TEST: Eachine V-tail 210

[Drone News]

INTRODUCTION

The Eachine V-tail 210 is the first cheap “chinese” quadcopter adopting the V-tail design. In theory, the V-tail architecture offers a much better yaw authority especially at full speed. In fact the EV210 is not a simple quadcopter adpopting this original design, but you have also included a 1080p@60 camera broadcasting the FPV signal, a buitin GPS and OSD for a complete displayed information and a 10DOF SPF3 board. Is the EV210 a racer or with such equipement more a super cruizer ? …. Let’s check that.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x Eachine V-tail 210 (with a 4S 1500mAh LiPo with XT60)
+ 1 x Transmitter (using 4xAA batteries not included)
+ 1 x Charger (2S, 3S, 4S)
+ 1 x Power unit
+ 1 x Wrench prop tool
+ 1 x Bluetooth module
+ 4 x Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 1 x Velcro bands
+ 1 x Screwdriver
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)

A small originality, the charger is also able to display total and individual cell’s voltages

Can charge from a 2S up to 4S battery

OVERVIEW

A class 210 mm brushless machine. Let’s look to the main official caracteristics

Here we have a 10DOF SPF3 board including a barometer and magnetometer. In complement of the GPS installed on top, it means in theory you can program altitulde/GPS hold, RTH and even use a mission planner to pre-program a tour.

In term of carbon structure, the front carbon element is 2mm

while each arms are 3mm

-FRONT VIEW

-SIDE VIEW
On the left side, the unique FlySky receiver antenna connected via PPM connexion to the UART2

-REAR VIEW

On the rear side, the Vtail system based on two tilted carbon arms (around 25 degrees) but attached to the main lower carbon structure by a simple piece of plastic

It’s a real disaster in term of design… for sure, this plastic element will break from any minor rear shock !!!! At least you can find a rear LEDs’s bar indicating throttle current value and turns direction as well.

-UPPER VIEW

The two ESC associated with rear arms

-BOTTOM VIEW

On front, two plastic legs are installed

They will break super fast … The third rear leg won’t be much more resistant

-WEIGHT

598.5g !!!!! so heavy !!! for a 210mm class machine

Motors & Props

Motors are 2205 announced 2300KV. They are known to be strong. The for example installed on the JJRC P175 and the RealAcc GX220.

5045 Bull noze props are given. Unfortunatly, it’s not possible to install some 6″ model and more.

Even with the given wrench tool, it’s hard to completly lock each nuts. Start to pre-tight them without the prop installed than with.

Below each motors, 4 leds configurable in Cleanflight/betaflight

By default, they indicate turns

ESC

20A lightning Emax ESC with a peak up to 30A. If onshot125 and Damping light are supported, no Dshot available. At least you can update the firmware easily via BLheli suite software for example

Each ESC is connected via mini-banana plugs

For the front arm, you can directly change a full arm (arm + ESC + motors) by removing 6 hexscrews.

LiPo

s

Camera & VTX modules

The HD/FPV camera is sumply install beneath with a light camera support without any specific protection to frontal shocks. With close 600g, you can guess any front accident will be fatal…. Just so disapointing camera location design…

The lens thread is in M12 format

the ribbon cable is also absoluptly not protected from a frontal crash or battery front shift. At least a spare one is given in the bundle… They know it’s a weak point.

The microSD card slot is located front below the rubbon cable. You will the lift gently the ribbon cable to insert/remobe a miroSD card. A class 10 is recommended to enjoy perfect and smooth recordings at 60fps.

The camera is able to film in 1080p@60 fps…. while broadcasting the signal in PAL or NTSC format

1080p recordings are just great, IMHO as good as a mobius 1 camera

Good news, the processing is fast 60ms with or without recording turned on

Something amazing with the VTX

a) The 5.8G linear antenna is installed parallel of the main axis

It means first of all that propagation in the hozizon plan and more particulary when TX and the quad are aligned will be bad. More part of the signal will be blocked by the carbon structure below

b) to set the Vband and Vfreq, you will need to remove first the six hexscrews locking the upper canopy structure

Then both the GPS and the VTX module are avialable

The VTX is a 200mW supporting 5 bands so 40CH in total

In practice, the table given in the manual is wrong or at least partially. If the Band selection is currect, the choice of the Vfreq is not correspondling with the diagram

By default the the camera and OSD are set to NTSC format. If you plan to fly more in PAL system, you will need

i) to press the trigger button while powering the system to turn in into PAL
ii) to set the PAL option in MWOSD R1.6 GUI

Disassembling

The SPF3 board with 10DF is installed front while LDO/voltage regulator/PCB just behind. By default, you have cleanfight 1.13 installed. You can connect the FC via the left USB. The right one is more to tune OSD via the MWOSD GUI but you will need to turn on power first.

A microSD car is here to save logs

At least a buzzer is installed

By default, the buzzer is activated when the LiPo is below a first threshold, then buzzing faster with you reach less 3.5v per cell

For an easy maintenance at least for front arms, you change directly an arm section thanks to this specific connexion

Transmitter

The classic FlySky i6 transmitter with three 2-way and one 3-way switches. Only 6 channels are available

Be default the switch A arms/disarms the machine while the switch B select between angle and acro mode. The three way switch is not used by default.

The two way protocol AFHDS-2A (deviated in the last built of deviationTX) is used in coordination with the FlySky receiver in PPM connexion.

UNBOXING, ANALYSIS, CONFIGURATION AND DEMO FLIGHT

What a noisy machine !!!!! Amazing…. motor are yelling. For sure no discrete flights with this model :). You start to hover from 50%… it’s a lot despite the 4S setup. The 600g weight is real handicap. With the default rate settings, only the yaw rate is too slow. Be aware if you increase too much the pich and roll rates, the machine become relatively instable. The FPV signal is just amazing !!!!! so nice color and light transitions are superbly handled. Probably the best CMOS camera I was able to fly with. Be sure to use a class 10 microSD card. If not, I noticed some little slow down in the FPV live signal. The machine is fast but punchouts are not super impressive. If the yaw authority is great, I noticed a big inertia when practicing banking at great speed. For example, the crash in the tree was linked with that. Impossible to turn to the right with my current fast speed. Definitively, betaflight will be a great improvement. Another major disapointement is the flight time 5min maximum 5min30 … before to see the machine falling slowly. Voltage went down to 3.3V !!!! so be aware to not damage your LiPo and listen correctly emitted beeps. Another drawback, I found in the OSD the main battery voltage is not updated. To fix this, change the corresponding setting in MWOSD R1.6.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the great quality of the HD/FPV camera (offering videos as good as a Mobius 1) and the presence of GPS, barometer, etc…. I can’t really recommand this machine due to two important weak points in the design: a) not protected camera and b) fragile plastic support holding the rear arms. We can also add the fragility of the landing gear system.. More with close to 600g, the machine can’t be seen as super fast racer: It need space to perform large turns even if at low speed, the yaw authority is great (you don’t loose or gain altitude for example). Too many things have been introduced simultaneously here with the V-tail 210. Probably a version without GPS, DVR, and by trimming weight can be a very interesting model.

PROS

+ Strong yaw authority
+ Great HD/FPV camera
+ 1080p@60fps
+ 60ms of latency w/ or w/o recording
+ Builtin OSD (MWOSD based) with velocity & GPS informations
+ SPF3 board with 10DOF
+ Bluetooth module
+ Complete instruction manual color printed

CONS

– Short flight time (5min30)
– Super noisy
– Heavy (~600g)
– A lot of inertia while banking at full speed
– Exposed front camera
– Plastic holder for rear arms
– Fragile landing skid
– VTX dip switches hidden by the top cover
– Bad 5.8G antenna location/orientation
– Frequency list table not correct
– Prop nuts hard to lock

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 310USD at http://www.banggood.com/Eachine-V-tail-210-FPV-Drone-1080P-HD-DVR-SP-Racing-F3-5_8G-40CH-200mW-VTX-OSD-w-Eachine-I6-RTF-p-1100100.html

Cet article TEST: Eachine V-tail 210 est apparu en premier sur Drone-Maniac !!!!!!!.

View the full article