TEST: Makerfire Armor 67

[Drone News]

INTRODUCTION

The Makerfire Armor 67 is a compact and lightweiht 2S brushless FPV racers adapted for both indoors/outdoors applications thanks to a builtin carbon propguard and its lightweight. The 67mm machine integrates a F3 omnibus FC w/ a builtin OSD, a 4-in-1 10A BLheli_S/Dshot 600 ESC board and 1103/10000Kv. For the 5.8G FPV part, a classic 48CH/25mW/600TVL combo. Two choices of receiver for the BNF version: i) Spektrum DSM2 or ii) FrSky D16. The machine is powered with a 2S 400mAh LiPo and should offer a maximum of 4min of flight time.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x Makerfire Armor 67
+ 1 x 2S 400mAh/30C LiPo with JST connector
+ 1 x USB charging cable
+ 2 x Spare props (1 CW, 1 CCW)
+ 1 x Screwdriver
+ 4 x Transparent rubberband
+ 4 x Nylon screws
+ 2 x Nylon nuts
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)

Only two spare props in the bundle but since there is an efficient propguard, it’s not a big drama.

OVERVIEW

It’s officially confirmed to be a 67mm machine. The general design is an X-quadcopter with the FPV camera into a 3D printed camera mount installed on top. We can notice the absence of buzzer… very important for small FPV machines.

Good news, the lower X carbon plate welcoming arms is 1.65mm not so bad for a compact lightweight machine

The propguard is 1.5 and seems durable. IMHO, it will resist to indoors massive crashes.

-FRONT VIEW

The carbon propguard is attached to the main lower plate with nylon standoff and screws. In practice, espcially the scews are fragile… but finally if they can break after an hard crash, they will absorbe most of the kinetic energy without damaging the rest of the machine.

The two 2.4G antennas are installed super close to the front motors…. and the possibility to see them cutted by props in important.

-SIDE VIEW

The AIO FPV camera is installed with a fixed uptilt angle of 20-25 degrees, enough for FPV applications but maybe too much for tiny indoors spaces.

-REAR VIEW

Amazingly, the microUSB port is located just behing the rear nylon standoff. You will need to remove it each time you will want to access to Betaflight … It’s annoying….

-UPPER VIEW

-BOTTOM VIEW

With the battery strapped with the transparent rubber bands.

ESC’s FETs directly exposed to water. It’s a good idea to cover them with some liquid electrical tape.

-WEIGHT

64g with the battery !!!! it’s very light for a 2S brushless racer.

Motors and props

In order to save some weight, 1103 motors are prefered vs 1104. They are announced to spin @10000Kv so main probably not 3S compatible.

Racerstart 1.5″ quadriblade props are installed. They are know to be well balanced limiting jello in the FPV signal.

LiPo

A 400mAh 2S LiPo with JST connector. 30C as discharge rate. It’s a minimum especially if this rating it’s true. We can observe during flights at least 1V of voltage drop Under load. A 50C/79C batteries should improve considerably performances and flight times.

Camera module

A classic 48CH/25mW VTX with a 600TVL CMOS camera. The lens offers a FOV of 120 degrees so wll adapted for both indoors & outdoors.

The front button select the PAL/NTSC format is long pressed. The rear button selects the Vfreq Inside the current select Vband if shortly pressed. The Vband selection is done by long pressing this button.

A raw video sample

UNBOXING, ANALYSIS, BINDING, CONFIGURATION AND DEMO FLIGHT

As mentioned early, you will need to remove the rear standoff to access easily to the microUSB port. More, the bind button of the FrSky receiver is super tiny and located Under the prop guard. You will need to shift it of few mm to access to it. The machine comes with Betaflight 3.1.7 pre-installed. No specific PIDs, rates optimization have been done. The FrSKy receiver is connected via SBUS connexion via the UART2. The OSD layout is personlized… but the default flight mode is angle mode only !!! so clearly targetting indoors flights.

The machine starts to take off from 55%… not a good first sign for the power of the machine. The machine is stable but you can feel immeciatly it’s not a super beasty machine but strong enough to flip and roll. As mentioned earlier too, the voltage Under load drops of 1V for high throttle inputs. In acro this machine is nice and smooth to fly at least with the default PID settings. Other good news, the FPV signal is clean, offers a solid range of 100m and no jello can be noticed. Unfortunatly after a super high rate turns, the machine downtilts from the rear-right side like the Aurora 100. Probably, under high battery load and since the general motor’s thrust/weight ratio is not important, the machine can’t be stabilized in any conditions. One more time a stronger battery can help. Flight times are about 3min30 in average.

CONCLUSIONS

The Makerfire Armor 67 represents a good tradeoff between indoors only and outdoors only FPV microbrushless racer. It’s a super precize machine with jellofree FPV signal with a strong propguard. In outdoors conditions, a it’s a good and fast machine able to perform basic acro figures but don’t expect amazing punch outs with the armor. More from mid-flight, the machine can lack of stability for high right turns. Tne nylon screws attaching the propguard need to be stock in advance since they are brearking easily after a couple of crashes.

PROS

+ F3 omnibus w/OSD
+ Lightweight machine
+ Indoors/Outdoors machine
+ Good AIO FPV camera
+ Solid carbon prop guard
+ No Jello

CONS

– No buzzer
– Lack of power for being a full acro machine
– Rear-right downtilt syndroma @ low voltage
– MicroUSB port not directly accessible
– Fragile nylon screws of the prop guard
– No RSSI for the telemetry/OSD for the FrSky D16 RX

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 133.2USD at https://www.rcmoment.com/other-products-2002/p-rm8136-2.html

Cet article TEST: Makerfire Armor 67 est apparu en premier sur Drone-Maniac !!!!!!!.

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