Changing the Game - DarwinFPV Tiny Ape Freestyle 

Hey buddy I have the Tiny hawk 2 freestyle quad. How easy will it be to 1 change the battery connection to fit bigger/better battery’s 2nd I’m wanting to upgrade to elrs. Can I just buy the elrs bord & battery & solder it on ect?

those would be non spi receivers at a guess. as soon as betaflight 4.3 is released it wont be a problem

"I rammed the side of my head with the THF 2 when I was learning to fly and I wasn't hurt." LOLOLOL

Awesome hope you enjoy

That's what to do. It's 4.3 making it a pain

I agree i love geprc. Cheers

Great to hear!

The pros work with dji?

@@ajstruhar2048 Some will, but not for under 100 dollars

@@RCDUDEFPV I'm okay with that. Do I choose the pro version? I'm just starting out and bought the dgi v2 and figured these little drones were they way to go! I gave you a follow and look forward to more of your contact. Thanks for your time

That's cool yeah no issues for me

2.5 inch stays my favorite size after years of flying. And after transition to Dji... 2.5 inch are fun robust safe convenient... all you need for everywhere flying

Good choice :-)

iv only ever had bad experience with spektrum. had an expensive fly away and really poor range for fpv. perfect for LOS but we need longer for FPV. elrs will do 30km on 100mw. if you are working with planes and quads with separate receivers its pretty mature. its only this new built into the flight controller receivers causing it to be tricky for now. Its well worth the upgrade. as for los with the tiny quad. a lot of it is just hope haha. Cheers

@@AndyRCchannel Personally I've never had issues with spektrum, my TX is the last of the JR spektrums radios. My receivers are spektrum compatible mostly. I guess a fly away would start you wondering. Anyhow my concern was more about latency of the receiver I used, I believe it's Dsmx 2048(11ms). Not sure if that speed would impede your experience terribly in addition to the video latency too. Seems ok but I'm use to LOS flying. Thanks.

oh no :( hopefully you can get a new esc in there as a cheaper option?

Check the motor wires on the fc ? The props liked to hit them on mine at first .

@@gregorydahl wiring is fine. Swapped motors to verify. I either have to try to remove esc from AIO board, or replace entirely. It is on the back burner for the time being.

i can only recommend the caddx peanut which is very expensive. or the mobius mini which does not have a gyro.

@@AndyRCchannel Thanks! Fair enough, perhaps I'll wait for micro cams to come down in price (or use a larger quad). Either way, I'll pick up one of these anyway with your discount code. Such a bargain for a tight little ELRS dude to throw in the backpack.

I don't know where you live, but the Hawkeye Firefly X Lite HD isn't too bad for the price .It is 4k, has a gyro and is about the size of a naked gopro. You can power it from an included adapter for the battery balance connector or from a 5v pad. If you're in the USA, getFPV has them for just under $140 and they are also available internationally. For a few more dollars, you can also get an ND filter which reduces jello.

Yes et 115 is great quad. I have one for more than one year and no problem

I agree, but I fear things won't improve soon. The chips shortages, shipping got more expensive and the costs of energy rising due to the war in Ukraine. The only things I buy these days are new batteries to replace old and faded ones, to keep my fleet in the air.

@@rc-fannl7364 Me too. I've got loads of self builds. If one blows I strip it and salvage. I won't pay stupid prices.

yes it has a spare uart for an rxsr

@@AndyRCchannel right on!💪

Thanks 😅

Thanks! Will do!

I like it yes but you still cant use the screen on the back you have to use the lua. rgb is cool and all works well

@@AndyRCchannel thanks Andy was seriously thinking of getting Elrs but wasn't sure which module to get for my tx16s

@@scottjackson1812 most people go for happy model I believe but not had any issues with any. the devs are savages :)

What antenna did you use? How was installing it with that TPU housing?

@@spikespine3 its a lumineer 5.8ghz ufl antenna, very good picture quality i fed it through the tpu mount and zip tied it to the plastic straw antenna thingy that came with the drone doesnt wiggle about so the picture is nice.

@@zombie_brainsgaming9562 Good to know, thank you!

its hard to compare because the baby ape is really good value for money, 3 inch has always had a soft spot in my heart. Its got more of a presence to it. But I cant fault the tiny ape other than the current work arounds you have to do until betaflight 4.3 is initially released.

@@AndyRCchannel makes sense!

yes not a cinewhoop haha

was that meant to be be bad as? I agree with that one. ;)

Awesome. Enjoy

@@AndyRCchannel do I unhook anything on the dji caddx after soldering the elrs receiver on to the fc? Tons of elrs videos out there but No one seems to be showing how to add it to a dji bnf drone.. thanks!

@@upnorthFPVandEUC it depends where you are located if In the USA then they give you 700mw but most other places it's locked to 25mw and you will need to unlock it with the naco.txt file

@@AndyRCchannel thanks im in the USA. What I'm asking is how to wire the elrs receiver to a dji drone that was bought dji bnf. I can't wrap my head around the fact that there will basically be two rf signals being pumped out all though the Jumper t pro can only talk to one (elrs) do I need to unhook any wires from the caddx or air unit? I also don't want to lose any osd data.

@@upnorthFPVandEUC you need to desolder the dji sbus wire from the FC and id also recommend removing the wire from the vista or air unit as well. Then you need to solder the elrs receiver to a spare uart and change the receiver type to crsf in betaflight. And also select the serial In the ports tab to the new uart you soldered erls to in betaflight. Not sure why you are switching dji for elrs though as you get better telemetry from the direct dji link and the same range

it wont be soon as 4.3 is released but yes i agree

It's a GoPro ten. Think I prefer the 8. What do you think?

@@AndyRCchannel We can see each blades of grass 🤣 It's much more sharper, I think it's good 👍

@@AndyRCchannel Always is the question what do you want to do. The ten is better in image quality and stabilisation and have a additional monitor. But the weight for us on a copter and runtime are not so good.

This one is better than the tinyhawk freestyle so long as you can navigate around using the release candidates

@@AndyRCchannel Ok Thanks, but what a pitty, because I love the freestyle2 and want to buy it. Now I must look some reviews about the ape 🤣

...but it's clear that you recommend the special product.😋😋😉😉 Thanks for all your reviews.

@@silentjack4446 I'd go for the baby ape pro. Better camera than the non pro. Bit cheaper. And easier to get a receiver going (for now) but they are all good choices

@@AndyRCchannel Yes of course all are good. For me are interested the handling and flight time. The Cam are changeable 😋

Works fine :-)

I got mine about a week ago updated and everything I'm totally knew to express lrs it's not that hard . I took it out did some flying today I like how it flies good . I think it flies little better then tiny hawk freestyle 2 not by much but definitely farther. 👌

I haven't tried it and darwinfpv says the motors are not rated for it so I suppose it's a try at your own risk type of thing. I think 2s is plenty myself

@@AndyRCchannel looks way more powerful on the 3S as seen on another channel:)

@@markmontreal7815 it doesnt need it and not worth the risk imo... remember other channels may not care if it breaks as they have so many. Im in that category but I think about the end user and its a model i would like to keep flying.

600mw vtx compared to 200 on the emax. runcam nano 4 compared to runcam 2 on emax. no long range elrs on emax. ph2 connector on emax not xt30, emax cant do 3s. I cant comment on geprc they stopped sending me stuff so look at other vids for that. Cheers

@@AndyRCchannel Back in the past, you have reviewed the phantom. Is it worth it to spend on a similar quad. My point is, it is still a company with a lot to proof to the community, we all saw the example of the 3" quad with the first gen brushless from the 2000´s and the 400 ish TVL camera... what im trying to understand is if it worth the money. You're honest opinion, would you buy it!!?

@@sergiocclopes phantom as in dji phantom that was £1700? or geprc phantom? I think darwinfpv already proved themselves with the baby ape, Iv flown it for hours without an issue. I get what you are saying kind of but people bought dji and geprc stuff despite many of their products having issues. If they didnt continue to do that then it wouldnt be where it is now. So, If I had the money id go for it yes. Id probably wait for 4.3 to come out if i wasn't impatient

I did yes

Flash it with BF 4.4 and the problem is solved. I flashed it and bind it with ELRS 3.2 with no problem.

Sadly geprc don't work with me any more as they sent me some stuff I couldn't review because I was sick. Understandable but luckily all other companies kept with me. Would love to get that relationship back when I have the time

Is go with what I used which is the reccomended 1000 sounds far too heavy

@@AndyRCchannel thanks Andy im gony get 4 of the tutu 450 mAh from banggood when i was looking on ebay i keep getting the tutu 650 mAh poping up but i think they where about 40-49g would you say thats still a bite heavy iv bookmarked them for my acrobat quad Andy how old are some of your batterys im using batterys thats about 6-8 years old there still working good no puffin and still handing a very good charge i only have problems with the 4s on my bigger quad they dont last too long where your ripping balls whats a good 4s batterys for ripping with the bigger quads Andy

Elrs v2 was available here. It's the elrs v2 built into betaflight 4.3 that's not released.

@@AndyRCchannel Oh ok, if I get it correctly you still have to run experimental version of betaflight to get the elrs 2.0. I ordered the tiny ape as my first entry in the drone world, can't wait to get it! Please make some more videos about this tiny monster when new tunes/releases are available :D

@@aviatoFPV yes thats exactly correct you have to run a release candidate of betaflight 4.3 which is fine as iv had no problems with it. you will get a few syntax errors between darwinfpvs CLI and betaflight 4.3 release candidate. Those might become more of a problem when its fully released as they may change more of the syntax. I would hope darwinfpv would then come out with a revised CLI for when that happens. Id recommend 4.3 RC3 thats what worked for me with darwins cli

Flash it with BF 4.4 and the problem is solved. I flashed it and bind it with ELRS 3.2 with no problem.

Which part caught fire

@@AndyRCchannel one of the escs. Damn shame as really enjoyed flying it tbh. Was on 2s as the motors aren't rated for 3 apparently.

@@gunjafpv this is the email I have for them. They always respond to me? info@darwinfpv.com

@@AndyRCchannel thank you mate. Do enjoy your videos. Will let you know how I get on. If get it up in air again might even switch to 3s safe motors heh

@@gunjafpv fingers crossed they sort it for you they always seem like a good bunch to me

What will you be doing with it for freestyle low to the ground super fast ripping the 300 may 450 would be heavier however if it has higher c rating it may be round the same besides the weight I run the darwin baby ape and I use 3s 550 batterys and freestyle for like 5 minutes at a time then I take another 550 pack and just fly long range but I don't have 4 different brands of batterys trying to see which one I like best

@@jujudiazsrcthings586 450 mah is not fun fly time, 650mah is fine for freestyle, and use to my 850mah on it but it need motor upgrade to be fine with them

not for this model. most elrs will be 2.4 seen as it can do 30km on 100mw and much smaller antennas

@@AndyRCchannel yeah I thought it was cool that they made the Mobula 6 in a elrs 915mhz version. Kinda an overkill as the quad would never go that far. Probably would not be able to use all the range from 2.4 even with this quad. The reason I asked you is it’s nice to not have to change out modules and I don’t have a 2.4 one yet. Even if it’s over kill the latency is still better than crossfire i guess.

I tried that and the quad always goes out of shot doing the power loops and punch tests. can never win haha. with the weather how it was it would be a shocking thumbnail regardless i think haha

Yes I have. All prices are ridiculous :-(

@Memer Dreamer RDQ are in the USA ? Shipping is prohibitive to Europe.

@Memer Dreamer yes hobbyrc only sells gnb in uk

yeah i think if you are new thats the one to go for

You should be able to judge it by paying close attention at 26:10 . Watch the throttle indicator on the bottom right above the battery, then how quickly you can hear the motors spin up, followed by how quickly it shoots for the moon. I don't fly micros (yet), but in my opinion the throttle delay isn't too bad, at least on a fresh battery. His LiPos are so burned out that I don't think the punches at lower power are representative of what you can see on a decent quality pack.

you can. just have to use another uart

@@AndyRCchannel Oh, that's good to know. She's definitely a little ripper 🤙🏻

Not sure what you are getting at?

@@AndyRCchannel I mean ELRS seems easy /ok for begginer... And aspecialy for begginer because begginer have no other recievers so could start on ELRS

@@Valhallaaaa I'm not sure it's there for beginners myself. Took me a good day to wrap my head around it. And iv been doing this for 30 years. But it's worth taking the time. I don't think a beginner could download the software in 2 - 5 minutes and get it going. Especially an spi based one like this where you are having to download release candidate configurators and release candidate betaflight. Then using a cli tool for your binding phrase. It's taken me longer to type all that out

@@AndyRCchannel Ok i can't really compare it. Im new i only connected Zorro to Firefly nano and it was fast heh.

@@AndyRCchannel I'm a beginner just getting into my first drone this week, and after spending half an hour trying to figure out how and in what order to flash everything (RM Zorro, EdgeTX, internal ELRS TX, BetaFlight on my Mobula7, ???) I eventually got frustrated and just used the binding mode override to direct link it in, as mentioned, about 2-5 minutes. I'll go back and figure out everything to set up a binding phrase once I own more than one drone.

quality is top notch. Who said it wasn't? sure the arsing about with elrs is a pain for now. its a great little model once you navigate around that.

90% of the products that come from betafpv are dogsh*t but the ''reviews'' say they're great, strange that almost as if... Not sponsored = bad quad/build quality/company/practices. Sponsored = the exact opposite. Take everything with a grain of salt, to just say ''it's getting bad reviews, quality seems not to be good'' Have you had on in your own hands actually looked at the quality and maybe actually flew the quad? Because at the end of the day Carbon is Carbon. Motors are just a dog and cheap as the rest of them and the electronics are more than likely all made in the same sweatshop all bundled up into a drone by someone who more than likely doesn't give a singular fk about drones because they're there for work. I mean it flies like every other micro on the market... Shite.

Wtf? I think you're on the wrong channel. 😂

I was like that. But been having a few issues with crossfire lately since they are trying to play catch-up with elrs. I'm sure tbs will iron it out

@@AndyRCchannel I've got $500 invested in Crossfire, most of which I've never flown yet, so my chances of switching for no other reason than to try something new are zero. I don't see that it brings anything compelling to the table to merit a sidegrade. Not to mention flying some hardware brand called "HappyModel" does not scream quality or nor inspire confidence in me lo. I only see it as an appealing option for someone broke trying to get more range and upgrading from short range FrSky junk. I'm still sticking to flying the sim until this industry sorts itself out. It's a mess that lacks standards... everywhere. Too much variety everywhere, nothing is interchangble or plug and play. Too much variety is a bad thing.

@@AndyRCchannel Hey Chopper, swap out your $200 Crossfire full JRbay 2 watt module with OLED GPS backlit display that can do a waterfall signal strength meter and has thumb joystick, for a $30 HappyModel ExpressLRS JR module that's probably mostly air inside. Because it's the new hotness! Um, i wanna to say, no!! This CRSFRsh1t isn't even working for me, I spend 99.9999% of the time in the sim where things always.. just work, no soldering required. The actual RC hobby turned out to be an unmitigated disaster and total waste of money for me... :-/ I use my TX-16s and that's... it. Period. None of this junk flies. It needs to snap together like legos before I'm bothering with it ever again. At this point, I'm really finding it hard to justify keeping any of this RC hardware at all. The sims are just so much more dmmn fun and hassle free.... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m3njnMp_7Eg.html

@@choppergirl I’ve seen your sim flying. You’re an ace. Go out and fly almost the birds and trees. 👍

@@lenh8612 Thanks, but if I landed it at my feet even with all the blinky LEDs and xeon strobes, I wouldn't be able to see it and would walk right past it on the ground. Maybe this summer after Lasik eye surgery and a whole lot of backlogged soldering :-/ I just don't really care very much any more, this hobby has been nothing but traumatic and heartbreaking for me. It is very handicapped hostile. I can't even wring these guys arms to install my soundpack for Open-TX and it's totally free. Of course a blind girl is going to put out the best audio soundpack for your transmitter, derrr.. Happy flights... watch your 6 because I'm on it. : ) Can you believe i'm more comfortable flying aerobatics than I am walking to the mailbox? Walkign to the mailbox, I stumble over my own feet because I can't see the ground. I'm a pinball wizard now : - ) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iW1yowztnxE.html