Introduction Tiny whoops have firmly cemented themselves as a bonafide class of FPV flight. Racing is held indoors and can be run irrespective of weather and is very popular as a dedicated series rather than just something you do when the weather is rubbish. The beauty is that if you only want to do it when the weather is rubbish it is not expensive and you can have a great FPV experience even at the lower end of the scale which you can add to if you feel like it. Last year I wrote a series on the E011 whoop using a budget camera and F3 flight controller (part 1 and part 2 blogs) but in this review I'll cover the Boldclash B03 Pro which has better control as a stock quad, devilishly simply to convert to FPV and offers something for rate mode flight that is superior in performance to Betaflight or Butterflight. The B03 Pro whoop The Boldclash B03 Pro is a tiny whoop style quad made by boldclash and features the 716 size motor (7mm diameter, 16mm long) which is now generally recognised as a superior size to the earlier 615 motors for performance and flight time on 31mm props. It is generally similar to the Eachine E011 except in cowl design, transmitter and flight controller. This last bit is particularly important as I'll get to later. It can be bought with either 1 x 300mah battery or 3 x 300mah batteries - larger than the 260mah included with the E011. The set of spares included is basic - screwdriver, 1 spare set of spare props, a prop removal tool and a basic USB charger. I'll assume you, the reader here is somewhat familiar with quads so in order to keep this review concise will focus on the similarities and differences between this and comparable tiny whoop style quads. First of all I'll note that the B03 Pro compared to the earlier (now obsolete) B03 standard does not have the psuedo altitude-hold mode - the controller operates the same as any other mode 2 controller. Flight performance is comparable with the E011 which makes complete sense - same motor size, similar weight similar battery size. What heavily weighs in the B03 pro's favour though is that the highest rate mode allows a much greater angle than the E011 meaning much faster forward flight and better rates in general. The B03 pro battery has approximately 15% more capacity meaning that flight times are up about 15-30 seconds but flight-time repleatability is difficult here. The transmitter is slightly larger than the E011 model but otherwise comparable: toy-style gimbals and basic trim control as well as a 'flip over' button and a button that cycles your rates. I'll mention here that this runs the Bayang protocol which means that you can use your full size remote to run with a cheap multiprototcol module $7 for a FRSKY compatible one from Banggood and the same price for one comparible with a FLYSKY controller at Banggood. Alternatively the Jumper radios (I can recommend the T8SG V2.0 plus) are all compatible with baked in multiprotocol. Interesting fact that Bayang protocol has much lower latency than Frsky, Flysky or even Crossfire... If you go no further than just buzzing around line of sight then this is a great little quad - solid performance from a ducted brushed micro quad with good battery life and only $17 with one battery or my recommendation is $23 with 3 batteries. We're not here for line of sight though and where Boldclash really stands out is their genuinely plug and play option for FPV. Which brings me to the... BoldClash F02H FPV - The most complete FPV whoop solution I've ever come across FPV whoops have the jankiest camera mounting solutions you ever seen - 3d prints that fully expose the delicate camera, rubber bands, double sided tape. I've tried them all and get between 1-5 crash landings before I have to reassemble it or replace the camera/vtx unit due to damage. Sadly this is even the case with my beloved santa whoop as you can see below. Vacuum formed cowls like the one developed bu NotFastEnuf (Shanghai mullet) or the one by BetaFPV improve camera protection greatly but still don't positively mount the camera. The Boldclash F02H fixes all of this by using a purpose build canopy that exactly fits the Boldclash F02 separated camera/VTX and that alone. The result is a unit that is built as one and is very positively mounted and bolts down exactly to the mounting points of any tiny whoop-style quad. Things go one better with the Boldclash B03 pro though where it plugs into the main board. To install:
The finished unit weighs just 5.5g which is very reasonable considering it includes a full cowl. Vtx channel buttons are easily accessble with a button integrated into the canaopy and there is direct provision for video in/out if you wish to use a FC that supports Betaflight OSD. The Angle is fixed at 10° which is very common for whoops. The camera will run down to 2.9v meaning you do not need to run an up-regulator; 1s vbat is just fine. Since the camera vtx is based on a split board it is much lower profile that the BetaFPV cowl, Shanghai Mullet or even the UR65 cowl which I use as well. Video performance is good - comparable with the VM275t and other more recent AIO cams that I run. It's 48ch/25mW fixed which is pretty much the norm and signal range is no better or worse than anything else I run. I do like that it is switchable PAL/NTSC as I prefer the extra resolution of PAL but I know others prefer the slghtly higher NTSC refresh. I can't recommend this unit enough. It seems more expensive at $20 but it is so sleek, clean and durable that I can see it lasting a heck of a lot longer than anything else I've used so far. I'll clip this blog here as this is where you may want to stop if you are just want a cheap basher that performs well using the included toy remote or your own with multiprotocol. In the next blog (which I'll link here when available) I'll cover more powerful CM03 insane 19000kV motors and most importantly the upgrade to NotFastEnuf silverware - this particular flight controller lends itself to flashing with this particular firmware that outperforms anything betalfight, butterflight or inductrix is capable of. It is not an easy process though so will keep this to the next blog.
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If you haven't yet seen the first part of my Leader 3 (SE) review, click here. In it I cover an overview of the New Leader 3 including full discussion of the components, build and software setup. A quick correction too: I mentioned originally that the flight controller (namely the gyro) will only do 8kHz loop times. This is incorrect - it will actually run up to 32kHz! Certainly the first I'm aware of on a board this size and something for me to test in future. Before I go any further I should note that my Leader 3 is a review model and so there may be minor improvements in the final version shipped to buyers. I'm in regular contact with Full Speed RC to give them feedback on what I find to assist with these improvements. The Leader 3 is available directly from FullSpeedRC.com, Gearbest or Bangood. Video performance Since FPV performance is common between 3s and 4s I thought I'd cover that first. In short it is outstanding. Fullspeed RC shared a lot of the development of the included TX600 vtx with me an a lot of effort went in to ensuring a clean video signal all the way up to 600mW and the results sure doesn't disappoint. The result is that the Leader 3 has the cleanest video signal I have every used. There is absolutely no impact of throttle or other electrical noise on signal and it is hard to put in words just how much more enjoyable this makes the signal. I do miss the audio that AKK VTXs allow for but most people don't rate this as being important, especially on a micro. It's noteworthy that the the transmission power will go as high as 600mW - equalled only by the AKK FX3 ultimate (review here) in this form factor. OSD control of settings via Tramp works as expected. Antenna connection is via UFL is common for micros and fit for purpose. No propellers in FPV view Great news for those who don not like seeing their propellers - the frame design means that even with fairly modest camera angles of around 35°and up there are no props in view. Hopefully this is clear from my videos below. This also make the drums for a Caddx Turtles HD camera install beat even louder... Camera Angle I wanted to clear things up on camera angle since Nick Burns mentioned it couldn't go past about 45° in his otherwise excellent review. I can confirm that the camera connector does not foul on the flight stack and does infact smoothly go all the way up to about 90° amgle. Pictures are best here so please see below: Performance on 3s When the Leader 3 was shipped to me, 2 custom PID prodiles were programmed in by fullspeed, Profile 1 was designed for 3s and profile 2 for 4s. 3s was tested with profile 2. Both of these profiles can be seen in full in part 1 of the review here. For 3s testing I used Turnigy Nanotech 3s 450mah 65c batteries. They weigh less than 45g meaning all up weight was around 140g. Flight time using these batteries was typically around 2.5-3 minutes with batteries coming to a resting voltage of arounf 3.75v per cell. Flying exclusively with the HQ 3x3x3 propellers flight felt very 'balanced' - what I mean by that is the quad didn't feel overly heavy (or light), top speed was fast enough but not ludicrously fast like the Skystars Bolt X120 on 4s (review here). It was however very predictable - I could hit gaps and avoid obstacles in a way where I felt I had complete control. It was fairly similar to the way the Emax Babyhawk R 3 inch felt (review here) but the HQ props felt more predictable and familar compared to the EMAX Avans. This makes sense - both the Leader 3 and Babyhawk R are of similar weight and with 1106 4500kV motors on 3 inch props and both have optimised PID tunes. Full Speed RC seem to have done a good job on the tune here not just for the feel during flying but also in keeping propwash to a minimum, even when I tried to put myself in dirty air in 180° turns or descending directly down. Below is a video from an early flight (2nd pack ever) in a local carpark. Typical I had DVR issues in a flight later that day where I'd gotten more familiar with the flight characteristics :/ Performance on 4s The battery I used for all 4s testing was the China Hobbyline Ministar 4s 650mah pack. It is an excellent battery that I even use on my 4 inch racer so is very capable although a little heavy at 87g. First of all I'm going to talk about straight up speed and my perception. It did not feel as fast as the Skystars Bolt X120 using the same battery. This is not an objective measure, purely feel. It did feel faster than the Babyhawk R 3" using the same battery. To dig in to this further though I do need to say that that Skystars Bolt X120 is very hard to control with this battery and I did not enjoy flying it because it felt difficult to control. It felt like it needed more open space which then kinda defeats the purpose of a micro. By comparison the Leader 3 felt in complete control using 4s and PID profile 2 as customised for 4s by Full Speed RC. As a result it felt right at home on 4s with all the control and balance I felt on 3s. I think part of this is due to tune but moreso that that larger 3 inch blade is able to better support the additional weight from the heavier pack and hasn't overloaded the propeller (disc loading theory). All other features of flight were similar to 3s - excellent video, precise handling and minimised propwash. I was really enjoying flying this until... Disaster Struck! When I first received this model, Full Speed RC cautioned me to use 4s using the smaller Gemfan 2540 props (review here) since motors could overheat. Since I was the only reviewer to receive mine where it is winter presently rather than summer, this was less of an issue although I did keep an eye on motor temps. For this reason I stuck with the included 3 inch props for 4s. About 10 packs in of warm motors (40-50°C only) I fell out of the sky when attempting a short speed run (see video below). On closer inspection the left rear corner had failed that I could later confirm as a motor failure (as opposed to ESC). The motor definitely was warm only as above and not hot. The only other time I've had a motor failure was on the babyhawk r when I used PIDs with too much P and D on 4s and even then the motor did not fail mid flight, rather afterwards intsead. This motor was scorching hot. I discussed this with Full Speed RC and found that they will be using a stronger motor on the production version - the review version like I have are a prototype. As you can see below when comparing to my burnt out motor on the Emax Babyhawk R, the Fullspeed one does not look nearly as abused - it failed at a much lower load. Interestingly shortly after this I saw Andy RC's review and found he had an identical problem - motor failed mid run using 4s with HQ 3x3x3 props. Update: The prototype motors are actually 4800-4900kV and the production version will be 4500kV. So, what does this mean for you? Until I can confirm that Fullspeed RC have moved away from the proptotype motors I can't recommend using the HQ 3x3x3 props with 4s, even in cold weather. For now stick with Gemfan 2540 props on 4s. Of course if it ships with new motors then all bets are off. Full Speed RC is sending me a full set of new motors so I will test with these and post my results in a follow up review as soon as I am able. Update: The prototype motors are actually 4800-4900kV and the production version will be 4500kV. Conclusion The Full Speed RC Leader 3 is as an excellent flyer on 3s - great video signal and predictable handling make for an enjoyable flying experience. On 4s the Jury is out... custom pids make this fly well too but the motors' inability to cope with the included 3" props are a bit disappointing. For now a bandaid solution is to run with Genfan 2540 props on 4s but I expect that Full Speed will release with a stronger motor for launch as they did with the original Leader 120. Again, my sample is a reviewer model and this feedback is used to make changes if needed to the final launch product. Full Speed RC has proven themselves to be a reputable company with well researched (and tested) quadcopters and I expect them to follow through on this model too. The Leader 3 can be purchased directly from FullSpeedRC.com - their shipping is a little more expensive ($8) but is the fastest. Alternatively you can now purchase at Gearbest (standard version) or Banggood (standard or special edition) or Hobbycool (special edition)
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