TEST: Walkera RODEO 110

[Drone News]

INTRODUCTION

After the excellent Rodeo 150, the first lightweight brushless racer from walkera unfortunatly full basic based, here is the 130mm version with the Rodeo 110. This time, almost all elements are in cabon (lower and upper plates). Only non-exposed parts are in plastic. The ingredients are similar to the former model: SPF3 board flashed with betaflight, 1103 motors and a walkera receiver for the BNF/RTF versions.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x Walkera Rodeo 110 (with a 2S 850mAh LiPo with JST connector)
+ 1 x Charger
+ 4 x Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 1 x USB cable
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)

OVERVIEW

The general look is inspired by the Walkera F210, rodeo 150 models …. with a large frontal canopy. For example in comparaison with the rodeo 150.

The Rodeo 110 is in practice a 130mm machine, similar in size with the Eachine Racer 130

-FRONT VIEW

-SIDE VIEW
The left side shows the microUSB port and the RX red light. As soon the machine is bound the light is turned off.

-REAR VIEW

-UPPER VIEW

The JST connector is jailed into the rear plastic structure. In the central part, the 5.8G FPV antenna mostly protected by the heatshrink tube.
Installed on the same structure, the two 2.4G antenna are attached

The central hole welcome a 3 position DIP switch. Only 8 Vfreq can be selected in the unique band F. We can regret the absence of a real 40CH VTX. Walkera need to upgrade their VTX lines

A button is also here… this tiny button is very important for binding. It permits to reset the fixedID, i.e. to allow a new radio to bind the rodeo 110.
In general for the walkera RX/TX, you need to check first than the radio have fixedID set to none.

A uFL/IPX connector can be seen. It means the 5.8G antenna can be replaced for example with a cloverleaf model

-BOTTOM VIEW

A tiny switch allow to install an external receiver with SBUS connexion. The builtin walera receiver is plugged with PPM connexion.

-WEIGHT

Close to 148g …. so 4-5g more than the Eachine 130 for example but the ER130 works in 3S configuration….

Motors

1102 motors….

Tri-blade props are offered. In practice much more stronger and silent that classic 3020 models coming with Tarot’s models for example.

LiPo

The same 850mAh LiPo as for the Rodeo 150 but this time with a JST connector instead of a EC2. The discharge rate is the same: 25C

Camera module

As for the rodeo 110, the 600TVL CMOS camera is protected by a frontal plastic structure. Despite written to be compatible with both NTSC & PAL format, no visible switch to tune this setting. By default the camera emits in PAL format. The FPV camera has a 150 degrees of FOV

Good news, the camera can be oriented with a strong postive angle (~40-45 degrees) compatible with agressive FPV flights.

In another hand, in practice the FPV camera don’t have a great light sensitivity ….. the brightness is relatively poor. In the background, the signal seems blurred. I guess the associated 150 deg lens is guilty here. More some horizontal lines can be guessed … For me, this camera is the weakest point of the Rodeo 110. Here is a raw sample in action.

ESC

No information about ESC. There are flashed with a proprietary firmware and are not seen directly with the BLheli suite :(. Be aware, oneshot125 is turned off by default and no damping light in practice

The main question are they 3S compatible ? …. it’s still an open one… I guess there are only 6A probably with a peak at 10A.

ESC connexion to the FC is done via plug and play connector. A good thing for maintenance.

Disassembling

The 6-axis stabilization chip is the MPU 6050 and installed seperatly on a piece of foam to minimize transmitted vibrations

The machine welcomes a SPF3 board but flashed with a proprietary betaflight version. Unfortunatly, you can’t connect directly the Rodeo 110 with the last GUI version :(… only CLI commands are available.
At least with CleanFlight, you can access to most of parameters. Important things, you need to setup your radio according to the following informations:

set mid_rc = 1510
set min_check = 1118
set max_check = 1900

so all channels must be centered on the unusual value of 1510 and minimum channel to 1118. So if you observed some drifts check this point.

Binding walkera compatible transmitter

With a Devo 7, it’s pretty simple but you need first to be sure than FixedID is set to none. First turn on the Rodeo 110 than the transmitter. The binding should be done in a couple of second.
For a DeviationTX compatible radio, select the “DEVO” protocol, delete the ID then turn on the quad and press “re-init”. Notice that if you can’t bind directly with one of these two procedures, press the
reset button located on top close to the VTX switches.

UNBOXING, CONFIGURATION, BINDING AND DEMO FLIGHTS

CONCLUSIONS

PROS

+ Mostly carbon based
+ Solid machine
+ 130mm size
+ Strong props
+ SPF3 board
+ Good front light (but not visible beyond 20m)
+ Builtin Buzzer

CONS

– Blurred FPV cam
– Poor light sensivity of the FPV cam
– Not a 3S setup
– Not a beasty racer
– Proprietary Betaflight firmware not visible with last Betaflight GUI
– 8CH VTX
– No OSD
– No telemetry

This quadcopter have been courtesy provided by Gearbest 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 160USD at http://www.gearbest.com/multi-rotor-parts/pp_595441.html?lkid=10005082

Cet article TEST: Walkera RODEO 110 est apparu en premier sur Drone-Maniac !!!!!!!.

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