TEST: IDEAFLY OCTOPUS F90 Pro

[Drone News]

INTRODUCTION

The IDEAFLY OCTOPUS F90 pro represents the brushless revision of the tinywhoop inspired Octopus F90. With this new model, we have super fast 1104/8500Kv motors, 4-in-1 12A BLheli_S/Dshot 600 ready ESC board, a F3 Omnibus FC with betaOSD integrated and installed on top a 600TVL 25mW 40CH 5.8G AIO FPV camera. All the system is powered via a 400mAh 2S LiPo. If the general look the same with a bulbed octopus head jailing the FPV ring, differences can be noticed for the prop guards system. Let’s discover this new bundle.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x IDEAFLY OCTOPUS F90 Pro
+ 1 x 2S 400mAh LiPo with JST connector
+ 1 x USB charging cable
+ 4 x Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 8 x Prop screws

A basic USB charger. Please prefere a real model to balance perfectly each individual cell.

Notice the absence of the instruction manual….

OVERVIEW

A 90mm machine is more larger prop guard system than we can find for the brushed machine. Larger doesn’t mean more solid….

First of all, the lower main structure including arms is not carbon based !!!!! It’s a 1.5mm PCB plate where some electronic conpounds are also soldered!!!!! It’s a real massive drawback in the design. Even if they look not super fragile, arm will break after an hard impect on a hard surface !!!

-FRONT VIEW

The same plastic canopy as for the F90 with the AIO camera installed on top where the 5.8G linear exits from a central hole

No frontal light for LOS flight. Prop guard more larger are attached individually on each motors. I raise another concern about them…. They are not durable/strong, especially the central boon. For example, during transportation, two of them broke.

-SIDE VIEW

On the right side the microUSB port can be found

BE AWARE!!!! you must use a USB cable with a thin connector body and insert it through the prop guard. If not inserted in this way, you will probably damage super the microUSB port. It happened to be ….. I had to bend the cable for the fiirst usage until the connector broke definitively …. What a bad location of this port. The safier usage is to remove the prop guard so removing the four M2 hexscrews of the corresponding motor.

-REAR VIEW

A JST connector for the battery connexion

-UPPER VIEW

-BOTTOM VIEW

Advertised to be waterproof, no real sign of protection on the bottom side except on the two micro click button and on the microUSB port where we can notice the presence of liquid electrical tape.

Good news, the four bottom led lights can be programmed via Betaflight. By default, they are programmed to display throttle inputs.

The battery fit perfectly the tray without any slidings.

On the left side, you can bind the electronic elements for the voltage regulator and a tiny microswitch button to rescue the bootloader.

On the right side, the FrSky bind button. Press and hold it while powering the quad to enter into bind mode. Unfortunatly, the FrSky D8 receiver don’t output any RSSI information neither for telemetry or for the OSD….

-WEIGHT

86.8g !!! not so bad for a 2S brushless racer even if it’s not the lightest in his category. Anyway, it’s still acceptable to fly indoors with much more précautions.

Motors and pros

1104/8500Kv with no specific mark. They are super fact and probably not 3S compatible even if the 12A ESC are probably. Notice that props are just clipsed on the 1.5mm shaft section of the motor. With the spare props bag, some dedicaced screws can be found if you want to secure more the prop installation.

2035 quadriblade props

LiPo

A basic 400mAh 2S LiPo with JST connector. The same as for the brushed edition. No specific discharge rate mentioned. As you will see ln the video, the quality of this battery is probablematic. Probably the first item to change for some future upgrades.

Camera module

The same 600TVL 40CH 25mW AIO module as for the F90 brushed edition. I am delighted by the general performances of this module with vivid colors and relatively good light sensitivity.

The Vfreq and Vband selection can be done with a small and thin screwdriver via the left top hole. Short press to cycle within the eight Vfreq of the selected Vband and long press to cycle between the 5 VBand. A priori, the signal is in PAL format.

Disassembling

Just remove to the six lower screws to open the top canopy element. Be aware, the AIO module is directly soldered on the main board. As you can see, the board and the ESC board installed on top are fully covered by some liquid electrical as waterproof protection. It’s not the case for AIO module …. so full water protection can be guaranted IMHO but it should be ok to fly the F90 pro in rainy conditions.

A bad surprize … No buzzer is installed !!!! while for the first F90 there was one … At least you can play with the beacon level strengh with BLheli configurator to boost the ESC sound emitted.

A uFL/iPX connector is here to attach the 2.4G antenna. That’s a good point. In general to extend the horizontal range, I advise to drill a small hole on the rear side of the canopy in order to install this antenna more verically.

No specific water protection for the AIO module. More the water can enter by the two top holes of the octopus’s head.

UNBOXING, ANALYSIS, CONFIGURATION AND TESTING

First good suprize, the F3 omnibus is flashed with the current last betaflight version i.e. v3.1.7. More PIDS, flight modes, OSD and lights have been optimized for the F90 Pro. Notice the low rates especially for the pitch and rolls, not directly compatible with acro figure style. Probably they are more adapted for indoors manoeuverers. The FrSky receiver is connected via PPM connexion …. another minor con point when from now we can expect more SBUS connexion. As soon the power the machine, you are also pleased by the good rendition of the FPV cam and of course of the presence of all OSD informations. First take off and the machine start to hover from 35%… a good indication from the potential power…. and clearly as soon as you give a throttle punchout…. the machine receive a kick… it’s really punchy …. but this good news must be minored by the poor performance of the battery. In practice, Under heavy load, the battery voltage frequently drops of more than 1V !!!! and it’s not rare to be above 6v!!! It’s just killing the battery in a fast way. Definitively a LiPo with a strong discharge rate must be used instead. The machine flies superbly and smooth … and I really enjoyed the amount of power. If you plan to use it more outdoors, please increase the super expo rate to perform more safety flips and rolls. As we can expect from the battery behaviour, the flight time don’t exceed 2min30… It’s too short. The FPV signal range is good Inside a radious of 100m. To be honest, I didn’t test the waterproof capacity for the following reason: i) he didn’t rain in my area since two months, ii) I know that the AIO, PDB and the battery are not specifically protected and iii) I find stupid to throw volontary a brushless racer into water… It’s a flying machine, not a sub. In general, into water the battery drains much more faster and you will kill it super fast. Not recommanded. In the other hand, I feed confident that this machine can land on wet grass without problems.

CONCLUSIONS

I got mixed feelings with this machine. Among positive points, the power iis probably the first. This machine flies great, handle well winds and can be pricize enough for tiny spaces flights. The machine comes completely configured and just required to bind to your FrSky D8 receiver. In another hand, I raise three yellow cards for the non-carbon lower plate, the bad location of the microUSB port and the poor performances of the battery.

PROS

+ F3 Omnibus w/betaflight OSD
+ Comes with betaflight 3.1.7
+ 4-in-1 12A ESC BLheli_S/Dshot 600 ESC
+ Strong 1104/8500Kv motors
+ Optimized settings
+ Powerfull 2S machine
+ Good AIO FPV camera with vivid colors
+ Covered mainly with liquid electrical tape => rain resistant
+ Indoors/Outdoors machine

CONS

– NO CARBON STRUCTURE => 1.5MM PCB PLATE INSTEAD
– Fragile prop guards
– Fragile microUSB port (badly located)
– No buzzer
– FrSky receiver w/o RSSI
– Bad quality battery => warm a lot, more than 1v voltage drop under load
– 2min30 of flight time

This quadcopter have been courtesy provided by Tomtop 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 110USD at https://www.tomtop.com/rc-quadcopter-1192/p-rm8345.html

View the full article