The Falcon series (Falcon 250 and Falcon 180) have been a relatively popular FPV quadcopter to get started with FPV as they offered a decent ready to fly FPV setup for an excellent price. However we did not consider them to be truely ready to fly because they had some minor setup issues that needed to be adjusted before you fly, with the biggest omission being that the failsafe was not setup out the box.
However recently Eachine have released an upgrade to the Falcon, called the Falcon 250 Pro, alongside a all new freestle quadcopter called the wizard X220 which I reviewd a few days ago.
The Falcon 250 Pro is not the first update
Shortly after the original falcon 250 release, there was a minor frame update to fix some of its shortcomings such as rotating the flight controller and the addition of some access holes so that you can easily connect to the USB port of the flight controller without needing to dismantle the frame, However the latest version has some extra bits added to warrant the extra Pro part to the title!
What new in the Pro version?
The new Pro version adds a couple of new stuff to justify the ‘Pro’ word in the title, and despite this the overall price of the new version has stayed the same! Asthetically there are changes with the vibration dampers and aluminium standoffs that are now black/silver, whereas in the older falcon 250 they where all red.
The Pro now has new motor mounts (still inclined at 10 degrees) made of clear plastic (which illuminate the the new arm LED’s).
There are also some forward looking bright white LED’s aand at the back you have a LED bar that change color depending on what you are doing. They go green when flying forward, red when breaking, and the side LED’s will flash when turning.
Overall this new 250 Pro version uses some newer equipment such as a 40CH Video Transmitter (old version was 32CH) and most notably includes an OSD module now which is great (more on this later). All for the same price as before! You still get the choise between three flight controllers, the CC3D, Naze32 and SP F3 but I would only consider getting the SP F3 as the other boards are relatively old now.
The camera is a 700TVL CCD camera (same as the one on hte older falcon) which is mounted on a nice vibration damped mount that reduced any jello effects. The camera has a 120 degree field of view and the tilt angle can easiy be adjustable to suite your flying style.
Built in OSD
Apart from the LED’s, the integrated OSD board is the main new addition. The OSD itself is a MW-OSD board, but does not have any USB, or easly accessable FTDI connectors so you will need to use serial passthough on the flight controller to update the firmware/change the settings, but if its just changing the settings you can easily access the built in menu via your R/C sticks.
Access Built in OSD Menu
If you just want to adjust some things visually you can connect your FPV goggles and use your R/C controller sticks to adjust the OSD settings.
To enter the OSD configuration with your quad disarmed, and props removed:
- Throtte stick middle
- Yaw stil full right
- Pitch stick full up
Otherwise the built in OSD is a great addition and makes it so much easier to keep an eye on your battery voltage while flying.
Reasons to get the Falcon 250 Pro
- Designed for pure speed, with a max speed of about 150Km/h maximum speed with angled motors.
- It includes everything you need to fly including a flight battery and charger (you will still need 4x AA batteries for the radio control)
- Now includes an OSD overlay to view battery voltage, flight mode, arm status etc
- New ESC that have motor stop protection, (the motors will stop if it detects the propellers are jammed
- Adjustable camera mount angle to suite all levels of FPV pilots. This mount also is vibration isolated which lets you mount your runcam2 HD/gorpo to record HD videos.
Where to Buy
So if you agree with me that the falcon 250 pro is quadcopter for you and want to get your hands on one, where are the best places to buy?
- Unmanned Tech (UK) – UK based company, prices are abit more (because of VAT) and you will talk to me or sam if you need help (slightly biased opinion 🙂 ).
- Banggood (China) – takes longer to get to you and not great support (but you could always use dronetrest forums), but its sold at a cheaper price (no VAT) which may be more important for you, sometimes (albeit rarely) you can get hit with import chargers if HMRC inspect the shipment.
