Overview of the Hubsan H111D Quadrocopter

Introduction

After the suc­cess of the Hub­san X4 H111 mini quad­copter in 2014, we all expect­ed to see some­thing bet­ter from Hub­san. Instead of invent­ing a new mod­el, they decid­ed to improve on the old, pop­u­lar X4 Nano H111. Meet the mod­i­fied nano quad­copter — Hub­san H111D.

Peculiarities

• Weight: 17.8g
• FPV at 5.8GHz ana­log fre­quen­cy with­out delay
• Head­ing FPV HD Cam­era (720P)
• head­less mode
• 6 axis gyro­scope
• For out­door and indoor fly­ing
• LED back­light
• 2.4GHz remote con­troller with built-in 4.3″ FPV mon­i­tor
• Max. flight time 6 min
• Max. removal dis­tance 50 m

The lineup

2 drone options were pre­sent­ed:

• H111C (X4 Nano Plus) — with 720p cam­era with­out FPV
• H111D (Nano FPV Q4) — with 720p cam­era with FPV

Hub­san H111D Nano FPV Q4 is a ver­sa­tile nano drone that has received almost all the main fea­tures of a drone in this niche. If we com­pare the pop­u­lar Cheer­son CX-10WD-TX and Hub­san H111D, the lat­ter has a more advanced flight in first per­son mode (FPV), imple­ment­ed at an ana­log fre­quen­cy of 5.8 GHz, which does not have delays in video trans­mis­sion. For the CX-10WD-TX, FPV flight is imple­ment­ed over Wi-Fi, with the accom­pa­ny­ing neg­a­tive laten­cy impact for this method.

Specification

Brand:

Hub­san

Mod­el:

H111C/H111D

Weight (with bat­tery):

17.8g

Drone size:

6.8 × 6.8 × 2.5 cm

Sta­bi­liza­tion:

6 axis gyro­scope

Max Speed:

up to 36km/h

Con­trol:

4 chan­nels at 2.4GHz

Trans­mit­ter Pow­er:

4 × AA1.5V

FPV:

ana­log fre­quen­cy 5.8GHz

Flight time:

up to 6 min­utes

Charg­ing time:

30 min­utes

Cam­era:

720p

Con­trol radius:

50 meters

Equipment

• Quad­copter Hub­san H111D
• Bat­tery 1S 3.7V 180mAh LiPo
• USB cable for bat­tery charg­ing
• Trans­mit­ter (pow­er sup­ply from 4 “AA” sold sep­a­rate­ly)
• 4 × spare rotors
• Instruc­tion

Unboxing

The Hub­san H111D quad­copter comes in a styl­ish black box with a trans­par­ent win­dow through which the quad­copter can be seen. The qual­i­ty of the pack­ag­ing deserves respect. In addi­tion to a minia­ture quad­copter and a huge remote con­trol, the box con­tains: USB charg­er, one set of spare screws and instruc­tions. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the kit does not include a mem­o­ry card, so you have to buy it sep­a­rate­ly. Suit­able microSD card, from 4 to 8 giga­bytes.

The first thing to start get­ting acquaint­ed with the drone is to study the instruc­tions, as it describes in detail how to pre­pare for the flight and how to con­trol the drone dur­ing the flight. It also describes the details of the con­struc­tion and gives a explod­ed view if the H111D needs to be repaired.

Appearance

Design Hub­san H111D inher­it­ed from its pre­de­ces­sor. All parts of the drone, includ­ing motors, are fixed on the main board. We attribute this fact as a minus, because in case of any seri­ous acci­dent, the entire board goes under replace­ment. Inter­nal ele­ments (cam­era, bat­tery, receiv­er and trans­mit­ter) are hid­den under a pro­tec­tive frame. The mate­r­i­al is durable and light­weight ABS. Motors are eas­i­ly removed, but sol­der­ing is indis­pens­able. The bat­tery is built into the body like most drones in this niche (with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of quick replace­ment). On the back of the drone, under the charg­ing port, is a tiny pow­er switch. For bet­ter pilot ori­en­ta­tion (front/back), the devel­op­er equipped the quadric with mul­ti-col­ored pro­pellers and LED light­ing.

Motors

The Hub­san H111D quad­copter is equipped with col­lec­tor motors stan­dard for this UAV niche. The devel­op­er does not spec­i­fy infor­ma­tion about their pow­er.

Camera

The Hub­san H111D FPV cam­era is inte­grat­ed into the body and, as it turned out, has a very small view­ing angle, which in turn com­pli­cates the con­trol in FPV mode. The main task of such a cam­era is far from shoot­ing, but first of all, high-qual­i­ty FPV flight. This is also indi­cat­ed by the fact that the video is record­ed on a mem­o­ry card (microSD is pur­chased sep­a­rate­ly), which is installed not in the drone slot (it is not there), but in the slot of the con­trol equip­ment. The res­o­lu­tion of the record­ed video is 1280×720p (HD). AVI video for­mat.

Food

The quad­copter is equipped with a sin­gle-cell lithi­um-poly­mer bat­tery with a capac­i­ty of 180 mAh. Accord­ing to the man­u­fac­tur­er’s spec­i­fi­ca­tion, it pro­vides a flight time of up to 6 min­utes. In prac­tice, with a mixed style of pilot­ing, this time was stan­dard for this niche of 3–4 min­utes. Dur­ing this time, the drone has time to warm up quite a bit due to the oper­a­tion of the receiv­er with the trans­mit­ter.

Remote Control

The Hub­san H111D quad­copter is equipped with the most com­mon con­trol equip­ment, which all HUBSAN drones with FPV flight capa­bil­i­ty are assem­bled with. The first thing that catch­es your eye is the impres­sive size of the remote con­trol and the built-in 10 cm FPV dis­play, which dis­plays a pic­ture from the drone’s cam­era in real time. By default, the equip­ment can be pow­ered by 4 AA bat­ter­ies, which can be imme­di­ate­ly attrib­uted to the minus­es, since it would be more prac­ti­cal to use a lithi­um-poly­mer bat­tery.

Re-equip­ping the remote for LiPo bat­tery is not a big deal. To do this, you need to pur­chase a 7.4V 1000mAh 25C LiPo bat­tery with a JST con­nec­tor and pow­er har­ness­es with a sim­i­lar mat­ing con­nec­tor. The pow­er har­ness­es must be sol­dered to the con­trol pan­el board, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly dis­as­sem­bled it. Every­thing you need for the mod­ern­iza­tion process is sold on well-known Inter­net trad­ing plat­forms).

* This is what the remote looks like after remov­ing the bat­tery com­part­ment (it is attached to the plugs in the remote itself). LiPo 7.4V 1000mAh 25C with JST con­nec­tor is installed in the vacat­ed space. Pur­chased har­ness­es with a rec­i­p­ro­cal JST con­nec­tor are sol­dered to the pow­er con­tacts on the board. The whole job takes 10–15 min­utes.

Appointment of governing bodies

On the remote, in addi­tion to the usu­al joy­sticks and trim­mers, there are a cou­ple more but­tons that are locat­ed just above the con­trol sticks. The right one turns video record­ing on and off. The left one is not active for the Hub­san H111D quad­copter. Switch­ing between nor­mal flight mode and expert mode is done by press­ing (for 0.5 sec­onds) on the right con­trol stick. Head­less mode is acti­vat­ed by the same press­ing, only on the left con­trol stick. Flips are acti­vat­ed by press­ing the left gas stick, but with a hold­ing inter­val of 1.5 sec­onds.

A microSD card slot and a miniUSB port are avail­able on the right side of the remote con­trol. The mem­o­ry card must be insert­ed into the slot before turn­ing on the remote con­trol! Through the USB port, the user can down­load the record­ed video to a com­put­er.

Menu

The con­fig­u­ra­tion menu on the remote con­trol can be called up by simul­ta­ne­ous­ly long press­ing the left con­trol stick (in the “Low­er Left Cor­ner” stick posi­tion) and the right stick (in the “Cen­ter” stick posi­tion). The fol­low­ing set­tings will appear on the screen:

• Record­ed Video Play­back
• Date and time set­tings
• For­mat­ting a mem­o­ry card
• Con­trol set­ting
• Sen­si­tiv­i­ty set­ting
• Man­u­al selec­tion of FPV fre­quen­cy
• Exit

If the size of the mon­i­tor built into the con­sole is not enough, the user can use any oth­er ana­log FPV mon­i­tor oper­at­ing in the 5.8GHz fre­quen­cy range.

flight qualities

After fly­ing the Hub­san H111D for the first time indoors, we were sur­prised how sta­ble this tiny drone is. Despite the lack of an “Alti­tude Hold” func­tion, the quad­copter is easy to hold at a select­ed alti­tude using the throt­tle stick. Two spend­ing modes are avail­able: “Nor­mal” and “Expert”. Begin­ners are advised to start with the “Nor­mal” mode. At the very least, this will sig­nif­i­cant­ly save on the pur­chase of rotors.

If the drone flies out of radio range, the motors will imme­di­ate­ly stop and the quad will fall. On the one hand, this will not allow him to fly far from the pilot, on the oth­er hand, fly­ing on the street, the pilot risks los­ing him. Be care­ful and choose open and free areas for fly­ing!

FPV

The FPV broad­cast works fine except for the annoy­ing hor­i­zon­tal stripes that are prob­a­bly caused by the elec­tri­cal noise of the brushed motors. When the motors are not work­ing, the pic­ture on the mon­i­tor is clear.

If the drone starts to fly in a chaot­ic direc­tion, it is rec­om­mend­ed to cal­i­brate it. Turn on and place the quadric on a hor­i­zon­tal sur­face. Press and hold the throt­tle stick to the far right and at the same time move (left to right) the right stick quick­ly.

Price

The aver­age price for a drone on var­i­ous Inter­net mar­ket­places:

1. H111C (X4 Nano Plus) — $38
2. H111D (Nano FPV Q4) – $116

Conclusion

Hub­san Q4 H111D $116

Func­tion­al­i­ty

4/10

Flight time

1/10

flight qual­i­ties

6/10

com­pact­ness

10/10

Equip­ment

5/10

Reli­a­bil­i­ty

5/10

Price qual­i­ty

8/10

pros

• Rugged con­struc­tion
• Sta­bil­i­ty and ease of man­age­ment
• FPV at 5.8GHz ana­log fre­quen­cy (no lag)
• Com­plete FPV Kit
• Two modes for begin­ners and experts
• The abil­i­ty to view video record­ings on the remote con­trol
• Price

Minuses

• Flight time
• Built-in bat­tery
• Insuf­fi­cient cam­era angle
• Hor­i­zon­tal stripes on the mon­i­tor screen dur­ing flight
• The role of the drone frame is per­formed by the main board

Sum­ming up, we can say that the Hub­san H111D cer­tain­ly deserves the atten­tion of the con­sumer. Design, work­man­ship, a ready-made FPV kit built on an ana­log video trans­mit­ter and han­dling that is indica­tive for this niche will def­i­nite­ly be appre­ci­at­ed by novice pilots. Dis­ap­point­ed by the small view­ing angle of the cam­era. But, if this fact great­ly inter­feres, then the prob­lem can be solved by replac­ing the stan­dard lens. Despite the built-in FPV mon­i­tor, we still rec­om­mend fly­ing with FPV gog­gles, because it is much more inter­est­ing and excit­ing than FPV fly­ing on the mon­i­tor. Advanced pilots will con­firm.

A photo

Pho­to with the Hub­san H111D quad­copter.

Quad with a mod­i­fied cam­era (now the view­ing angle is nor­mal).

Video

Video with Hub­san H111D quadro­copter.

Quad with a mod­i­fied cam­era.

Cam­era upgrade.