TEST: RealAcc Scops 100, a Y4 micro brushless racer

[Drone News]

INTRODUCTION

Since more than six months, a lot of compact micro brushless FPV racers (<= 100mm) have been introduced and it's hard now to be original since most now are sharing the same type of electronic. RealAcc at least tries to be original in the design. With the RealAcc Scops 100 we don’t have a basic quadcopter but a Y4 machine. What is a Y4 machine ? , it’s a tricopter but with a fourth motor located just below the third rear one. It should offer much more stability than a tricopter while also increasing the yaw authority versus a classic quadcopter design. The Scops 100 is based on a F3 FC board including an OSD chip, a 4-in-1 10A BLheli_S/Dshot 600 ESC board and for the FPV rig a classic 600TVL 120 degrees 25mW 48CH 5.8G AIO FPV module. Four choices of receiver are proposed: i) FrSky D8 with RSSI, ii) FrSky D16 with RSSI, iii) Spektrum DSM2/DSMX and iv) FlySky AFHDS-2A. Let’s discover this new model.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x RealAcc Scops 100
+ 1 x 550mAh 3S LiPo Rated 40C
+ 4 x Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 2 x Rubber band (for the AIO camera)
+ 2 x Spare double side tape circular band (for fixing the AIO on the camera support)
+ 1 x USB to miniJST cable
+ 1 x miniJST to microUSB extender cable
+ 1 x Velcro band
+ 1 x Screwdriver
+ 1 x M2 allen key
+ 2 x Instruction manual (English)

Two spare circulare tapes to secure the installation of he AIO camera into the aluminium mount. Good news, two spares screws for motors can be found

OVERVIEW

As said in the introduction, the Y4 is a kind of tricopter in the design but with a fourth motor installed below the third rear one.

For the two front motors, we have classically a CW for the left and a CCW for the right. Now for the tail, the upper motor is CW while upside down it’s a CCW so pushing the air !!!!

All the structure is 100% carbon based… and immediatly you can feel it will be a solid model and the risk to brea ank arm is low

-FRONT VIEW
A 3 leeaves RHCP antenna can be found on top with a short clearance versus the latteral side. Main probably, the FPV range wll be a little bit impacted by this surounding carbon.

-SIDE VIEW
When seated on the battery, the ground clearance for the rear props is small, around 14mm … So be sure to land the most horizontally you can to not damage this prop.

The mini 1.25mm 4 position JST connector for betaflight connexion. Nothing blocks the access

The most original part, the tail with two brushless motors installed upside down. The two antenneas of the FrSky D16 receiver are installed parallel on main structure and on the same side. At least you can install them on each side to improve a bit the reception. Even if with the FrSk- D16 receiver, you can obtain super easily 300-400m of range.

Good news, the lower carbon frame structure is a 2.35mm large… and looks super strong to impact. It should also limit considerably jello in videos

-REAR VIEW

-UPPER VIEW

The FrSky D16 receiver with a dedicated bind button and two small light

The blue light indicated the power status while the other one turns in flashing red when the model is not bound and in steady green when bound. Front the receiver, a buzzer is installed and can be triggered by default via the Aux3

The vertical carbon plates are 1.5mm

So generally the structure seems super super solid.

-BOTTOM VIEW
The thin battery strap is IMHO not enough to secure completly the battery installation. It’s advised to tape the velcro bands

The PDB is seated on four small orange plastic standoff, tall enough to insert the battery strap.

The left side shows the ESC’s signal connector

-WEIGHT

114g in total with the battery and props installed. For a 3S setup, it’s not so bad, just 4 extra grams versus the Eachine Lizard 95.

Motors and props

Motors are some 1104 brushless type spinning only at 6000Kv to be perfectly compaticle with 3S setup.

Simple short (4mm) M2 screws are attaching motors to the frame

Good news, two spare ones are given in the bundle.

All props show either a R (for CW motors) or an L (for CCW motors) letters

Blade are flexible, less than the Racerstar quadriblades models..

This model of pentablades offers in practice no noticeable Jello… and are just a little bit more solide than Racerstar’s ones.

LiPo

The same LiPo we can find the for Lizard 95, a strong 3S 550 mAh LiPo with XT30 connector and announced to have 40C as discharge rate.

Camera module

It’s the same 600TVL CMOS camera with a builtin 25mW 48CH VTX AIO module we can find in most Eachine models. The light sentivitiy is correct the the FOV about 120 degres.

The AIO camera is taped on this golden alimimum camera mount and definitively secured with two rubber bands

Notice, the M7 lens is slightly shifted to the left but fortunatly no prop occclusion in the FPV live video.

The lens orientation can be ajusted from 15 degrees up to 30 degrees, ideal for aggresive FPV flyers

For the settings, we have two buttons. The front if long press selects either NTSC(default) or PAL. The rear one is short pressed cycles between the eight frequencies Inside the current selected band. The channel number is indicated by a small green light shifting correspondively. If you long press on the button, you will cycle between the six supported bands.

UNBOXING, ANALYSIS, BINDING, CONFIGURATION AND DEMO FLIGHT

The Scops 100 comes with Betaflight 3.1.0 pre-installed. In term of configuration, the PIDs and rates are the default ones proposed by BF 3.1.0, no specific optimization. The same for OSD informations, only the default ones. The configuration of the receiver is done correctly and the flight modes switch select acro in upper position, angle in middle position and acro+air mode in lower position.

THE BOARD YAW ALIGNEMENT IN NOT CORRECT (SET TO 0 DEGREES) OUT OF THE BOX

I decided to install BF 3.1.7 directly to enjoy last features and fixes. I just decreased the D values to 25 and 28 respectively for pitch and rolls. Another very important point in order to display correctly the RSSI on OSD informations. You need to turn on your radio the option to export the RSSI on the last channel. When turned on, the RSSI variation will be visible via the AUX4/5 channel.

Before my first flight, I got some negative priors about the interest of a Y4 design versus a classic quadcopter… so at first take off, first think I notice is the stablility of the machine especially in self turning….. no drop like we could observed for some V-tail models…. It’s super super stable… and good news, absoluptly no Jello in the FPV video. The yaw authority is largely improved and it’s absoluptly not hard to turn fast even with a good forward speed. You can have even better precise controls.. I really appreciated it. The machine is powerfull… but certainly less the Lizard 95. The thrust of the read side can’t be as powerfull as a normal quadcopter. The flight time is great too, a good 5min so really not bad at all for a compact brushless racer. I am also very impressed by the receiver performances. While for a FrSky D8 mono antenna, the RSSI go below 60% after 15-20m of rance, here we still a have a solid 75-80%… Just a small negative point, at least, the FPV range is slightly impacted by the shot CL’s antenna stem and the sourounding carbon structure. I forgot to mention than the machine is fast …. We can notice the difference from a 2S setup.

CONCLUSIONS

I really like this original design… at least a Y4 model not sacrifying stability for the yaw authority gain !!!! You can really enjoy fast slalomming arounds trees with the Y4 design. We have included in the Scops 100, the last electronic technologies: a strong F3 board with OSD, buzzer, 10A BLheli_S/Dshot 600 ESC, 1104/6000Kv 3S compatible… No real weaks points except the need to fix the yaw alignement in betaflight settings… Since there is no antenna’s guard and the lower props is very exposed in a crash, I can’t give a SeByDocky’s award to the Scops 100…. but it was really close to obtain it.

PROS

+ Great and powerfull flyer
+ Super stable
+ Great yaw authority
+ F3 Omnibus w/ OSD
+ FrSky D16 w/ RSSI channel
+ Robust frame
+ More efficient/stable than V-tail
+ 5min of flight time
+ XT30 connector

CONS

– BAD YAW ALIGNEMENT DEFAULT SETTING (must be set to 180 degrees)
– Cloverleaf antenna not protected
– FPV range a bit impacted by surrounding carbon elements

dump_RA_Scops_100_BF_3_1_0

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 143USD at https://www.banggood.com/Realacc-Scops-100-Micro-Y4-FPV-Racing-Drone-BNF-w-F3-OSD-10A-BLheli_S-Dshot600-5_8G-25MW-48CH-VTX-p-1152996.html

Cet article TEST: RealAcc Scops 100, a Y4 micro brushless racer est apparu en premier sur Drone-Maniac !!!!!!!.

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