TEST: JJRC P130, the little brother

[Drone News]

INTRODUCTION

The JJRC P130 is assumed to be the smallest brother in the Ppro series, after the excellent P175 and P200 machines. With the P130, JJRC wants to offer a mini brushless racer in general lighter and more agile. Here with the P130, no more an X-design but more a classic H one. Let’s discover a bit this bundle.

BOX CONTENT

+ 1 x JJRC P130 (with a 3S 850mAh LiPo with XT60)
+ 1 x Transmitter (using 4xAAA batteries not included)
+ 1 x Charger
+ 4 x Spare props (2 CW, 2 CCW)
+ 1 x Battery strap
+ 1 x Camera mount
+ 1 x Instruction manual (English)

OVERVIEW

We have a 130mm brushless machine so in theory a direct competitor of the Tarot TL130H1 for example.

Side by side, we can see that the P130 is huge in comparaison…. Clearly the weight will be first opened question for this machine.

With the P130, we have a strong 3K carbon frame structure with 3mm arms….

But for such size, 3mm is probably too much and add a lot of extra weight…

-FRONT VIEW

Just 2mm between the prop extreminity and the front standoff… Clearly 4″ props are impossible to install

-SIDE VIEW
Aluminium standoff everywhere even to install FC… Some extra grams could be saved with Nylon ones.

The Cloverleaf antenna is very close from the upper 3K carbon limiting de facto the FPV range.

As for the front side, PWM wires need to be positioned/attached down the frame to not meed rear props …. No ziptie is pre-installed of given to secure this zone….

More when the battery is installed, signal is partially blocked limiting even more.

-REAR VIEW

The 2.4G antennas can be installed like

-UPPER VIEW

-BOTTOM VIEW
A large piece of foam is protecting all the bottom side of the P130

In practice, this element is protecting for example the FlySky receiver. The thickness of the foam is not large enough to really protect the element.

In case of hard landing crash on the rear side, the receiver will be hardly impacted.

The same mistake for the ESC…. As they are too long, they couldn’t be installed on the top of each arm but in sandwitch between the lower carbon plate and this foam element.

One more time this design is just catastrophic…. They won’t be really protected in case of serious crash. In fact, the ESC should have been more shorter/more modern and be installed classically on the top of each arm. Other bad news, ESC have proprietary firmware not flashable through BLheli suite at least directly.

-WEIGHT
284.7g !!!!!!

in comparaison with the Tarot model

It’s just twice more heavy !!!!!

Props

Some triblades 3″ props with 5mm of section

LiPo

A 3S 850mAH LiPo announced to have 30C as discharge rate ….

Be aware, when you installed on the top with the battery strap… Even when fully fastened, the battery slides a bit…. An antislip pad (http://www.banggood.com/3M-Silicone-2mm-Thickness-Non-slip-Mat-Battery-Anti-skid-Pad-Battery-Mat-for-RC-Multirotor-p-1078125.html) is a must to have for this machine to secure the battery instalation. In case of frontal crash, the battery will propulsed front and kill the CL antenna.

Camera module

A 25mW AIO FPV CMOS camera is installed supporting 40 channels spreads into 5 bands

Unfortunatly, the max uptilt angle for the camera is strongly limited (to 15-20 degees max) by the cloverleaf antenna. No real possibility to increase the angle without damaging the CL antenna. One more time, the design is pretty bad. The max uptilt angle is also limited by the bottom connector. At least it should be not hard to install a 200mW AIO camera. Should be plug and play.

One unique button to select the Vfreq (short press) and the Band (long press)

Main electronic

The FC is a classic Naze32 installed over a PDB mainly delivering +5V for both the FC and the AIO FPV camera module.

The FlySky receiver is connecting with PWM connexion so with a lot wires. Only the fith channel is physically connected. Why JJRC didn’t use a PPM or iBUS receiver ?. No buzzer installed …. and for such mini size it’s a must to have….

Two small switches are here but without function in practice.

By default, Cleanfight V1.12 is installed with Multiwii rewrite PIDs controller. The rates are assigned to 0 so out of the box you have a super slow machine. More any specfic flight mode is set… It means this machine flies acro only out of the box. You definitively need to assign more beginner friendly flight modes and increase rates as well.

It’s strongly advised to install Betaflight instead. Here are my current settings for Betaflight 3.0.1 (1.33Khz/1.33Khz)

With these settings I found the machine much more stable and the rear dropping effect more limited

Transmitter

A classic FlySky FS-i6 with three 2-way switches andone 3-way switch. Settings haven’t been tuned for the P130. It means that default channels 5 & 6 are assigned to the two pots instead of the Switch C and B respectively. The Failsafe as well as the D/R (Switch A) are not set too… See Unboxing video for a how to proceed to correct default transmitter settings.

FIRST USAGE

The machine is heavy and in practice you need to apply close to 45% of throttle to take off.. The inertia is huge and itrs not a nimble machine. Punch out are so limited but flips & rolls can be done with a minimum of remaining altitude.

For large turns, rear part can drop dur to the lack of trust from motors. It happens especially at jight speed after an inner fast turn. Betaflight reduces a bit this drawback but don’t do miracle. Ok Ok for cruzing usage, the P130 is acceptable…. but it’s absoluptly not an acro machine.

The FPV range is so limited by the location of the CL antenna mostly blocked by the upper desk and the battery. In practice, don’t expect more than 50m..

Flight time are also super limited, around 4min – 4min30.

CONCLUSIONS

The conclusion is easy…. avoid this machine. Too many failures in the original design. IMHO, most of problems of the P130 comes from the inadapted ESC model… too long to be installed on top of each arm. Then the battery can’t be installed beneath then the FPV range is limited etc…. One solution is to transplant the electronic on another larger and lighter frame… but it represents 2-3h of extra work. Please JJRC, no more model like this…

UNBOXING, ANALYSIS AND CONFIGURATION

PROS

+ 130mm machine

CONS

– Too Heavy 285g (> 250g)
– Underpowered system
– Poor FPV range
– 4min30 of flight time
– Rear dropping
– Fragile FPV antenna
– FPV camera Uptilt angle limited to 15 degrees
– PWM wiring
– Props can damaged PWM wires
– Receiver installed bottom and not really protected
– ESC installed bottom and not really protected
– Battery slips on the upper desk
– No Buzzer

RCgroups thread: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2729301

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 165USD at http://www.banggood.com/JJRC-JJPRO-P130-FPV-Quadcopter-with-CC3D-FPV-800TVL-Camera-5_8G-25mW-40CH-Transmitter-ARF-RTF-p-1082118.html

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