3DPower 135 Prototype

By invisibomb on Aug 06, 2017

11  500  0

Hello, Everyone!
I am a beginner pilot with about 2 months of flight experience. I normally would not have written a review so early into my experience with multirotors, but I just had to share this interesting build with the rest of you. Please understand that the opinions in this review are from a relative newcomer to the hobby, but i'll do my best to share my observations.

It all started when I saw a few interesting builds on RotorBuilds that were built on a quad plus configuration. With my curiosity piqued, I ordered a replacement frame for my Babyhawk from 3DPower on eBay. Some time later, the package arrived, but as i started to mock up my build, i came to realize that this frame really didn't fit the Babyhawk parts all that well. I compared pictures of what i had to the photos on the eBay listing and it became clear that they had sent me the wrong frame. This one was a bit larger and looked to accommodate a FC/ESC set mounted at 20mm. The box was just a completely blank cardboard box. I then tried to find out what it was by looking through the frames that they sell. I couldn't find the frame. I contacted 3DPower, and they told me it was a possible version of an upcoming product. Someone had accidentally sent me a prototype frame!

I took the frame to my local hobby shop to purchase parts, but they only had 3 1104 motors and a single flight controller to choose from. I decided that i would just order the parts online to make the build as similar as possible to my iflight ix2 build. About a day before i got all my parts decided upon and ordered, I crashed the ix2 and broke the frame. So I scavenged the parts to get started on this build as soon as possible.

The frame appears to be 135mm from front to rear motor. The bottom plate is 3mm carbon fiber. I needed to drill out the holes a little larger than they were already cut to be able to mount the ESC and FC.

I did not measure the top plate, but it is thinner.There were also holes cut into the top frame in the shape of a motor mount. I'm not sure why it is there. There are also lots of extra holes on the bottom of the frame as well that don't seem to serve any purpose.

The first iteration weighed in at 77.7g without battery, 94.4g with battery. The second iteration weighed in at 83.1g without battery, 99.8g with battery. For comparison, the Torrent 110 weighs in at 120g with battery.

I found it a bit hard to see with the camera in its stock location. You can see the top plate in the camera view as well as the front motor. After a few flights, i decided to make changes to make it easier to see as well as add some protection to the props. I switched to a Babyhawk camera. This actually mounted to the frame in the holes cut for the front standoffs for the top plate. This raised the camera a bit, but I think the visibility is a bit better overall.

I added Torrent 110 propeller guards to go with the Torrent 110 propellers. It was almost impossible to see over the motor guards without raising the camera or setting it to an extreme angle. These fit perfectly on frame. I also had to omit the top plate as it no longer fit. I would love to have one custom cut or have a canopy 3D printed.

The craft seems to have good forward acceleration and yaw authority, but a slight decrease in roll authority. It really seemed like it could use higher rates set in betaflight after i put the motor guards on. I am not an expert, but i found it to be pretty stable overall and a better flyer IMO than the Torrent 110.

Thanks much for reading!

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