than just a quad (simple to do though). I prefer close proximity acro around trees so this unfortunately wouldn't be any good for that nor do I enjoy flying boring open fields, however, someone coming from a DJI background might actually like these for multiple reasons so they have a market.
@@jakegarrett8109 Good argument, I like you fly racing quads. I have big power set ups. But I do like the idea of clipping a single battery that is inexpensive into a quad and going for a fly. My point was the experience is what matters and a poor video signal ruins that. I hope they improve on the idea and battery performance continues to improve as well.
I run a crux3 with 2s 450's too. It's got a ton of power compared to the quad in the review. Feel like if you put a larger battery like a 600mah on there it would still outperform this thing and could probably go 15 min of cruising.
Had an 18650 explode in my hand as I was throwing it outside. I believe it was due to a faulty charger, but it still warrants bringing up. Definitely respect these cells.
I got one, 5 mins in to first flight clipped a twig and landed in my grass from about 6-8 ft up. No lie, mine broke in the exact same place as JB. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get a replacement arm and parts apparently aren't around. "HONEY, I need to buy a 3d printer!", " NO, it's not for drone stuff, it's to make and fix toys for the kids!"
This is for sure an awesome drone for relaxed random cruising. The most important thing here is that you can pull out of the pocket yet another battery and fly another 10-15 minutes. Try to carry a small and soft LiPos in your pocket hahaha.
I gave up flying quads on liion, and repurposed my cells as custom 3s goggle batteries that work great. It's hard to compete with lipos; they fly wonderfully, are more durable, and are just more fun. Thinking of DaveC, I love his 4" class when powered with a lipo. There are already great flying 1s quads, and their batteries are generally so light that the quads are unbreakable, so this liion 1s quad is mostly useful as an experiment and data point.
You fly 18650 to LR cruise im sure you know this but new audience might not. You aren't intending to crash with these LR builds. You can throw a lipo on sure when you want a joyride but might as well build a good 5" freestyle build at that point... it will make you that much more giddy than a typical LR build ever could if thats the type of flying you are after. I have both classes of 5" Shocker for this reason, LR frame for 6S 18650, 2204 t-mount motors, AIO beast F7 (via 3d printed adapter) & vista which gets almost 30 minutes in the air, along with Tank build thereof with Xing2 2207, Air Unit and a full stack that gets under 4 minutes of super hard ripping on 100C 6S 1550mAh lipo. Totally different classes of quad, throwing a lipo on the LR one won't really get me the same thrill. Everyone new in the hobby should be building some standard type of 5" FS build at some form or another even as a 2nd simply because the learning capabilities thereof are unmatched, its the gold standard of quadcopter flight characteristics.
I really love how dave c is trying to bypass lipos I mean the idea is awesome I really loved how JB and the rotor riot guys tried the AA battery test 😁👍 I love that vid btw lol but I do like this idea I'm sure dave will try to improve on this....I hope lol🤞....definitely not for me I'm a newb and I would probably break this just getting it out of the packaging....but the idea is awesome.....but just not the type of flying I wanna do ....another awesome review JB 👍.....
Your the 3rd big time reviewer ive watched who broke this quad during a review,it doesn't inspire the $140 it costs to buy it although a good idea concept I agree with your thoughts about it.keep up the great reviews etc JB.
It's massively over priced specially considering its largely a 3d printed frame with gangly carbon legs strapped on, at a guess I'd say the entire component list is under $80
I agree a lot of the appeal is to print one and build it out of whatever parts you like or can find - in fact so many people seem to be building them that I couldn't even find 4 of the same brand motor 😂. But as Dave_C says in his own videos, it is not a build for beginners or anyone who has only done 5" ... I would rate the build experience as "godawful" and I've done plenty of toothpicks.
i'm one of the guys who wants one of these for no reason, just because it seems very cool putting a 18650 and make a cruise flight without have to change the lipos every 2 min. In any case Dave has make a really interesting project..
I'd rather deal with lipos than use a quad where it's easy to accidentally plug the battery in backwards & fry the whole thing.
I mean, I have a 7" quad, I plug the battery in, I fly for 20 mins or more, I plug the battery into the charger, I press start and it charges. It's pretty simple: I only have one size & voltage of battery for my quad, so I set the amps & voltage once on the charger & never worry again. Yes, it's not sub250, but I don't need it to be.
i was flying with someone who had the flywoo hexplorer hexacopter and was running on 4 18650s in a battey tray like this! was rippin it too and on a windy day!
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What I got out of this: Don't crash it, don't fly it, don't buy it. Thanks for another honest review.
Impressive punch out ! 😂
I just finished building the thingiverse version of this guy out of spare parts - it's a fun little quad! There's a remix that incorporates the 18650 holder to the frame so there's one less part to grab. Having the right battery cell makes a huge difference, although the fact that yours browns out at 3v I think yours is missing the 5v step-up because I can run my battery down to like 2.7v
Its not bout e voltage numbers IMO, its e voltage cant be delivered. He used an average 18650, so e deliverer of that voltage was weak amperage, and so e quad browned out. Sony VTCs are hailed by vapers for their high current discharge rates and so led to Bardwell's successful test flight. High discharge 18650s are e way to go for this quad
@@TheReelRahim yeah the high discharge cells are absolutely the way to go, but at the same time having that boost converter helps smooth it out, especially for some of the more sensitive vtx's. I had a vtx a while back that I tried to use for a custom 1s tinywhoop that just crapped itself if it went under 3.3v, which was a bit of an issue for me back then because I was used to abusing my lipos and running them down to (and sometimes past) 3v lol
HGLRC decided not to install a 5V stepup-module.
With this little improvement (which is part of the thingiverse description) you can run this little bad boy until you hit 2.5V and even lower Volts.
So 10-15 Minutes cruising around with one simple battery is totally fine.
Sure, but it starts to shake seriously on descents and barely holds itself in the air when flown with voltages lower than 2.8. But it‘s definitely a unique experience to land a quad at full throttle 😂.
Dave said he didn't experience any increase in flight time with the stepup module. I think it was because he was using a really noisy module, and had to use a filter board. I think if HGLRC could integrate a good, filtered 5v or even 3.3v step up, and find someone who will make a 3v3 Camera and VTX, they could get more out of the LiIon Cell. in my opinion though, 1s LiIon just isnt worth it, 2s is the bottom limit right now for LiIon. both cells can get down to 2.5v and still manage a 5v supply without a stepup.
@@xymaryai8283 21700 cells have 20% higher energy density, at least the Tesla ones, I think we are at the mercy of EV manufacturing advancements to pushing this 1s-2s envelope much further. That 20% is enough to make some good design changes or accommodate something like a naked GoPro.
tested my nanolr with a variable power supply. at 25mw the vtx stayed alive until around 2.2v although it started to noticably decrease in output power at around 2.5v. havent tried it in flight with an actual battery yet because still waiting for my motors to get here. ( ua-cam.com/video/I9CXo6LVoUk/v-deo.html audio warning and skip to 10 seconds in if you dont want to sit through 10 seconds of static audio and a blue screen)
I built something similar at the beginning of last year, I used 2X18650's on 4inch prop. flight time was 50 minutes :-)
I'm now currently running a Hexa with 3 X 27100 and get 60 minutes!!! Welcome to the future!!!!
I was looking at the 27100 and you can find some with a 45amp discharge. 4000-5000ma and not a whole lot heavier then the 18650
@@jtcustomknives You can try the 21700 Tesla cells and also the Samsung 5000e (5,000mah) 2s1p For a Hexa you can use 2s2p (10,000mah) or 2s3p !!
Can you share brief Specs?
I printed it, built it myself, and its a lot more powerful it seems, and I can just re-print the whole body in ~15 mins! It's great when you DIY this, it's a bit weird to be sold if it still breaks easily...
Why, because a brilliant engineer could! I really respect his design work but I don’t feel like this one is for me. Outstanding content sir!
JB: It obviously hasn't been crashed
JB from the future: Hold my beer.
It’s an interesting little quad tho.
*white claw
*mio squirtz
*scotch on the rocks
Instead of a battery strap, just run a bit of that red tape on it around the body. Quick, cheap and just needs to hold for a flight.
I love the comedically large battery and how it sits on the drone lol
We haven't adopted a BMS(battery management system) in fpv because it would literally double the weight of your battery. For most drones this isn't a problem because you don't even need a 10c continuous discharge to hover and slowly fly around. Because of this a 5 pound drone battery might have a 1/2 pound BMS, but I'm fpv we need about 100c peak discharge. This means that a BMS for an fpv battery would weigh about the same as the battery itself. On top of this it would double or triple the price, triple the volume of the battery, and make it much less crash friendly.
Is this true ??? Why would the little BMS circuit weigh as much as the lipo cells ?
This is news to me
Not true...for the first and for obvious reasons you should not carry unnecessary circuitry on an aircraft
@@cinialvespow1054 that little BMS needs to regulate about 130 amps. That alone would make it bigger than a 4 in 1 esc. You then need a balance board to balance the cells, a computer system capable of controlling the whole thing, and a heat sink to cool the system. I can assure you that a BMS for a 200g fpv battery would be really close to 200g.
Also not sure what you are talking about with unnecessary circuitry. I built and design electric paramotors rated for human flight, and everyone in that industry knows that you should put a BMS on your electric paramotor. If you don't, you are just asking for a big fire on your back.
Bardwell is always at the absolute forefront of FPV. Its crazy. Its like you are reading my mind
Josh I love what you do and how you do it! Especially how your style of flying . It's jaw dropping Imo your teaching 1000s of people including myself
Thank you! I'm sure in the next 5 to 10 years fpv and gps drones are going to change to a point to where I hope acro goes into an effect to where the drone never crashes with stabilizing protocols & sensors even on drones that go so fast that today's nazgul5 looks like childsplay
Reverse voltage protection can be done with virtually no voltage drop, by using a P-channel MOSFET wired in a certain way.
Sort of. Mosfets require 7-18 volts on their gate to fully turn on. So you'd need either a very specialized trench mosfet, something like a high current Jfet, or a gate drive circuit. But, yeah, it wouldn't really be that hard. And it wouldn't take much weight or PCB room.
@@gizmoguyar What do you mean "fully turned on"? I've used lots of mosfets in low-voltage circuits (5V or lower) and never had any troubles with that. Or is that a shortcoming of the specific application @licensetodrive is mentioning?
@@TheElhorn If you look at the datasheet for your mosfet there will be a drain current vs gate voltage curve. typically a log chart. Most gen purpose mosfets need 10 volts before they meet their rated on state resistance. There are so called "logic level" mosfets that turn on at lower voltage. But generally they sacrifice in other areas. Often, logic level mosfets are simply regular mosfets that have been derated to run at a higher resistance. For active rectification.You usually want a charge pump or a boot strapping circuit to provide a higher voltage to the gate than what is available at the supply.
I feel like it's a good quad to build and tinker for those of us who owns a 3d printer and some 18650 laying around.
Not so much a quad to buy.
Except that you do need high discharge cells. The type scrounged from laptops or flashlights probably won't work.
@@gizmoguyar You MIGHT get away with some laptops, my laptop pulls around 200w (its about 230w constant with it plugged in), and it can drain battery from full to empty pretty fast (even just updating Steam games I had a hard time getting over 45 minutes without under-volting the processor as well as removing the HDD and replacing with an NVME SSD just so my games updated within 30 minutes at McDonnalds before it died). It has some Panasonic cells in it, I forget the number but I think they are the high drain variety, so you just might get away with finding some of those in the high end gaming laptops, however they like to deteriorate rapidly so salvaging cells from a high end laptop that's still fairly new is less likely than a low end model that someone decided was just too slow to bother with.
At least the batteries are cheap, usually under $10 per cell so $50 you could fly for over an hour (which is like half the price of a single really good 4s graphene pack). I think the 26800 cells are going to be the way forward, they are incredibly cheap at $6 and have like 6.8 Ah per cell with decent c ratings, so you've got a bit more oomph to work with however you'll need to find some high KV motors that have the torque to spin large props because they are like having 2-2.5x 18650 in parallels.
I used it once in my bb gun arena as scout drone everyone was amazed with its flight time and size, it's pretty much quite and for me last around 10 min, I used this to flank protection and it's worked some time after my enemies try to push us if they hear iav sound,
The things I like is that I can print up a new chassis anytime I would need to, it would be cool to just to laps around the outside of house, with long fly times, and quick batt change no stress
I think the risk of reversing the battery could be fixed with a MOSFET by connecting the gate and the power feed to the positive connection. which would have the gate close when powers are applied properly and have it cut off when it's not.
Don't underestimated the advantage of the quietness of the quad for those who live in more populated cities. I have it and enjoy it since it doesn't freak out the neighbors and pedestrians. Its also not as high pitched of a sound like you get on the tiny whoops .
Babytooth 3" build are lighter, quieter, very durable and can fly as long or longer on less mah lipo batts.
@@Clif_Brown I can second this, my babytooth has damn near the same amount of power as my 3 in tadpole on 3s
@@GTXgb-gt8lz tadpole the armatann? Cool looking frame
The battery ejection is a saftey feature so you dont burn the motors
It seems more fun as a tinker project than something that’s actually fun to fly.
Love your honest review so purchasers can be well informed what it is, and what it’s not.
And, if one of your cells is damaged you don't have to worry about wasting throwing an entire battery out of a single cell, because it is already a single cell. Loved the idea!
The simple fact you can leave the batteries charged for an extended period is cool. Everything about the quad is interesting. Sure the flight characteristics might not be impressive to people who have awesome options. But this has that field expedient allure to it. Nothing like the random hey I wanna fly and its all ready to go. No need to plan packs and make time to baby sit a charger. I fully understand your take on this, but i think this offers a certain utility that's is being taken for granted. I want one, its just not my first choice, or what I'm most excited about getting in the air with. Thanks.
I built my first quad right when the very very first FCs were coming out....... It's the only quad I've ever flown. Heh thing thing flies much better then anything I'm used to
As a reconnaissance drone in a armed conflict the concept is perfect as you can just source your batteries from old laptops. Personally I would scale it up to a 2S.
I don't think the cells from old laptops would fulfill the current requirement of the drone
@@ulliu.3200 Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. For sure I wouldn't bet my life on old batteries from unused laptops. In an armed conflict, where people with shoulder-fired missiles are trying to kill me and my family, I'm going to spring for a new battery.
Of course, I'm also going to want to do reconnaissance further than a few hundred meters away. :)
To me, this would be a novelty purchase to experience and add to my collection.
If you're not mistaken about your Crossfire module being set at 1W, you've got something else going on. It shouldn't be dropping to RFMode 1, losing LQ, or showing RSSI LOW warnings for quite some distance! Crossfire, and LoRa in general do amazingly even when the circumstances are terrible, like broken antennas, etc.
For reference, at 500mW with a suboptimal antenna setup, I drop to RFMode 1 at ~700m distance in open air.
Make sure your gear is good before you lose something expensive!
I had it locked at RFMode 1 since I knew latency was not really going to be a concern.
@@JoshuaBardwell With all due respect, check again - at 10:03, you can see it pop into RFMode 2 when you come close intermittently.
Expanding on this mathematically: an RSSI LOW warning indicates an RSSI value below 20 on the 0-100 scale (by default), which scales to -103dBm.
Doing free-space path loss calculations given 2dBi antennas and 1W tx power, in an ideal world, that means you'd have to be roughly 114 miles away from your transmitter for that warning to pop up.
Man I do like the concept of flying around on a single 18650.
Not because of the lipo hassle.
It's just some what freaking cool that this drone is working off that single cell.
I built three when Dave released the files on thingiverse. Had a lot of fun flying and crashing them then fixing them with the kids. But I ordered mine on the pre-order April 12th and I still haven't gotten production model. I'm trying to be patient because I really like Dave C. But if it was any other company I wouldn't have that much patience.
I wished I didn't receive mine, as it came with so many assembly faults, inc a complete absence of any setup/tune, one motor running reversed and the worst CADDX camera I have ever experienced. Finally have it running well, getting over 15 minutes of fairly high speed cruise with the odd flip out of a VTC6 which is OK for the first half of a battery. Finally also got the motors to build my own after very long delay. It's 2g heavier than the Rekon, and flies if anything better. Range is better than I need, performance for some pleasant quick cruising quite enough (its speedy given its small power supply). My Rekon 3 goes down to 2.7v easily, as does my build with voltage hold up, etc (not pushed it more). Its great around my garden being very quiet.
2:55 that red tape is for pull out the battery from the tray and you must stick those ends together like tongue. Best 18650 battery is Samsung INR21700 50E 5000mAh, for Drone. you did learn something today :))
Wonder if the form factor would work better with a pair of 18350's, for the higher voltage of two cells.
Might be more interesting to see what the fixed wing or heli equivalent of this is.
As a concept I think it's a cool design. I remixed the Thingiverse frame, added a GPS, Ghost link and Tramp Nano VTX and flew this little sucker 5km out and back! So longrange is possible on 1S!
Did you just use the stock pids that davec provided? I had to fiddle with them a bit but I'm still getting some oscillations. Not quite confident enough to send it long range yet... Mainly because I don't have a gps on it yet lmao
Did you post your remix to thingi?
Japanese Version of Mavic Mini (199g Version with one Cell instead of two 18650 as battery) flies 18 Min. Since 2019.
Thank you. I was considering this as my first quad mostly Bc of my worry about lipo batteries and I vape so I have several 18650 batteries around but now I know I shouldn’t so thanks!
I like how you flew it into the ground, good duration test there. I liked it!
This is going to be my first fpv drone, and the biggest reason is the RC hobby community where I live is very very limited, so it is almost impossible to get high discharge lipos. Getting them from abroad is a whole ordeal with customs and it will not work 90% of the time.
Guess what does have a pretty big community here?
Vapes!
So I can get high discharge 18650s very easily and way cheaper than any lipo I can find. This is honestly a game changer for people in my position (more than you think!)
He seems funny this time, but yet very aware like always master of drones
"rekk-un"
Wouldn't it be like "recon"?
Thought the same thing
Dave C says it like Reckon. fwiw, like reconnoiter. Don't think he cares much how you say it though.
if its spelt rekon, and dave-C pronounces it rekon, why would you call it recon?
No, it's pronounced Rekun, because I don't Rekun this has a purpose, so I ain't buyin' it!
It certainly isn't any fun! lol
Shit I've been saying recon
My babytooth all up weight with a 2s is 55g and it absolutely rips!!!
Beside the bad things, it’s really cool what Dave did. What will the future brings, I wonder!
so what particularly dave did? it doesn't fly, it struggles all the way
@@oleg146 I think the concept is really cool. Maybe with some more development it can become also great.
@@onnovannoort7690 it can, of course. I can even describe development plan: 1. Replace frame to something airworthy and durable; 2. Get rid of heavy 1s liion battery and replace it with 2s lipo; 3. Remove useless stepup and lc filter. 4. Replace props to some 3-blade. After these steps you ready to rip with this cool toothpick, durable and agile. It was the way I developed this thingie. Honestly I see nothing revolutionary in this “invention” as it doesn’t serve it’s purpose well so for me it’s a fail. Deadcat frame? Invented before. Liion packs? Also been used in quadcopter world a long time before. As an another concept of same level I can propose installing solar panels atop to charge liion battery inflight (sarcasm).
I just realized for whom this qwad is intended for!!
This might be the perfect first / beginner qwad!!
You can postpone the whole lipo learning curve and invest, is RTF., not too powerful, fast, heavy or dangerous.
Received a rekon 3 nano and on the 4th flight had to disarm in the air and the bottom cover shattered on sidewalk. HGLRC didn't seem to have any STL files, so put the motors and electronics on dave_c's model from thingiverse with a few tweaks (immortal t mount, reinforced the camera walls, 45° antenna mount on the rear). No, the bottom plate on thingiverse doesn't fit the rekon. Took that garbage dipole antenna off (rf doesn't penetrate an 18650 and we all like flying home) and replaced it with a TBS triumph pro on a 45° mount. Put bi-directional dshot on the esc's for RPM filtering and am slowly trying to tune it. For something I can just reprint the breakable stuff it's nice to be able to focus on the flight instead of the voltage reading on the OSD. I had a 14 min flight yesterday on a 3000 mah at 2.8v, battery was warm but healthy. The production model needs some work, no argument there: Price is too high, and for how fragile some of the parts are I'd expect some spares, at least of the 3d printed stuff if the STLs aren't available online.
All of this and a lot more can be done on a light 2s toothpick with naked vista and a slightly larger LiPo (I can get 10 minutes in the new 600mAh GNB)… And that can actually get some serious range. Yeah it’s a tiny bit louder so you can hear it a few meters further away from yourself 🤣
But I definitely wouldn’t trade the convenience of just being able to put a cell in the holder for literary everything else…
I'm not a pro by any means. However, the idea of flying 15 minutes on a 18650 battery was appealing to me. I pull the trigger and purchased one. Got it a couple weeks ago, and flew it on a 3015mAH 18650. I wasn't flippy flopping or performing any special moves. Just cruising around. I did manage to get 15 minutes of flight time on one cell. I agree not a fast quad but being able to fly off of an 18650 battery for 15 minutes is pretty cool. Advice, if you cannot get 18650 batteries, head to your local vape shop. They stock plenty on had.
the main problem with high energy cylinders like 18650's is the positive terminal is right next to the negative terminal outer body, they're regulated as industrial use
Why are a few people saying it "reck-in?" It's "ree-con." It's a "cute" misspelling of recon, as in reconnaissance. Long range recon. O_O
The Rekon FPV owner says it like reck-un, as in reconnoiter, and not ree-con, from reconnaissance.
@@KenPiper um, but reconnoiter is pronounced "rēkəˈnoidər" with a long e. :¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@ProjectMockingbird learned something new! I've always heard it as "eh" and not "ee", but the IPA don't lie, so I stand corrected on that!
I just got back into drones, and this was the build I chose to do it with. I found the frame design on thingiverse and downloaded that, printed it and went through the creators shopping list for recommended hardware. I am a vaper, and have somewhere around 10 of these batteries laying around. Turns out, only two of them had a high enough amp dump to get off the ground for any real amount of time. Even when you do, its a bear to fly. I ended up opting for some 1s batteries meant for this size and going with that.
I did get a few good sessions out of the drone, but no matter what material I printed from the camera mounting always broke in a crash. always. I am at a point now where I will be rebuilding it for the 4th time. (fortunately with a 3d printer its just a few hours before I have another one ready to go)
So I am looking at taking the hardware and moving it over onto a different frame, I modified a little v-tail drone that was meant to have brushed motors in it with the arms on this drone to fit the same motors. I think that will be a good fun little build, with the camera mounting inside the body rather than exposed out in front.
i made one of these! months ago
Joshua, I do like the idea behind the 18650 battery. It makes it more simple easy to charge, and a little less daunting for people not familiar with lipos. I also do see where once you get it going, yes I have my drone, I have my setup let me push it a little more. The idea in my opinion is a good idea but this is more of phase 1 - 18650 drone. I would love to see more updates done and builds so it can have maybe 2 batteries and push more power and better tech used just to see what we can come out with and how good it works.
Im making my first RC. Going to use 2 18650 20a CDR 3000mah in series because i have alots of.those from vaping.
You also have 21700 with 40 or 50amps CDR and up to 5000mah.
No disrespect to Dave C's work, I am very interested in the progress but this is just my opinion on the drone right now: it does not have a gps or amazing video range (even on 350mw the dipole and position of it will be limiting), no gps, not good at fighting wind and not fun to fly, so what is the point of having a 9 minute flight time? If you are not doing proper long range, surely it would be way more fun to have something that is fun and can cover the same range as it. A good example is the tinyhawk 2 freestyle - reasonably durable, up to 8 minute flight time cruising with 2x 1s in series, can be modded with tbs vtx and receiver for excellent range. It will fly pretty much smoother than any other micro bnf and it can really do freestyle. As for batteries, the 1s lipos are super easy to charge and low risk! So although I think this is a really cool concept, I think it does not have any real attraction or advantage to other options. If there was a gps and more power so it could fight wind, then it would be a lot more appealing.
The flight is just like a Bob Ross painting
so its the new tinyhawk... very nice!
I use 18650 Molicel P26a - 4s 2600Mah on my Silva whoop and I love it. 35% more flight time for me
I think this is the way forward, especially if hobby drones want to compete with DJI on flight time. I'm pretty sure their smart batteries use Li-Ion chemistry instead of LiPo, which lets them get those insane flight times. With improving power density on 18650 style cells and more high kv motors for low cell quads, something like a 2S or 3S 18650 mild acro quad will probably be a thing in the near future.
Thank you, hank you, thank you so much for the transparent reviews😊
Thanks for the video and the Helpful info! I’ll avoid this one!
The draw of this for me was definitely the simplicity + flight time. I have some interest in the baby tooth as well, you kept saying it can do this as well but every video I've seen on babytooth is 4min flights?
Sony/Murata VTC6 can discharge to 2.0V. Vtc5d have better c-rating (up to 200A - 8 sec VS 80A on vtc6), but have capacity 2700 mAh
Correct, but the electronics on the quad shut down around 3.0 volts. Which is why the step-up regulator that DaveC uses is so nice. But the Rekon doesn't have it.
In a crash, the force is proportional weight. If it crashes, I WANT one of the heaviest parts, the battery, to pop out rather than applying all that force to the arms and other parts.
Consider the difference between dropping an empty foam cup to the floor, vs one that has rocks taped inside.
For my plane, I even considered having a "oh sh*t" switch which would unlatch the nose containing the battery and motor. The rest of the plane would then be essentially a piece of foam, floating gently down.
Happy model released a crux nlr. Pretty cool. Got gps, buzzer, spi elrs… should be good for a couple km.
I built a similar 3D printed one (Nanofoot on Thingiverse) that uses two 18650's. It flew okayish, but only ~8 minutes at near 16A cruising. I put a 2S 850 LiPo on it and a world of difference...now much more fun to fly, but only ~5+ minutes fly time and doesn't 'jitter' like the 1S one. The 18650's are just to heavy for such a small quad.
Maybe a big capacitor as power buffer could help a bit :)
Awesome flying and review, Joshua! 😃
You know, even with all the limitations, it's a pretty interesting little quad! As you said, it's pretty easy to plug and just freaking fly! 😃
And who knows? Maybe tomorrow we can have a new and better battery! 😃
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
I really love your honesty.
Got 2km away and back on a Trashcan with crossfire and Gnb 2s 450mah…also got the Rekon3 but I don’t trust it enough to try the same…and the Trashcan it’s a tiny with a 450mah battery 🤷♂️
Kinda funny thought from a vaper.... These high output Sony 18650s are one of the only 18650s we look for in vaping. You dont want the wimpy ones!
At 2:48 it's not a lack of current, BUT the "voltage-sag" under load caused the brownout.
Joshua I like your shirt!
Hey, I'm just building one. For me it's mostly enjoying the process and learning about drones in general. I don't think I'd just go off and buy a pre-built one to be fair.
My 18650s (Samsungs I think) used in the Fat Shark case hardly last half the day before my goggles start beeping. I started using a 3S lipo with a DIY XT60-to-barrel plug and it lasts more than a couple of days. I have some Sonys that don't fit in the Fat Shark case so if I got this Rekon to cruise around with, I'd have cells to use.
15 min flight with 18650 is awesome, but at 50% throttle to hover i feel i would be getting bored quickly. it needs gps and a split style cam for anything running 50% throttle and cruising to have any purpose IMHO. but after falling over quad 66's and kebabs builds, i decided to make a good performing 2s toothpick.
I'm new to drones (as in 0 experience at all) and have a 3d printer. I saw this and thought "this would be a fun intro into the hobby and I can have a replacement part printed in an hour or so". I'm still on the fence as if it's a good time investment.
I almost never charge my goggle battery, because i use a 2500mAh battery - so it's not something I really think about or that makes me wish everything was powered on 18650s.
Agreed
I run 3k mah and still need to charge ever two sessions, what's your secret
@@cinialvespow1054 Aomway Commanders=P I guess they pull very little compared to other googles. Tiny screens and that kind of stuff.
He almost never fly...
I would want one. But would not pay alot for it because one crash and it's gone. I just love the no Lipo part!
wow. that's cool an 18650 drone. hey you should be happy its flying off cuz thats a small battery you know 1s. it just flys off 3.7v cell thats cool
So I wonder what your conclusion would be had you tested at 350 instead of 25. NO JUDGMENT! just thinking of myself and how I would have concluded this craft. I think this is really neat myself even with a crap transmitter. Thank you for all your work. I love the content.
I think his opinion would be the same except that you get farther flying range, however its so under-powered that you couldn't do cool things like flying between trees exploring unknown locations since it doesn't have the oomph to get out of the way of a ghost branch nor the durability if it hits a twig.
It has a very specific purpose and use case, it would be good for someone that likes cruising very boring open fields (think AMA foamie guys, though many of them hate quads so I don't see them enjoying it unless you told them it was fixed wing), or I can also see this useful for inspecting cows and always keeping one in the glovebox of your side by side ATV because that's what you do, explore a large open field counting cows and seeing where they are, plus less likely to catch fire being that it will be improperly charged all the time. That would be an excellent use if they had a way to discharge batteries after an hour of the ATV off and then quickly charge when the vehicle is started but that's more system integration design than just a quad (simple to do though). I prefer close proximity acro around trees so this unfortunately wouldn't be any good for that nor do I enjoy flying boring open fields, however, someone coming from a DJI background might actually like these for multiple reasons so they have a market.
@@jakegarrett8109 Good argument, I like you fly racing quads. I have big power set ups. But I do like the idea of clipping a single battery that is inexpensive into a quad and going for a fly. My point was the experience is what matters and a poor video signal ruins that. I hope they improve on the idea and battery performance continues to improve as well.
I think its the next step after the flight simulator. You get a lot of airtime and get familiar with the reality.
But then again it shatters on quite literally the lightest of crashes
love the haircut today JB!
Don't you just love East Tennessee? Beautiful spread Joshua.
Happymodel Crux3 on a 2S 450 mAh (~26 g Battery weight) ~50 g Kwad) flys up to 10 mins :P and it has plenty of power.
I run a crux3 with 2s 450's too. It's got a ton of power compared to the quad in the review. Feel like if you put a larger battery like a 600mah on there it would still outperform this thing and could probably go 15 min of cruising.
@@meh-87 sadly I don't have 2S 600 mAh ^^
Had an 18650 explode in my hand as I was throwing it outside. I believe it was due to a faulty charger, but it still warrants bringing up. Definitely respect these cells.
whatd it feel like
It even says it can take up to 2s! Id like to see this thing revisited, I bet it kicks ass on 2 rcr123a cells
Damn this teeny tiny crash broke an arm.. it's about as tough as a DJI drone
20:57 “I’ll wack this out” 😂
I got one, 5 mins in to first flight clipped a twig and landed in my grass from about 6-8 ft up. No lie, mine broke in the exact same place as JB. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get a replacement arm and parts apparently aren't around. "HONEY, I need to buy a 3d printer!", " NO, it's not for drone stuff, it's to make and fix toys for the kids!"
While not for me, I do appreciate to hurdles passed to accomplish this 'wittle guy.
This is for sure an awesome drone for relaxed random cruising. The most important thing here is that you can pull out of the pocket yet another battery and fly another 10-15 minutes. Try to carry a small and soft LiPos in your pocket hahaha.
Soft? Racing kwads have these “soft” lipos attached to bottom plate and they survive crashes, what u talking about dude? Or u just lipofobic?
@@oleg146 hydrophobic
Interesting idea
I gave up flying quads on liion, and repurposed my cells as custom 3s goggle batteries that work great. It's hard to compete with lipos; they fly wonderfully, are more durable, and are just more fun. Thinking of DaveC, I love his 4" class when powered with a lipo. There are already great flying 1s quads, and their batteries are generally so light that the quads are unbreakable, so this liion 1s quad is mostly useful as an experiment and data point.
You fly 18650 to LR cruise im sure you know this but new audience might not. You aren't intending to crash with these LR builds. You can throw a lipo on sure when you want a joyride but might as well build a good 5" freestyle build at that point... it will make you that much more giddy than a typical LR build ever could if thats the type of flying you are after.
I have both classes of 5" Shocker for this reason, LR frame for 6S 18650, 2204 t-mount motors, AIO beast F7 (via 3d printed adapter) & vista which gets almost 30 minutes in the air, along with Tank build thereof with Xing2 2207, Air Unit and a full stack that gets under 4 minutes of super hard ripping on 100C 6S 1550mAh lipo. Totally different classes of quad, throwing a lipo on the LR one won't really get me the same thrill. Everyone new in the hobby should be building some standard type of 5" FS build at some form or another even as a 2nd simply because the learning capabilities thereof are unmatched, its the gold standard of quadcopter flight characteristics.
I built one on 3D printed frame. 2 test flights and I disassembled it. :) Not my league....
I really love how dave c is trying to bypass lipos I mean the idea is awesome I really loved how JB and the rotor riot guys tried the AA battery test 😁👍 I love that vid btw lol but I do like this idea I'm sure dave will try to improve on this....I hope lol🤞....definitely not for me I'm a newb and I would probably break this just getting it out of the packaging....but the idea is awesome.....but just not the type of flying I wanna do ....another awesome review JB 👍.....
The eachine novice 2 is a toothpick that flies 7+ min easy and flies really good!! I really wish they sold it bnf. It really is great.
Happymodel crux3 does as well. My favorite for the yard.
Everything I wouldn't want in a quad. Fair review.
SOME smoke shops sell those bats. Typically the shops that heavily sells vapes and electronics. Just if FYI
How much do 18650 batterys typically cost at a vape shop, and maybe what they're max power output be in amps?
You can get an hglrc sector 132 4k which records 4k video (thus the name). 3 inch about 8 min flight time and can easily be freestyled with.
Your the 3rd big time reviewer ive watched who broke this quad during a review,it doesn't inspire the $140 it costs to buy it although a good idea concept I agree with your thoughts about it.keep up the great reviews etc JB.
It's massively over priced specially considering its largely a 3d printed frame with gangly carbon legs strapped on, at a guess I'd say the entire component list is under $80
Even though it's weak, it looks fun and cool.
Please show us 350mw range.
I agree a lot of the appeal is to print one and build it out of whatever parts you like or can find - in fact so many people seem to be building them that I couldn't even find 4 of the same brand motor 😂. But as Dave_C says in his own videos, it is not a build for beginners or anyone who has only done 5" ... I would rate the build experience as "godawful" and I've done plenty of toothpicks.