FPV Garage
New Member
Furibee is a Chinese brand available on Gearbest very active in the FPV market. One of the first and most interesting product was the Furibee Fuuton 200: a great $180 plug and fly drone. Then they delivered many models in the market (maybe too many?) and the Furibee Darkmax that we are reviewing is one of the most surprising and powerful that we ever tested! Let us see it in detail.
Introduction
The Darkmax is a pre-built FPV Racer for intermediate/advanced pilot target. The Furibee idea is to deliver the lighter and most powerful quad possible in the under $200 price range . With a weight of ~260g (without battery and propellers) it is the lightest 5" quad in this price tag.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 2400x1603.
Technical Details
The electronics consists in the very interesting Artower F4 Plus with a 4-in-1 BLHeli_S 30A that supports up to 6s batteries (yes, 6s!) and an Omnibus F4 with an integrated power switchable video transmitter. These board delivers all we need to manage our quad and fpv video.
The fpv camera is a 1/2.7" CCD camera with a 130 degree FOV, the VTX offers an uFL connector and a RP-SMA adapter for the provided linear antenna.
The motors are DYS brand, model SR2205 2550KV. They push out a lot of thrust, as well as they are balanced and robust. We didn’t notice any kind of vibration from them.
The quadcopter comes out with two sets of polycarbonate Gemfan 5152 propellers. They are probably too much for this combination of batteries and motor , but they deliver A LOT of thrust!
The package includes some spare locknuts and screws, two very cheap and useless battery strap and a prop wrench.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 2400x1603.
Quality
The quad is well built, very clean with almost no visible cables. The frame consist in a strong 4mm bottom plate with a true-x design, with no removable arms. The upper part of the frame is secured with four bolts and locknuts and protects the whole electronics. It also provides a natural inclined area for your Runcam 3 or GoPro Session. The RP-SMA connector has to be well tightened because it becomes loose after some flight. The uFL connector should be glued because if it pops off, you probably burn the vtx, and we don’t want it to happen because it is integrated in the flight controller!
The quad arrives with no manuals, so you should know what you are doing.
The VTX is not very user friendly. After some tries, we discovered that the channel button can be used to change the vtx frequency channel if pressed normally and change the band if pressed at least for 5 seconds. The selected band and channel can be verified looking at the leds on the vtx. The first row represents the selected channel, the second row is the band selection, the third row is the power selection. When this third row is completely off, it means that the vtx is on 25mW power, one light means 100mW, two lights 200mw. It’s a bit tricky to understand and learn, especially for the lack of documentation that Furibee provides with this quad.
This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 2400x1603.
Flight
The Darkmax is very light and agile. You have a lot of punch available for your race or acrobatic figures. It is also quiet, since the motors are well balanced and the propellers are rigid.
We strongly suggest replacing the supplied battery strap with a better one and add a piece of velcro in order to hold the battery in place. We used a RJX battery strap that can be seen in our YouTube video.
The FPV system is good. The video antenna placement is not the best. It tends to come loose with vibrations and in case of crash is too much exposed. The video transmitter sends a clear picture with a good range (even with the provided linear antenna). The camera has a good wide dynamic range and no perceptible latency. By default, the exposure is a bit high and tends to burn whites. This can be fixed with a joystick integrated in the rear of the camera. Unfortunately, in order to access it you have to disassemble almost everything… Not very comfortable, but you have to do it only once.
Recap
+ Very light
+ Powerful motors
+ Clean VTX transmission
+ Good camera
+ Good PIDs out of the box
+ Spare parts available on Gearbest
- VTX integrated in the fc means that if you need to replace it, you have to replace the whole fc
- Minimal packaging, no instructions
- Camera exposure to be tuned
- Current sensor not configured/calibrated
- VTX antenna placement
Final Scores
Packaging 35
Quality 60
Performance 90
Value 80
Overall 75
Where to buy
PNP: http://bit.ly/darkmaxpnp2
FrSky: http://bit.ly/darkmaxfrsky2
FlySky: http://bit.ly/darkmaxflysky2
DSMX: http://bit.ly/darkmaxdsmx2
Coupons
$159.99 with DarkMax220 coupon (works for all bnf variants)
Spare Parts
F4PLUS Flytower OMNIBUS F4 Flight Controller with vtx and 4-in-1 esc
F4PLUS OMNIBUS F4 Flight Controller with vtx
4mm Racing Drone Chassis with Camera Base
4mm Durable Chassis Board
4-in-1 BLHeli-S 30A DShot ESC 2-6s
Original FuriBee SR2205 2550KV Brushless Motor
GEMFAN Flash 5152 Three-blade Propeller 10 Pairs
You can use the coupon GB11.11Toys to discount all non-discounted items 20% OFF! It works for all the toys category.
Introduction
The Darkmax is a pre-built FPV Racer for intermediate/advanced pilot target. The Furibee idea is to deliver the lighter and most powerful quad possible in the under $200 price range . With a weight of ~260g (without battery and propellers) it is the lightest 5" quad in this price tag.
Technical Details
The electronics consists in the very interesting Artower F4 Plus with a 4-in-1 BLHeli_S 30A that supports up to 6s batteries (yes, 6s!) and an Omnibus F4 with an integrated power switchable video transmitter. These board delivers all we need to manage our quad and fpv video.
The fpv camera is a 1/2.7" CCD camera with a 130 degree FOV, the VTX offers an uFL connector and a RP-SMA adapter for the provided linear antenna.
The motors are DYS brand, model SR2205 2550KV. They push out a lot of thrust, as well as they are balanced and robust. We didn’t notice any kind of vibration from them.
The quadcopter comes out with two sets of polycarbonate Gemfan 5152 propellers. They are probably too much for this combination of batteries and motor , but they deliver A LOT of thrust!
The package includes some spare locknuts and screws, two very cheap and useless battery strap and a prop wrench.
Quality
The quad is well built, very clean with almost no visible cables. The frame consist in a strong 4mm bottom plate with a true-x design, with no removable arms. The upper part of the frame is secured with four bolts and locknuts and protects the whole electronics. It also provides a natural inclined area for your Runcam 3 or GoPro Session. The RP-SMA connector has to be well tightened because it becomes loose after some flight. The uFL connector should be glued because if it pops off, you probably burn the vtx, and we don’t want it to happen because it is integrated in the flight controller!
The quad arrives with no manuals, so you should know what you are doing.
The VTX is not very user friendly. After some tries, we discovered that the channel button can be used to change the vtx frequency channel if pressed normally and change the band if pressed at least for 5 seconds. The selected band and channel can be verified looking at the leds on the vtx. The first row represents the selected channel, the second row is the band selection, the third row is the power selection. When this third row is completely off, it means that the vtx is on 25mW power, one light means 100mW, two lights 200mw. It’s a bit tricky to understand and learn, especially for the lack of documentation that Furibee provides with this quad.
Flight
The Darkmax is very light and agile. You have a lot of punch available for your race or acrobatic figures. It is also quiet, since the motors are well balanced and the propellers are rigid.
We strongly suggest replacing the supplied battery strap with a better one and add a piece of velcro in order to hold the battery in place. We used a RJX battery strap that can be seen in our YouTube video.
The FPV system is good. The video antenna placement is not the best. It tends to come loose with vibrations and in case of crash is too much exposed. The video transmitter sends a clear picture with a good range (even with the provided linear antenna). The camera has a good wide dynamic range and no perceptible latency. By default, the exposure is a bit high and tends to burn whites. This can be fixed with a joystick integrated in the rear of the camera. Unfortunately, in order to access it you have to disassemble almost everything… Not very comfortable, but you have to do it only once.
Recap
+ Very light
+ Powerful motors
+ Clean VTX transmission
+ Good camera
+ Good PIDs out of the box
+ Spare parts available on Gearbest
- VTX integrated in the fc means that if you need to replace it, you have to replace the whole fc
- Minimal packaging, no instructions
- Camera exposure to be tuned
- Current sensor not configured/calibrated
- VTX antenna placement
Final Scores
Packaging 35
Quality 60
Performance 90
Value 80
Overall 75
Where to buy
PNP: http://bit.ly/darkmaxpnp2
FrSky: http://bit.ly/darkmaxfrsky2
FlySky: http://bit.ly/darkmaxflysky2
DSMX: http://bit.ly/darkmaxdsmx2
Coupons
$159.99 with DarkMax220 coupon (works for all bnf variants)
Spare Parts
F4PLUS Flytower OMNIBUS F4 Flight Controller with vtx and 4-in-1 esc
F4PLUS OMNIBUS F4 Flight Controller with vtx
4mm Racing Drone Chassis with Camera Base
4mm Durable Chassis Board
4-in-1 BLHeli-S 30A DShot ESC 2-6s
Original FuriBee SR2205 2550KV Brushless Motor
GEMFAN Flash 5152 Three-blade Propeller 10 Pairs
You can use the coupon GB11.11Toys to discount all non-discounted items 20% OFF! It works for all the toys category.