Eachine Blade 185 – First Affordable racing quad with GPS
Preparing my quadcopter review for another model that I just received, I accidentally came across with this Eachine Blade 185. As I consider it is a very promising racing quad I immediately contacted BG to see if they can send me one for testing :)
Over the time, from an unknown manufacturer, Eachine became one of the Walkera’s biggest competitor on the racing quad market segment.
Certainly the guys from Eachine made a good work on this new model, featuring a very attractive design.
The aircraft is powered by a 3s 1300 mAh Li-Po battery, which based on my estimation will offer about 6-8 minutes of flight time.
At first sight it looks that the Eachine Blade 185’s transmitter is a rebranded FlySky FS-i6. I used that transmitter to build my first DIY quadcotper and I can say that it’s a pretty good remote controller for the price of $50 (including the FS-iA6B Rx).
In order to achieve the best field of view, the angle of the frontal 520TVL camera can easily be adjusted.
The Blade 185 racing drone is based on the powerful 32 bit Naze32 (rev6) fight controller.
Eachine Blade 185 main parts
- Carbon fiber airframe;
- AIO Plate;
- Naze32 Rev6 Full 10DoF flight controller;
- 4 pieces of 1806 2300KV brushless motors;
- 4 pieces of Be-Heli 2-4S ESCs (12A with burst current of 15A for 10s)
- 5.8G 40CH raceband FPV transmitter;
- OSD for Naze32;
- Mini NZ GPS;
- Buzzer;
- LC-Power filter.
In my opinion, adding a GPS module to this mini racer quad makes it more attractive over its competitors.
Eachine Blade 185 highlights
- Durable carbon fiber airframe;
- Powerful brushless motors;
- Naze32 flight controller (STM32F103CBT6 CPU and MPU6500 accelerometer, IMU, MS5611 barometer and HMC5983 magnometer);
- 5.8G real-time image transmission;
- Camera angle adjustment;
- Built-in OSD (battery voltage, flight time, flight speed, GPS coordinates and other data);
- Built-in mini NZ GPS positioning system;
- Multiple flight modes;
- BlackBox flight data logging;
- Compatible with the versatile CleanFlight App.
According to your budget you can opt between two Eachine Blade 185 packages. The cheaper ARF package includes for $180 only the aircraft, flight battery and some accessories. The full package also includes the transmitter and the Mini BZ GPS module.
Included with Eachine Blade 185
- Eachine I6 transmitter and receiver (Rx and Tx);
- 3s 1300mah 25C Li-Po battery;
- Balanced battery charger (B3PRO);
- 5.8G FPV antenna;
- 520TVL CMOS with 120 degree lens;
- 2 sets of 4045 propellers (4CW and 4CCW);
- Mini NZ GPS;
- Spektrum DSM/DSMX receiver transfer cable;
- OSD tool;
- EVA bottom frame buffer;
- Micro USB data cable;
- Hex wrench and battery tie;
- Blade 185 user manual.
First images with the Eachine blade 185 quad
Unfortunately, being a very new racing model, excepting spare propellers, there are no other spare parts available (yet).
