EMAX Nighthawk Pro 280 ARF
So those new packs have been calling to me all week...but I've had no time to try them 
Finally got a few minutes after work yesterday to try them in the front yard:
I felt a difference. Sure seemed to respond quicker on the sticks and with more authority. The tune is still bugging me but I I'm getting the kind of power and response I was expecting from 2204's on 6045 props now.
emax seems to have stopped responding to my support request trying to clarify what frequencies are supported I'm pretty convinced the table in my manual is what this TX actually is setup for and they eliminated the boscam E band. So I'm not actually going to be able to test the stock VTX and camera unless I get a new RX. I have been wanting a new 32ch RX but it's still a month or two until that will be in my budget.
So you may have noticed that the video antenna is on now and in a different location. I've swapped over to my $25 eachine video setup since buying another of those would be cheaper than buying a 32ch rx. (Besides I'd really rather buy some 1.2ghz gear for other things than get a 32ch 5.8 RX right now.)
Which means when I do get to test it FPV it will be with my own video gear. So I think I'm crossing the threshold where this goes from a review to a project
Family plans this weekend mean I probably won't get to do those first FPV flights with it this weekend But my wife has a few extra days off next week so I may get to do some after work before sunset flying early in the week. Not a big time window...but will take what I can get at this point!
Finally got a few minutes after work yesterday to try them in the front yard:
I felt a difference. Sure seemed to respond quicker on the sticks and with more authority. The tune is still bugging me but I I'm getting the kind of power and response I was expecting from 2204's on 6045 props now.
emax seems to have stopped responding to my support request trying to clarify what frequencies are supported
I'm pretty convinced the table in my manual is what this TX actually is setup for and they eliminated the boscam E band. So I'm not actually going to be able to test the stock VTX and camera unless I get a new RX. I have been wanting a new 32ch RX but it's still a month or two until that will be in my budget.So you may have noticed that the video antenna is on now and in a different location. I've swapped over to my $25 eachine video setup since buying another of those would be cheaper than buying a 32ch rx. (Besides I'd really rather buy some 1.2ghz gear for other things than get a 32ch 5.8 RX right now.)
Which means when I do get to test it FPV it will be with my own video gear. So I think I'm crossing the threshold where this goes from a review to a project
Family plans this weekend mean I probably won't get to do those first FPV flights with it this weekend
But my wife has a few extra days off next week so I may get to do some after work before sunset flying early in the week. Not a big time window...but will take what I can get at this point!
Man, this thing does not want me to fly it FPV.
Family plans went well, but then Tuesday and Wednesday weather kept me from being able to fly. We had more rain in 24 hours on Tuesday evening than we usually get in a year! Figured I'd get a chance to fly this morning while my daughter was at dance...even had a spotter lined up.
Spotter bailed. Went out anyway. First three "always deserted" parks were packed. 4th last ditch park wasn't packed...but there were more people than I felt safe flying around without a spotter. So headed to the desert.
Got to the desert, got everything setup. And realized I forgot the cable to connect my VRX to my DVR. Oh well, can still fly just can't record the live view. I'm not flying on the stock camera/VTX anyway at this point so no great loss.
Set it back to bone stock for the first flight even though I know the low rates will drive me crazy. Get everything ready, take off with goggles on and the picture isn't looking great already. Got about 50 feet away and lost it completely.
Tried again and signal wasn't any better. Flew it LOS just to make sure it was still flying well...and forgot I was on low rates - so now I have two motors full of sand. Great.
But what the heck, this whole video system was just working fine on my other emax a few weeks ago! Actually...I was flying this VTX with my Sony camera. I swapped back to the eachine camera for this test. And I'm not that impressed by it and suspect it may be overheating and cutting out. So I'll swap things back to my nicer Sony camera and maybe also back to my nicer boscam VTX while I'm at it as well. Would still love to test the stock VTX but emax has completely stopped responding to me and I've talked to more people that seem to confirm the latest batch of these aren't actually 32ch TX's.
Not the relaxing morning of flying I had been hoping for
Family plans went well, but then Tuesday and Wednesday weather kept me from being able to fly. We had more rain in 24 hours on Tuesday evening than we usually get in a year! Figured I'd get a chance to fly this morning while my daughter was at dance...even had a spotter lined up.
Spotter bailed. Went out anyway. First three "always deserted" parks were packed. 4th last ditch park wasn't packed...but there were more people than I felt safe flying around without a spotter. So headed to the desert.
Got to the desert, got everything setup. And realized I forgot the cable to connect my VRX to my DVR. Oh well, can still fly just can't record the live view. I'm not flying on the stock camera/VTX anyway at this point so no great loss.
Set it back to bone stock for the first flight even though I know the low rates will drive me crazy. Get everything ready, take off with goggles on and the picture isn't looking great already. Got about 50 feet away and lost it completely.
Tried again and signal wasn't any better. Flew it LOS just to make sure it was still flying well...and forgot I was on low rates - so now I have two motors full of sand. Great.
But what the heck, this whole video system was just working fine on my other emax a few weeks ago! Actually...I was flying this VTX with my Sony camera. I swapped back to the eachine camera for this test. And I'm not that impressed by it and suspect it may be overheating and cutting out. So I'll swap things back to my nicer Sony camera and maybe also back to my nicer boscam VTX while I'm at it as well. Would still love to test the stock VTX but emax has completely stopped responding to me and I've talked to more people that seem to confirm the latest batch of these aren't actually 32ch TX's.
Not the relaxing morning of flying I had been hoping for
bummer, thats to bad emax quit talking to you.. i wonder if its a language problem or they do not care.
yeah the weather here has been cool but no moisture. my new cam came in today.. since i had to buy the 28mm version to fit inside teh zmr, since i originally bought the larger 32mm i guess.. now i have a second cam i guess for a larger build. both 2.8mm lens.. not sure why they make you pay couple bucks extra for that.. hah, but that is what was recommended so i went with it compared to the 3.x lens.
im glad i went with the more expensive cam. sounds like its not worth even messing with the cheaper cams for our environment anyhow.
chris.
yeah the weather here has been cool but no moisture. my new cam came in today.. since i had to buy the 28mm version to fit inside teh zmr, since i originally bought the larger 32mm i guess.. now i have a second cam i guess for a larger build. both 2.8mm lens.. not sure why they make you pay couple bucks extra for that.. hah, but that is what was recommended so i went with it compared to the 3.x lens.
im glad i went with the more expensive cam. sounds like its not worth even messing with the cheaper cams for our environment anyhow.
chris.
Could be their policy not to reply more than 3 times to a support request, I've seen crazier things. But since they basically gave two conflicting answers I'm guessing it's really just a language problem. They responded really quick to the initial request, but from the start have given answers like "that is correct" to questions like "I see the manual online and the one I was given are different, which is correct?" which sure seems like a language barrier to me. I suspect they just can't be bothered to try and figure out what I'm asking. They seem to care, they just don't seem to have good translators.
Cheap cams can work. But good cams aren't that expensive anymore and great cams are cheaper than good cams were just a year or two ago. With the cheap CMOS cam things are softer and there's a lot less detail in the darker and lighter areas. Even an overcast day like yesterday which the mobius did very well with the CMOS cam was having a hard time - I got black skies - like a black sun when you point at the sun over from a big section of cloud basically filling half the sky in front of the sun - a coupe of times. This is the same technology but not the same camera as what came on the quad. I can't test the stock camera without cutting wires because it's all connectors that don't fit anything else I have.
The currently shipping VTX doesn't seem to work with boscam frequencies - the duplicated frequencies in my manual in place of the boscam band apparently are the actual available settings on the TX that came in my set. I still want to test that gear at some point, but need a different RX to do it. So I don't want to go cutting it up until I can give it a fair test.
I'm still working on moving cameras around on frames to get my nicest known working setup on there so I wasn't able to fly this morning.
Cleaning it last night took some time....
Not a fan of the clips emax uses on these. Super thin and hard to remove without accidentally twisting them
Not what I was hoping to find, but better than what I was expecting to find:
Thankfully it fell out by itself when I turned it upside down now that the bell was clear. Don't see any scratches on the windings. Still some little stuff to clean off
There's a bit of silica ground into the face of the stator now, stuff is tough to get out and not really worth it.
And some matching scratches on the magnets.
After a good cleaning both motors that were buried in sand are spinning just as smooth and tight as the other two.
And that's why I don't like doing maidens in the desert instead of a park. One unlucky crash and you've got a good evening of cleaning ahead of you.
Oh well, other than some lost time and scratches no major damage. Back to beefing up the FPV system...
Oh I feel your pain. When I was on vacation at the beach a couple weeks ago I found myself cleaning sand out of my motors multiple times per day. Luckily the sand is pretty fine and a can of compressed air did the trick.
Seems like you are facing problem after problem. Hopefully everything will be figured out soon and you'll be flying FPV without hindrance!
Seems like you are facing problem after problem. Hopefully everything will be figured out soon and you'll be flying FPV without hindrance!
that rock, i know that to well.. it jams them up in a hurry.. and of course the rocks in my drive way are the perfect freaking size.. so its a pain to get them out.. but the motors keep going on even after words. so i can not complain.
sounds like a language issue to me also..
so what would be a great cam for these ? i thought the sony hd yada yada was the best option for us.. around 48.00.
i do not think i want to spend more than that for a fpv cam.. but maybe after i get the basic fpv stuff done.. time will tell how far down this rabbit whole im gonna go.. right now i have a few more parts in the mail.. and i hope to start building next month.. ill be need your guys help tho.. as im really lost when it comes to adding fpv.. but ill start a thread when i start..
right now ill keep practicing with the nano and my string.. till the doctors give the ok.. unfortunately iv been dealing with some swelling this week.. kinda of concern but trying to ignore it.
chris.
sounds like a language issue to me also..
so what would be a great cam for these ? i thought the sony hd yada yada was the best option for us.. around 48.00.
i do not think i want to spend more than that for a fpv cam.. but maybe after i get the basic fpv stuff done.. time will tell how far down this rabbit whole im gonna go.. right now i have a few more parts in the mail.. and i hope to start building next month.. ill be need your guys help tho.. as im really lost when it comes to adding fpv.. but ill start a thread when i start..
right now ill keep practicing with the nano and my string.. till the doctors give the ok.. unfortunately iv been dealing with some swelling this week.. kinda of concern but trying to ignore it.
chris.
I swapped over my Sony (forget the exact model jipp but sounds like the one you're talking about super HADII they've survived over a year remarkably. I got lucky and sc2k sent my order twice and told me to keep the spare...so I got a screaming deal on my last two.)
And video looks WAY better now. Still on the cheap eachine VTX but all the artifacts and what looked like RF issues are gone. Forgot about it until I was hooking up the Sony but when I first swapped back to the eachine camera I forgot to re-wire the harness for 5v to the camera. Only powered it up at 12v for a moment...and it seemed to work once I swapped it back to 5v....but now I'm thinking some damage was done.
Might have a chance at some evening flying tomorrow...fingers crossed.
Airhawk - I think I actually prefer the frame of the original 250 - it was more compact and lighter...but it was lacking good mounting points for the VTX which this frame adds. I also like the integrated board more than I expected to...if I can get blheli on it I'll really like it. Still trying to test some things before I risk flashing the built in ESC's though. I like the 2204 motors on here more than the 1806's on my 250 - but the extra weight of the 280 kind of masks their better performace. I kind of wish I could put the 250 arms on this board, cut the rear "tail" of the center section, and cut most of the front of the center section so it doesn't stick past the AIO board. Motors might start to get into the FPV view then though. Would't look as big and every g dropped helps on this thing.
I don't think the 280 hits the mark for a beginner quad. The RTF version...maybe but I haven't seen it to compare. This version needs too much tweaking out of the box for me to suggest it to a beginner. It will fly out of the box - but not as well as it can by far. Add in the video system that doesn't work on all 32ch despite being labled 32ch and using connectors that don't match anything else so replacing the camera (which is a must) is more complex than it should be. It's ok for someone who knows what they're doing but I just can't quite suggest it to a pure beginner. It is a good value in my opinion and the mechanical bits are good. I just wish the video system was better and emax had put more effort into a custom tune out of the box.
If you don't like soldering and building then there's a LOT of appeal to the 280. And with some creativity you can lighten it up. But if you don't mind doing the soldering I think the 250 can be built lighter overall and has higher performance potential as a result. Emax does seem to be responding to feedback on the 280 so hopefully they'll release an all CF version to help with weight, and rethink the Video
system (swap to a CCD camera, move the VTX where it's more protected and loose that tail, and bring back the original true 32ch VTX's)
And video looks WAY better now. Still on the cheap eachine VTX but all the artifacts and what looked like RF issues are gone. Forgot about it until I was hooking up the Sony but when I first swapped back to the eachine camera I forgot to re-wire the harness for 5v to the camera. Only powered it up at 12v for a moment...and it seemed to work once I swapped it back to 5v....but now I'm thinking some damage was done.
Might have a chance at some evening flying tomorrow...fingers crossed.
Airhawk - I think I actually prefer the frame of the original 250 - it was more compact and lighter...but it was lacking good mounting points for the VTX which this frame adds. I also like the integrated board more than I expected to...if I can get blheli on it I'll really like it. Still trying to test some things before I risk flashing the built in ESC's though. I like the 2204 motors on here more than the 1806's on my 250 - but the extra weight of the 280 kind of masks their better performace. I kind of wish I could put the 250 arms on this board, cut the rear "tail" of the center section, and cut most of the front of the center section so it doesn't stick past the AIO board. Motors might start to get into the FPV view then though. Would't look as big and every g dropped helps on this thing.
I don't think the 280 hits the mark for a beginner quad. The RTF version...maybe but I haven't seen it to compare. This version needs too much tweaking out of the box for me to suggest it to a beginner. It will fly out of the box - but not as well as it can by far. Add in the video system that doesn't work on all 32ch despite being labled 32ch and using connectors that don't match anything else so replacing the camera (which is a must) is more complex than it should be. It's ok for someone who knows what they're doing but I just can't quite suggest it to a pure beginner. It is a good value in my opinion and the mechanical bits are good. I just wish the video system was better and emax had put more effort into a custom tune out of the box.
If you don't like soldering and building then there's a LOT of appeal to the 280. And with some creativity you can lighten it up. But if you don't mind doing the soldering I think the 250 can be built lighter overall and has higher performance potential as a result. Emax does seem to be responding to feedback on the 280 so hopefully they'll release an all CF version to help with weight, and rethink the Video
system (swap to a CCD camera, move the VTX where it's more protected and loose that tail, and bring back the original true 32ch VTX's)
Put the eMAX 2204s and 6045 rotors on your Twitchity Acro X Quad and run it on one of the new high C 1300s you just got.
You know you want to.
You know you want to.
Put the eMAX 2204s and 6045 rotors on your Twitchity Acro X Quad and run it on one of the new high C 1300s you just got.
You know you want to.
The thought has indeed crossed my mind several times.
But I'm far from done with this guy. And the funky connectors on the motors make me not want to bother.
The Twitchity will get 2204's at some point...once I catch up on a bunch of projects and my bank account catches up from the projects
For now the 2204's stay here and I keep testing this guy. Now that the weather is getting cooler I'm hoping to do more FPV this winter - and the twitchity 230 won't cut it for that
Well, yesterday evening was my one chance this week to get out and do a little flying.
Winds were 20-40mph so it didn't look promising...but I need to get more FPV time with this guy!
Evenings are always crowded at the parks so I headed straight to my desert testing area. And quickly found that the wind was even worse. Kept blowing my truck door closed, eyes were itchy from the sand in the air...just miserable to be out in it kind of wind. But...must...get...video....
Good news. With the swap to my Sony cam the video issues are gone. Solid image with no noise and no breakup this time.
Bad news. The wind was ridiculous. Horizon tilted 45 degrees just hovering in one place due to fighting the wind. Didn't get to do much flying either as the wind just messed with me too much. It was gusting so I'd be tilted over to fight it...then it would let up for a second and I'd go zooming off. Not a fun flight at all. And not very long as the wind got me all disoriented and sure enough I wound up crashing rather quickly. This time I did break a couple props (not unexpected) but I also managed to cartwheel resulting in all four motors getting sand in them And I forgot my compressed air. Arrgh.
So another evening of cleaning motors for about a minute of unwatchable video. Hopefully next time I'll get a bit of "3rd time's the charm" luck
Winds were 20-40mph so it didn't look promising...but I need to get more FPV time with this guy!
Evenings are always crowded at the parks so I headed straight to my desert testing area. And quickly found that the wind was even worse. Kept blowing my truck door closed, eyes were itchy from the sand in the air...just miserable to be out in it kind of wind. But...must...get...video....
Good news. With the swap to my Sony cam the video issues are gone. Solid image with no noise and no breakup this time.
Bad news. The wind was ridiculous. Horizon tilted 45 degrees just hovering in one place due to fighting the wind. Didn't get to do much flying either as the wind just messed with me too much. It was gusting so I'd be tilted over to fight it...then it would let up for a second and I'd go zooming off. Not a fun flight at all. And not very long as the wind got me all disoriented and sure enough I wound up crashing rather quickly. This time I did break a couple props (not unexpected) but I also managed to cartwheel resulting in all four motors getting sand in them
And I forgot my compressed air. Arrgh.So another evening of cleaning motors for about a minute of unwatchable video. Hopefully next time I'll get a bit of "3rd time's the charm" luck
I envy those of you who fly over grass.
Spastickitten
Senior Member
I fly in waist high grass, I have to wear pants to fly. How will that affect crashes?
Crashes will be softer.
You run a FAR greater risk of losing your copter!
Be sure to use the RSSI Telemetry on a Taranis or have a lost copter alarm. Someday you will go down in the grass flying FPV and you won't know exactly where you were. The loud beeping of the copter calling out to you or a signal strength meter (Taranis) goes a LONG way toward saving the day.
When you find the copter be sure you get all the parts. In tall grass it is common to find the copter and miss the Mobius. Paint your camera BRIGHT yellow so it sticks out in tall grass.
Watch out for gators and snakes.
Always put your name on the copter. You would be surprised at how many folks on this forum got their copter back because they put their name and number on it.
You run a FAR greater risk of losing your copter!
Be sure to use the RSSI Telemetry on a Taranis or have a lost copter alarm. Someday you will go down in the grass flying FPV and you won't know exactly where you were. The loud beeping of the copter calling out to you or a signal strength meter (Taranis) goes a LONG way toward saving the day.
When you find the copter be sure you get all the parts. In tall grass it is common to find the copter and miss the Mobius. Paint your camera BRIGHT yellow so it sticks out in tall grass.
Watch out for gators and snakes.
Always put your name on the copter. You would be surprised at how many folks on this forum got their copter back because they put their name and number on it.
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Spastickitten
Senior Member
I lost the little antenna on the back of my 9xr out there, so I know what you mean. I had to wat half of the summer for a new one.
I'm horrible about remembering to look for all the bits after a crash. Even in the open desert it's amazing how easy it is to not notice a piece came off. I've almost lost my mobius twice that way - just flat out forgot to look for it after a crash!
Grass is so much nicer to fly over. Or fields. Or dirt. Heck I'd even take mud.
Sand is beautiful and I love it...but I hate crashing in it. Pants or no pants
Grass is so much nicer to fly over. Or fields. Or dirt. Heck I'd even take mud.
Sand is beautiful and I love it...but I hate crashing in it. Pants or no pants
Spastickitten
Senior Member
I would move, I don't like sand
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