TEST: Eachine Racer 180 with tilting arms

[Drone News]

ALERT:

THE SWITCH C CAN APPLY THREE DIFFERENT PITCH OFFSETS FOR THE ER180 (+45DEG/0DEG/-45DEG). AFTER SET IT IN UP POSITION FOR THE RADIO POWERING , BE SURE TO SET THE SWITCH C IN MIDDLE POSITION BEFORE TO ARM/TAKE OFF THE ER180 IF YOU WANT TO HAVE AN HORIZONTAL STABILIZATION. MORE THE OFFSET IS FLIGHT MODE DEPENDENT. SOME DRIFTS CAN BE INTRODUCED WHEN CHANGING THE FLIGHT MODE WITH THE SWITCH B PROCEED LIKE THIS UNTIL A MORE CLEVER SOLUTION WILL BE FIND AND INDEPENDANT OF THE FLIGHT MODES

INTRODUCTION

The Eachine Racer 180 is the first “cheap” RTH FPV racer with tilting arms. Instead of titlting the FPV camera, here only arms are titled around their main axis keeping the central body flat and horizontal. Unfortunatly, it’s just a preview since I broke some elements during my first demo flight (linked with the above alert)

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x Eachine Racer 180 (with a 4S 1100mAh LiPo with XT60 connector)
+ 1 x Transmitter (using 4xAAA batteries not included)
+ 1 x Charger
+ 4 x Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 1 x 5.8G RHCP cloverleaf antenna (4 leaves)
+ 1 x Wrench prop tool
+ 1 x Set of stickers
+ 4 x AA rechargeable Ni-Mh batteries
+ 1 x Spare canopy
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)

OVERVIEW

The design is a classic H model. Here we have a 180mm machine.

-FRONT VIEW

-SIDE VIEW

the left side welcomes the microUSB port and the PWM receiver plug coming from the FlySky i6

Two latteral LEDs bars are connected via a mini JST-SH connector

-REAR VIEW

The RP-SMA connector is not protected from a potential rear crash… so super easy to break (and it happened to me unfortunatly )

-UPPER VIEW

A lot of room available to welcome a longer 4S battery

-BOTTOM VIEW
the main servo motor controling the arm tilting. No information about its caracteristics

just behing, the FlySky i6 receiver with PWM wiring. Notice the channel 2 is directly connected/controlling the servo motor….
We will see the consequences, but it’s not a super good idea

-WEIGHT

561g !!! in total… super heavy for a 180mm machine :(… even with strong 2205 motors

Motors

Strong 2205 motors announced to be 2350KV

5mm of shaft section

Default props are some 4045BN triblades models

Unfortunatly, 5″ models can be installed

LiPo

A 1100mAh 4S model with plastic easy grab for the balancer plug

Camera module

A 1000TVL camera. No information about the light sensitivity. The FOV is around 110 deg in diagonal… so not a super wide FOV

The mini switch on top is to select between NTSC/PAL modes

Unfortunatly, before my first flight test, the camera became out of service… I don’t know really why ? I measured the voltage given by the VTX to 3.83V. When swapped with another camera, the FPV link came again

Video transmitter

The transmitter is a Boscam TS5823S model

The FPV camera is directly powered via the VTX. 3.83V is measured.

The role of the 6 dip switches is not given in the instruction manual. Here is the full list of frequencies and bands

Transmitter

A rebranded FlySky i6 transmitter. To enter into the setup, you will have to press inner both horizontal trim buttons while powering the radio

Be default, the throttle fail safe is not set. Default switch assignations to channel are switch B with channel 5 (controller the flight mode) and the switch C with the channel 6

Good news, a set of four rechargeable Ni-Mh accu are given

FIRST USAGE

My first idea was to overide the tilt offet by assigning on the radio channels as follow

With this idea, the pot is controlling the default offet. Funny when the offset is not perfectly tuned on the 1500 value, the machine is bent forward or backward in the air. As soon as you center the pot, the machine is aligned horizontally

Unfortunatly, I broke after 3-4min the machine coz with my new assignation, the switch C controls the flight mode and set in Cleanflight 3 flight modes: angle, horizon (rattitude) and acro. The first few minutes was ok but for sure, the ER180 is not super powerfull. The 561g is a lot even with 30A ESC, 2205 motors and 4045BN props. In fact, I think some 5″ or aven 6″ should give much more power but in practice the frame don’t allow such size of props. So as soon as i switched to rattitude, a negative pitch offset was here and the quad in 1s crashed strongly in the ground. I broket the VTX connector … and the main servo motors

More it means than the central pitch offset is flight mode dépendent…. or more some flight modes can be used with this actual design … It’s Under investigation

Good news I received another model and I was able to perform more flight testing

For the positive points, this machine can be super fast while staying perfectly horizontal, a kind of super lunched rocket The FPV CCD 1000 TVL camera works beautifully. For sure this machine can be seen as a ballistic missile where it should be more easy to pass through airgates at full speed. Some “strange” behaviour can be observed at full speed when you try to do an hard turn. The machine can be completly unstable. This is probably the reason why default rates for pitch & roll are set to 0 and for yaw to 0.2 respectively… The last value won’t allow a fast turn. Since I increased all at 0.6… it’s probably a direct consequence of my choice. Except this phenomena, the machine flies beautifully…. Flying duration are about 6min with the 4S 1300mAh battery. As expect if your turn the switch C in 0 or 2 position at take off, you will the front and rear not lifting at the same time. It’s fun to see.

CONCLUSIONS

The Eachine Racer 180 introduces here the interesting concept of tilting arms. With this principle, the racer is a kind of air’s dragster to reach horizontal top speed. In another hand, if you are looking for an acrobatic machine, the ER180 is not the right choice. No really effective acro flight mode availble. 99% of elements are strong and efficient (nice FPV & VTX part for example) but the Achilles’ heel is certainly the servo motor controling the arm tilting. It’s strongly advise to stock some spare ones in advance coz even with a moderate crash, you will probably strip the builtin gear mechanism.

UNBOXING

PROS

+ CCD Camera
+ SPF3 board
+ Oneshot 125 compatible 30A BLHeli ESC
+ ESC upgradable via BLheli suite
+ Strong Carbon structure
+ Comes directly in 4S
+ Ni-Mh battery for transmitter

CONS

–POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS PITCH OFFSET VIA THE SWITCH C
–PITCH OFFSET DEPENDENT OF THE FLIGHT MODES– Fragile Servo … can be striped easily just after a moderate crash (need to stock spare)
– No spare servo in the bundle
– No buzzer
– 561g
– Limited vertical thrust
– VTX connector easily breakable
– Not 5″ props compatible

RCgroups thread: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2717764

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 250USD at http://www.banggood.com/Eachine-Racer-180-FPV-Drone-F3-6DOF-350mW-5_8G-40CH-VTX-1000TVL-CCD-Camera-w-I6-Remote-Control-RTF-p-1075386.html

Cet article TEST: Eachine Racer 180 with tilting arms est apparu en premier sur Drone-Maniac !!!!!!!.

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