JJRC H8D/Potensic F183DH

[Rick M]

Anyone else flying one of these? I got one super cheap from Banggood after reading a bunch of reviews. For $90, it seemed like a good buy. They have the reputation for burning up motors if you fly them unmodified, so I installed bearings and added some additional ventilation around the motors before the first flight. Did a motor "run in" for one full battery at low rpm before flying. Also moved the RX antenna outside the body, and will be adding some padding to the camera mount and balancing props shortly.

After a few flights, I really like it so far. I have the speed set down to 40%, which makes it very easy to fly. Response is slow (because of the low speed setting) on pitch and roll, but yaw is very snappy, which gives me an idea of how responsive this thing will be with the speed dialed up. The motors are running nice and cool so far, so the mods are helping it seems.

FPV is smooth and no lag that I can see, but I'm still keeping it close to me while I'm getting used to it. I'm flying it LOS and using the FPV mostly to guide the video and photo views for now. Video quality is decent, nothing to write home about but very reasonable for a $90 quad. FPV monitor works well as long as the sun isn't shining directly on it and comes with screens installed to block the sun from most angles.

Flight time is crummy, max of 5 minutes with the 500mah battery supplied. I have some 650mah ones on the way, and YouTube videos show others using up to 1000mah batteries with a small mod (removing a battery stop post). I will play with the 650's and probably end up buying some 850 or 1000mah batteries at some point.

I'd love to hear from anyone else who is flying one of these or has in the past to know your thoughts.

 

[Rick M]

I've been flying this as time and weather permit. The 650mah batteries definitely help with the flight times, but they're still not terribly long. At some point I will remove the stop post and install some batteries in the 850-1000mah range.

The quad is super responsive and quick. I'm going very easy, since this is very different from the speed and response on my Syma X5. I am flying it at 50% speed setting right now and it's still sensitive. Once my skill level catches up, this is going to be a very fast quad. It doesn't seem to be bothered by light winds as long as it's flown with authority (which I'm not doing much of yet).

The motors are continuing to run very cool, so the bearings and air vents seem to have done their work. The FPV is decent, doesn't seem to lag and not an unreasonable amount of flicker. The video is good, with minimal jello. I expect that will go away once I put some foam on the camera mount and balance the props, but time will tell.

So far this has been a great quad for the $90 price tag.