Tarantula X6 drone: The big flying flying spider

I got this new quadcopter last Friday, but only today I had the time and the proper mood to write about it and make my Tarantula X6 review.

Hearing the word “Tarantula”, my thoughts immediately go to a spooky hairy spider. The engineers from JJRC tried to imitate the face of a spider in the cockpit design, and I think they did it successfully.

Usually, big quadcopters that can lift Mobius or GoPro-like action cameras are very expensive. The Tarantula X6 (aka JJRC H16) is probably the only multi-rotor platform that can carry such cameras at a price under $60. If it’s enough to get a decent video quality, you can purchase this quadcopter together with the 5MP camera available from the quad’s producer for an extra $35. If you want better video quality, I recommend using it with only lightweight cameras because too much weight will rapidly kill your motors.

The first edition of the X6 quadcopter was released on a huge fancy box. Probably, in order to reduce the shipping costs, the new version of the Tarantula X6 gets a much smaller box.

Availability of spare parts is a very important factor when I look for a new quad model as they must be inexpensive and easily possible to procure. Most often one of the engines can broke down and for this model it is easy to replace it as one set (2 CW and 2 CCW) costs only $10.

YiZhan Tarantula X6 review

Disclaimer: I have received the camera-less version of the Tarantula X6 quadcopter that GearBest offered for an honest review.

After I opened the box, I found that the package contained the X6 quad with preinstalled propellers, a Li-Po battery, a charger, 1 set of spare propellers, two landing skids, a remote controller, and other small accessories.

Before your first flight, you must install and secure screws the prop guards (including the LED caps), and the landing skids. Be careful when you do this, I dropped accidentally a screw inside, and I had to remove all the screws and open the quadcopter to find it. Trust me, it was a very boring process, but you should never leave it inside; metal parts can produce ugly things like short circuits that will damage your receiver board.

As I mentioned, the quadcopter’s design tries to copy a spider and is available in two colors: blue and black. The tall landing skids allow to installation of a Mobius cam or a higher-capacity battery underneath the battery door.

For better orientation, especially during night flights, the quad-copter has 7 LED lights, one under each arm, two in front of the cockpit that consolidate the spider look, and one on top of the quad. All the LED lights are blue except for the ones that are under the back arms.

According to the specs, the Tarantula X6 has 8 minutes of light time with a stock battery, but I have read it on the “RC Groups” forum about a successful 15 minutes of continuous flight. This record was achieved by installing a higher capacity 2200mAh LI-PO battery, which frankly is not bad for such an inexpensive quadcopter.

Tarantula X6: Remote controller

The transmitter is very small compared to the quadcopter’s size and looks a bit cheap. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the occasion yet to test if is compatible with other Tx protocols and if can be used in the X6 quad with Devo or Futaba transmitters.

With the top left button of the remote controller, you can set the flight speed between 3 values: 40%, 60%, and 100%. On the right of the LCD screen are two buttons, one for taking photos and one for videos, but they will work only with the stock camera.

The Tarantula X6’s motors are equipped with a tiny connector that is a very helpful feature when you have to replace them. It’s not required to disassembly the entire quadcopter just to replace a dead motor. The repair process will take only 5 minutes instead of one hour.

Yesterday, I was out for some test flights with the YiZhan X6, and I’m impressed by how fast, agile, and powerful it is, but I still not figured out how it can be set and how works the IOC mode.

The only negative thing I found on this quadcopter,is the lack of the On/Off button. Whenever you want to start or stop it, you must remove the battery cover and plug/unplug it.

Recommending a product to others is very easy, but the pros and cons of a product review will always be affected by the personal opinion of the writer. If I sparked your interest in this model, you can order it from GearBest. Before you click on the buy button, don’t forget to read more reviews about this quadcopter and watch some YouTube videos with it.

Tarantula X6 features and specs:

• Big-sized powerful quadcopters, with good payload capacity can easily lift small action cameras;
• High landing gears;
• Anti-vibration camera mount;
• Adjustable flight speed (40%, 60% and 100%);
• 6-axis gyroscope;
• Hyper IOC orientation mode;
• LVC battery alarm;
• In outstanding flip mode, the Tarantula X6 can flip perfectly at a height of only 1 meter;
• LED lights for night flights (blue ones in the front and red ones in the back of the quad);
• Flight time: around 8 minutes;
• Control range: around 100-300 meters.

Unboxing video

To improve the control range and flight performances of my Tarantula X6 quad, I’m planning to do some hacks and mods like:

• Adding some real ball bearings;
• Adding a real Wi-Fi antenna instead of that tiny wire;
• Prop balancing, I already ordered an inexpensive magnetic propeller balancer;
• Installing a EKOO S090 camera for aerial videos;
• FPV mod for first-person view flights.

Tarantula X6 package includes:

• 2.4GHz remote controller;
• 2 type of camera mounts (optional);
• 5MP HD camera (optional);
• 1 set of prop guards;
• 4pcs of LED caps (2pcs red and 2pcs blue);
• 1set of spare propellers;
• 2bags of screws (size 1 and size 3);
• Screwdriver;
• 2s 1200mAh 7.4v Li-Po battery with 30c high discharge rate;
• Balanced battery charger (2s);
• Tarantula X6 user guide.

p.s. Just ordered a Syma X8W is another interesting big-sized quadcopter, so a side-by-side comparison between Syma X8 and Tarantula X6 will probably come next month.