4DRC 4D F4 Low Cost Two Axis Gimbal Brushless GPS Drone Flight Test Review
This may be one of the lowest cost stabilized gimbal brushless GPS drones currently on the market. Find it here http://rcmove.ru/uud
Pros
- Very affordable for a stabilized gimbal brushless GPS drone.
- Portable folding drone with very nice carrying case included.
- Brushless motors for motor durability.
- GPS system that provides automatic return to home and landing capability on command, loss of signal, and low voltage.
- Optical flow sensor to enhance hover stability when near the ground.
- 7.4V 3500mah battery provides up to 25 minutes flight time in hover (I got about 23 minutes with maneuvering flight).
- Two axis stabilized gimbal for video stability.
- Video is recorded to an onboard SD card at 2048 x 1152 pixel resolution at 25 frames per second.
- 4DRC Pro app provides real time in-flight FPV video to your phone, along with advanced flight capabilities of follow me, orbit position, and waypoints. This app is available here on Google Play https://bit.ly/4DRC-Pro and here on the app store https://bit.ly/4DRC_Pro .
- Advertised control range of up to 2 kilometers. Note that FPV control range, although strong, will likely be considerably less.
Cons
- App requires a phone with 802.11ac WiFi. Before purchasing, first verify that your phone has 802.11ac WiFi capability, or you may be very disappointed as you will not be able to use the app.
- This drone with battery weighs 400 grams and will require registration in most countries.
Keep in mind that engineering tradeoffs were made in the design of this drone to keep the price at a reasonable level. So some issues are to be expected. These issues include:
- Single GPS system can sometimes requires considerable wait (up to 10 minutes) to achieve satellite lockon.
- I could not get advanced flight control features to turn off (and yes, I did try pressing that red X on the left side of the screen with no result). The only way that I found to shut off these features was to press the return to home button two times to cancel them.
- Waypoint feature would not automaticaly locate my position or the drone`s position on the map. It requires manually scrolling the map to find your location to set waypoints.
- Drone can be unstable in wind above 10mph.
- Gimbal is not the best for stability, with some shakiness was noted in maneuvers. The camera is also not true 4K. Dynamic range performance is also not the best when shifting the view toward and away from the sun.
In this video we look at the changes made to improve the flying characteristics of this DIY foamboard plane and I also speak to some of the comments that viewers left on the original video
