Review: FPVracer NEXT5 Freestyle 5” Quadcopter Frame
Purchased from Unmanned Tech Shop for £39.95
also available from Banggood China warehouse at USD53.99 plus 0.65 carriage
Introduction
This is a freestyle FPV quadcopter frame that uses beefy 5.5mm arms, along with a 7075 Aluminium camera cage. This design allows the fitting of the DJI HD FPV air unit although I’ll be building it with 5G8 analogue video. The camera cage also doubles as an adjustable GoPro mount, a TPU GoPro mount is sold separately if required. Full details are in the links above. I’m not going to duplicate it here.
Quality
I’m very impressed with the parts quality, the carbon pieces have slight chamfered edges so no sharp edges. The camera cage metal parts are also beautifully made.
The whole frame presents a quality ‘feel’
The front edges of the top and bottom plates did need a slight tweak with a needle file to get them to fit the cage parts, only a few minutes so no big deal.
The supplied screws are ‘gold’ coloured with button heads. In my experience button heads have shallower socket for the allen key and can often ‘round off’ if overly tight. You’ll note in the photos below I have replaced the frame assembly screws with cap head which are more durable.
ESC/FC mounting
The arm width does not support separate ESC’s
Stack size is 30.5 x 30.5mm (no provision for 20x20)
The supplied 30mm long M3 screws come up through the bottom plate, pass through slots in the arms (allowing arms to be easily replaced) and through the middle plate. Strangely the holes in the middle plate are larger than M3 clearance and are actually the size for nutserts as used in the arm fixing screws. Pretty blue M3 nyloc nuts are supplied but these are best suited for holding the stack in place. Fortunately I have stock of M3 nutserts (brass) so I fitted four and am now very happy with how it has turned out. If wanting to use standard fasteners then you will need to supply your own M3 plain washer and M3 nut. I’m not sure what the manufacturer intended here as the only instructions are an exploded diagram that is not that intuitive
Value for money?
YES, excellent IMHO, and one of the few parts it seems is best to buy from a UK source.
PROs
- Good quality parts
- Easy arm replacement, stack not affected
- Major parts have SKU numbers so maybe spare part sourcing should be good
- TPU parts provided for arm protection and DJI HD system parts
- Camera cage suits 20mm, so with suitable adaptors a wide range of camera sizes can be used
- Good price for what you get.
CONs
- The supplied nutserts for the arm mountings are very tight in the drilled holes, needs care with a good press, not recommended to ‘wind them in’ with a screw
- Button head screws supplied for frame assembly
- Poor instructions
- Insufficient parts supplied for stack mounting, maybe quantity of nutserts should be 8?
Verdict
Am I glad I chose this frame ? YES
Would I recommend it? YES
Frame with supplied parts
Camera cage
Underside, button head screws replaced with cap head
Stack screws, note added brass nutserts, nickel ones are standard supply for arm fitting
