TEST: HGLR XJB-80

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IMPORTANT: It’s very important to fasten correctly all M2 hexcrews and secure them with a drop of glue.

INTRODUCTION

The HGLRC XJB-80 is 80mm 3S brushless racer integrating directly a nylon plastic based prop guard. The XJB-80 is a direct competitor of the Eachine chaser 88 or the RealAcc Orange 85 for example. Here we have a machine equiped of a F3 Pikoblx board without OSD, super strong 4-in-1 25A ESC BLheli_S/Dshort 600 board, 1104/7500Kv brushless motors and for the FPV section, a 600TVL CMOS camera + a VTX with switchable output power. This machine can be found in PNP edition or with two choices of receiver: i) a FlySky AFHDS-2A or a ii) FrSky D8 model.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x HGLRC XJB-80
+ 1 x 3S 550mAh/35C LiPo with JST connector
+ 4 x 50mm pentablade props
+ 8 x M2x7mm hexscrews
+ 1 x 90 degrees microUSB extender
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)

The bundle is ultra minimalist … a basic packaging for example. No spare props offered … For the price of the machine, it’s definitively a drawback.

OVERVIEW

-FRONT VIEW

The machine presents an X-design where the main electronic tower is rotated of -45 degrees. On top of it, a carbon FPV camera mount installed integrating a solid antenna guard. The main lower plate is 1.5mm 3K carbon based.. Not so bad but not rigid/strong enough to fly the machine without the propguard.

The propguard is a unique structure quit robust.

To remove this white structure, you will have to remove all the motor’s screws first.

With the battery installed and be used as landing skid

-SIDE VIEW

The microUSB port is available on the lower left side. You will need to plug first the right-angle microUSB adaptor than your favorite microUSB cable on it. The carbon camera support is attached to the main tower structure via the two inner M2 hexscrews, not simply clipsed like for the Aurora 68/90. But be aware, out of the box, these screws were partially loosen. Pay attention to that.

The RHCP cloverleaf antenna is perfectly protected by the carbon antenna guard, a more solid structure that we can find for the Aurora 90.

Buzzer connexions directly soldered on the F3 Pikoblx board. Generally, it’s advised to add some liquid electrical tape to waterproof all contacts.

No possibility to install larger props than 50mm models.

-REAR VIEW

A buzzer is installed rear … as well as two programmable LED flights. As we will see later, you will have to configure them because out of the box they are turned off.

The FrSky D8 receiver is simplly zip-tied on the camera mount. The bind button can be found on the rear side. This receiver was advertized to output the RSSI via telemetry… In practice it’s not the case (luckely there is a buzzer !!!)…. The binding procedure is classic for a FrSky D8 RX: keep pressed this button while powering the machine with the battery then run the binding procedure on your radio.

-UPPER VIEW

The antenna guard structure is much more solid thanks to this horizontal aluminium standoff

-BOTTOM VIEW

A battery strap is pre-installed on the bottom side

But as you can see, when the battery is installed, the locking surface is relatively small, 1cm maximum … and versus time, when the velcro will start to be used, the risk to loose midflight the battery will be important. It’s advised to install a slightly longer one.

-WEIGHT

Versus the RealAcc Orange85, this machine is 11g more lighter (135.5g)..

MOTORS AND PROPS

1104 motors directly branded by HGLRC … announced to be 7500Kv … so relatively fast for a 3S and eventually a 4S configuration. We have to check if motors don’t nbe too warm after usage.

Motors are only attached by two M2x6mm hexscrews …

The problem is during the flight, transmitted vibrations make loosen these props !!!!! And you will need to secure their installation by a drop of glue (lockit for example). I even lost one scew midflight!!! Amazing. This is the main drawback of this machine for me…. Can be very dangerous.

If you plan to fly without the propguard, be aware, don’t re-install these M2x5mm… they will be too long. Use more some M2x4mm model instead!!!!

Props are less fragile and flexible than the 50mm racerstar 2035 models… They are more heavy too…

In practice, I found them less correctly balanced than the quadribalde Racerstar model… and some jello is still here in practice… More if you want to push this machine in 4S, a better option should be to install more some triblades or quadriblades models instead.

LiPo

A 550mAh 3S LiPo with a discharge race of 35C… The choice of an JST connector can be critized. Probably an XT30 connector would have been a better choice.

In practice, I am possitively suprized with the autonomy…. A little bit more than 4min not so bad

Camera module

A 600TVL CMOS 1/4″ NTSC camera… The light sensitivity is not bad at all, a little bit better than the average despite being probably also one 1Lux.
The builtin VTX is 40CH (raceband supported) but I appreciate the possibility to set the output power betwwen 25mW,50mW or 200mW. Be aware by default, 0mW is preset !!! so you won’t see any FPV video feedback despite a full channels scanning. What I don’t like, the LED display is not visible because completly hidden but the camera mount. You will need to pull on the rubber band to guess what is displayed on it. To select a Vfreq, just press the button, you will cycle between the 8 Vfreq inside the current selected band. To change the Vband, press more than 3s until the letter will flash. Release the button then shortly press on the button to cycle between the five supported bands. To select the output power, sample principle: long press more than 5s until the current outpower status will flash (0, 1 bar = 25mW, 2 bars = 50mW or 3 bars = 20mW), release then press to cycle between the four choices.

The AIO camera is uptilted about 15 degrees but no direct possibility to ajust manually this angle.

Disassembling

UNBOXING, ANALYSIS, BINDING, CONFIGURATION AND DEMO FLIGHT

First thing, the machine comes with Betaflight 3.1.5 installed … almost the last build … but the first bad news: Nothing is configured specifically for the XJB-80 !!! absoluptly nothing … and you will be able to find the main settings to apply on this basic instructions:

Not only the receiver settings must be applied (a serial SBUS on UART3), but two important steps must be done for motors while selection first Oneshot125 (not yet Dshot600)
1) Apply motor’s ressource assignation correctly for BF > 3.1
2) Reverse motor’s rotation sens for motors 2 & 3

For 1), you will have to enter the four following commands in CLI:

resource MOTOR 5 none
resource MOTOR 6 none
resource MOTOR 1 A01
resource MOTOR 4 A02

then don’t forget to save by typing

save


For 2), you can use BLHelisuite software of the Chrome application BLHeliconfigurator. When it’s done, you can now select the Dshot600 option…

Another important element is to perform a yaw-alignement with the -45 degrees value.

I decided to immediatly upgrade to BF 3.1.7 and you can find all the tutorial installation procedure in the following video:

Ok first take off … start to hover from 40-45% not so bad … but it’s noisy … Ok punchout are pretty good ok it’s not a rocket as can be as lighter racer models without propguard, but it’s really not bad No perform to flip and rolls in acro… Thanks to the default BF 3.1.7 PIDs settings, this machine runs smootly … no bouncebacks… That’s great… The machine is fast and respond well … no ton of inertia. A good point for a 120g+ machine. In the other hand, the FPV signal, pretty clear and strong is unfortunatly offering some Jello…. The pentablade props are probably not balanced enough… More, in 6-axis stabilized mode, the machine drifts ….. the Soft tape mounting mod will be a must to do if you plan to fly this machine with such flight mode. Flight duration are also not bad, a solid 4min … As feared, at the end of one of my run, I lost one motor’s screw midflight … I was able to perform an mergency landing luckely… but you can guess it can be super dangerous…. Notice at the end of each run, motors get warm (~3O-40 degrees celcius)… not a good sign for thei durability. I crash it many many time and no damage reported… Anyway, I am not completly 100% sure that this white plastic propguard will resist to a massive frontal crash… A spare one should be stocked by precaution. A general remark… I deeply regret the absence of a builtin OSD…

CONCLUSIONS

The HGLRC XJB-80 is good and powerfull FPV prop-guarded flyer based on strong 25A ESC. I liked a lot how it’s flying. This machine is more an outdoors flyer, 125g is too much for indoors application. Anyway, two importants points must be revealed: i) you will need to configure everything because it’s not bind and fly machine and ii) you will need fasten glue all M2 hexscrews before your first flight.

PROS

+ Strong 25A
+ 4S compatible
+ Powerfull from 3S
+ Good FPV camera
+ Switchable output VTX power (0/25/50/200mW)
+ Efficient antenna guard
+ ~4min of flight time

CONS

– Not configured out of the box
– Motor’s screws ejected by vibrations (need to be glued)
– Drifts in angle mode
– No OSD
– No RSSI w/ the FrSky D8 RX
– Some jello in the FPV signal
– VTX’s LED display hidden by the camera mount
– Battery strap too short
– No spare props
– Warm motors after each flight

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 181.5USD at https://www.banggood.com/XJB-80-80mm-5_8G-40CH-Mini-FPV-Racing-Drone-wF3-OSD-25A-Blheli-ESC-600TVL-14-Cmos-p-1129495.html

Cet article TEST: HGLR XJB-80 est apparu en premier sur Drone-Maniac !!!!!!!.

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