My first Quad/Drone Thing: An Oppo Review

"Brian, The Life of" (familycar)
01/24/2016 at 14:17 • Filed to: OPPO REVIEWS, NEW TOY

Rather than use the Holiday gift card my company gave out to everyone on something sensible, I decided to indulge my inner child and acquire my first quad rotor. I’ve been thinking about buying a proper drone one of these days so I thought I should start with something more ... attainable.

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Brand : WLToys
Model : V686K
Price : ~$100 MSRP (currently $80 w/free shipping on Amazon)

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After doing a bit of research, I “landed” on WLToys’ model V686, a lightweight (no registration needed) but not tiny quad with 2.4 GHz controller and WIFI camera. There are a few versions of the V686 but I bought the “K” model that comes with mount on the controller for your iOS or Android app-supported device to use in FPV (first-person view) mode.

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The camera isn’t built into the chassis but rather clips to a belly mount. Interestingly enough, there are four ports on this quad: one 3-pin that the included 2MP (VGA 30FPS) camera uses, plus a 2-pin and 2 4-pin ports. Looking into this, I discovered that you can actually purchase optional devices that use the same mount as the camera. One is an upgraded HD camera that apparently captures sound with the video (mine doesn’t), one is a water squirter (!), and the other is a bubble blower (!!!). The Phantom 3 might be the ultimate bad-boy drone but you can’t blow bubbles with it!

Anyway, with two decent inaugural flights under my belt, I’ve got a pretty good bead on the pros and cons of this entry-level FPV Quad.

The Pros:

FPV: This is a truly cool feature that usually only comes on true “drone” class quad rotors, or at least models that require FAA registration. As you’ll see by the videos of my first two flights below, the video is far from perfect but serviceable for the price. I haven’t captured any stills yet but will on the next flight. I will say there is virtually zero video lag when flying in FPV mode, regardless of how far away it was. That kind of surprised me.

Control : This is my first quad so I don’t have a lot to compare this to but the V686 seems instantly responsive.

Durability : To be honest, this quad seems rather delicate when you handle it. It is so light, it gave me the impression is would shatter upon the inevitable high-speed crash this newb was bound to cause. I can report with absolute certainty that this is one tough little bugger. My inital squirrely attempts to fly it was in my living room and I had no idea what I was doing. 4 or 5 high-speed impacts with ceiling, wall and furniture later, I figured our how to “feather” the power and became comfortable with the controls.

Price : Sure there are less expensive quads but from the extensive (about 10 minutes) research I did, this is one of if not the least expensive FPV-capable quad. There are several others with integrated cameras but they don’t support FPV.

Parts! : As a newb, I’m not sure about other manufacturers but I was very surprised by the depth of the parts support from WLToys. You can literally purchase any part for this thing: not just the typical breaking parts like blades but also body, gears, motors, led lights and covers, and even a replacement circuit board!

The Cons:

Battery life : This is, I’m sure, an issue for most of these things. Manufacturers obviously have to balance battery weight with flight time. MLToys claims the V686K is good for a 7-10 minute flight. So far I’m seeing performance at the lower end of that scale but that could be because I’ve only flown it with FPV on and video recording. I imagine with I the camera off and just flying in visual mode I’ll get closer to the ten 10 minute mark. This unit uses a 3.7v 730mah Li-po battery and it’s clear I need to order at least three more of them ;)

Wind : Obviously this ain’t no Phantom. Wind (even a decent breeze) is problematic for the V686. In the video of the inaugural flight yesterday late afternoon, you’ll see I was struggling with the breeze a lot. After recharging the battery I took it up again after dark. The breeze had kicked up a bit more and I almost lost it when I was about 80 feet up and a gust sent it over my neighbor’s house. Luckily it crash landed right between my neighbor’s house and the other on the other side and I was able to recover it easily. Lesson learned. My flight this morning at the school down the street (second video) had almost no wind and was a lot easier to control.

Bottom line : The V686K is rad and totally worth the price. I can’t imagine a better entry-level quad option for folks looking to dip their toes in the whole drone/quad rotor thing.

Now to look into ordering more batteries ... and the squirt gun attachment (Here kitty, kitty, kitty ... )

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DISCUSSION (8)

d15b > Brian, The Life of
01/24/2016 at 14:18

Glad you’re being responsible and shit with the registration thing.

Enjoy!

Brian, The Life of > d15b
01/24/2016 at 14:46

Yeah, I’ll have no problem with registration and no-fly zones when I upgrade. If the early adopters didn’t play stupid games with their 1st gen drones, there wouldn’t have been such a negative backlash and the rest of us wouldn’t have won their stupid prizes (regulation, public scorn) >:(

Klaus Schmoll > Brian, The Life of
01/24/2016 at 15:22

Kinja'd!!!

i got one these cheap little ones a few months ago and it was fun crashing it into my living room furniture. It was/is fun (like any cheap toy, you play around with it for a while until it ends up in some corner somewhere), but it left me thinking about flying a bigger one outside. Given that I live on an island, the beach would sound like a good place to start. But how good are those bigger ones with breezes? Would you feel comfortable flying yours on the beach on a slightly windy day?

Brian, The Life of > Klaus Schmoll
01/24/2016 at 15:31

I’m not certain but I think ability to handle wind is proportional to price. The larger “proper drones” handle wind well. The Phantom series in particular is pretty much wind-proof. One of the dads on my daughter’s surfing team has one and sends it out to the surf line during contests to film the action. The GPS hold feature will lock the drone in place so it automatically compensates for wind. Mine, in comparison, really can’t deal with anything more than a 10mph breeze.

PWRandSPD > Klaus Schmoll
01/24/2016 at 17:46

All depends on the bigger one and the stabilization it has built in. I have several, including the little bugger you have in the picture(just got it this week). I have a Parrot Drone 2.0, very stable in wind, Parrot Bebop with Sky Controller, also pretty stable up to about 20 mph wind, and a DJI Inspire 1, incredibly stable even in 25-30 mph winds. I am currently getting my pilots license and my FAA 333 exemption to go commercial. I will be using the DJI for my commercial work. In my opinion the DJI platforms from all my research are some of the best “out of the box” options for stability and user friendly flight and video capturing. However, there are now a lot of companies out there making damn good products.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Brian, The Life of
01/24/2016 at 23:32

I have a couple of thoughts to share. I’ve been flying r/c for years, everything from 2-meter gliders to 0.60 class “nitro” planes and more recently, micro helicopters and quads. Nothing is as easy to fly as the quads, especially the more expensive Phantom.

For indoor and no-wind flight, it’s hard to beat the Proto-X from Estes (aka the Q4 fro Hubsan). These are great little fliers to learn with. Cheap and easy to fly!

At the other end is the Phantom. I have a Vision 2 Plus. You are right about the station-keeping and stable flight. I can’t believe how stable it is, even in winds I would hesitate to fly my big planes in. The ability for it to return to me automatically saved my bacon just a few days ago when I was having trouble with the FPV signal and I couldn’t see it through the sun’s glare.

The middle ground is somewhat troublesome. They don’t fly well outdoors and are too big to be much fun indoors. We inherited one which got away from its owner and landed in my in-laws’ back yard. It was a windy day and this mid-size bird shouldn’t have been flying. We never found the owner.

I suggest you put your name and number somewhere on yours so you have a chance to recover it if it gets away. The range is fairly short, and it’s easy to be too high and fly out of range. When it enters auto-descend mode, the wind can easily carry it away.

Good luck with it. They are lots of fun. Just don’t annoy your neighbors. They aren’t so understanding if you fly over them with a camera.

Brian, The Life of > TheRealBicycleBuck
01/25/2016 at 08:54

Thanks. I've been flying it out over the steet or open fields only so far. My practice is to keep it out of over people's property both for the reason you state as well as the fact that it can get squirrelly if a breeze popps up and I really don't want to knock of people's doors like a kids who lost his ball ;)

TheRealBicycleBuck > Klaus Schmoll
01/25/2016 at 09:45

In order to be stable in windy conditions, the quad has to be heavy enough to resist gusts, powerful enough to fly into the wind, and have a good enough pilot to know how to handle it. The onboard flight computer is designed to keep the quad stable (horizontal) and make it flyable, but without GPS, a stable quad will drift with the breeze.

Onboard GPS allows the quad to keep station. In other words, once it knows where it is located, it will stay put, both horizontally and vertically, until the pilot tells it to move. Onboard GPS also allows for really cool features like return to home and automatically flying a series of waypoints. The return to home feature saved me just a few days ago when I lost sight of the quad in the sun and I was having issues with the FPV.

This guy’s story might give you some insight.