Full Speed Leader 2.5 Setup, mods and review

The Leader 2.5 is a recent release from FullspeedRC and as well as being available on their own website, is also available from Banggood and Gearbest. If you do decide to purchase, Fullspeed over many more customisations and offer free shipping till Jan 2019. The Leader 2.5 follows the recent Leader 3 but is limited to 2.5 inch rather than 3 inch propellers. My objective for this blog is not to write a tradtional review due to the similarities to the Leader 3 but to cover the keys settings and physical changes I'd strongly recommend to enjoy this quadcopter.

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Differences
The key differences to the Leader 3 (reviewed here) are as follows:

• Smaller frame that accept 2.5" props maximum rather than 3" 
• 1106 7500kV motors that are suitable for 2-3s  rather than 1106 4500kV motors that are suitable for 3s - 4s.
• Motors are all in the newer C2 "bottomless" design.
• F3 flight controller rather than F4
• Newer Caddx F2 used rather than F1 although newer Leader 3 models may now include as standard.

As you can see these differences are minimal, the key differences for flight performance will be the higher kV motors and of course the smaller propellers. It's an interesting choice that they went for an F3 rather than an F4 processor on the flight controller but for now this shouldn't make much difference especiallly if you use the F3 performance edition of Betaflight described here.

Betaflight setup
All betaflight settings as customised by fullspeedRC are shown below. I usually find this is an easier way to refer rather than looking through lines of code in the diff file (which I've also included below for completeness. As you can see this shipped with betaflight 3.3.0

A quick note on weight
Perhaps the key ingredient than made the original Leader 120 such a successful micro was it's light weight, coming in at less than 70g stock. Unfortunately the Leader 2.5 cannot keep this up largely due to the VASTLY improved camera, vtx and much larger motors. Weights with and without props are below for comparison.

Stock Leader 120 props, no strap

Stock Leader 2.5 props, no strap

Changes recommended before first flight
After the first 2 flights there are some immediate updates I'd recommend.

Firstly get yourself a few sets of Gemfan 2540 propellers. I reviewed these some time ago on the leader 120 and since then nothing comes close. It's amazing how much better these are than any other prop this size exluding perhaps the new Avan rush 2.5" props. By comparison the Kingkong 2535 props included with this model are simply awful - noth that that fly badly but they are perhaps the least durable prop I have every used. They immediately bend on any contact and do not cleanly bend back. I only got 1 set with my Leader 2.5

Unlock the VTX. To get around the FCC requirements, FullSpeed have locked their VTX for channel availability. If you are able to do so with you local laws I'd recommend doing so with instruction in the manual that can be downloaded to the right

7166d61399.pdf
File Size:	1271 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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Get yourself some tape and taped down the motor wires. Between the bendy props and loose wires you run a large chance of having these cut by a wayward bend prop. I use this $3 tape from Banggood which is tidiey than electrical tape but honestly anything is better than nothing.

Next I'd recommend rotating the VTX by 180° so that the connector is at the back of the quad rather than the front, This will allow you to have better adjustment for camera angle. As you can see below I could not drop my camera angle to less than about 40° before I did this. UPDATE: I mentioned this to Lewis @ Fullspeed and they are now assembling this way.

Stock: Can't adjust camera down

Roated 180°: any camera angle I want

Flight performance
Flight performance here is as expected and comparable with any modern 2.5" quadcopter. With 1106 7500kV motors it has a power edge over most though but you'll need good batteries to manage supply them. I'd recommend a 2s battery of around 650mah which should give you 3-4 minutes flight depending on how you fly. The GNB 3s 650mah would probably be the pick of the bunch and is available from Banggood or Gearbest amongst others.

Given I wanted to make a number of changes to betaflight settings I chose to update Betaflight to 3.5.1 performance edition (OMNIBUS target). So far I've had to dial back the P and D values around 10 points do reduce oscillations but will post PIDS here once I've refined a little more. UPDATE: New Pids for 3s and 2s below:

From testing around 50-60 packs I can say the frame is extremely strong with no signs of damage. It does a great job of protecting the camera and motors.

Below is DVR of some early flights:

Recommendations
In summary this quadcopter needs a few very minor tweaks out of the box for the best experience however once these are done (at very little cost) you have a very, very good 2.5" quadcopter with a strong featureset, particularly the powerful motors and VTX which allows up to 600mW transmit power and full tramp telemetry control via betaflight OSD.

Oddly the closest competition to this model is probably Full Speed's own Leader 3. Personally I do prefer the Leader 3 given the difference in retail price is only $4 and you get better props and a more capable FC out of the box. More relevant to this choice though is the motor kV and what batteries you have available. Outside of the Leader 3 though, the closest competition for the leader 2.5 is the Emax Babyhawk R Pro but at $170 retail price this is over $40 more expensive. The Leader 2.5 is a great step forward from the Leader 120 (reviewed and modded here) and brings the featureset up to date with common tech for 2018.

The Leader 2.5 is available from the following retailers that deliver worldwide:

• FullspeedRC.com 
• Banggood.com
• Gearbest.com