Dart 400 FPV Quad-Copter With Power Distribution, Clean and Dirty and LED Illumination

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Good Bang for the Buck

Dec 15, 2016

This quad's looks and feel are comparable to the Luminear QAV400. As the QAV400 was more than twice the price I went with this. The noticeable difference between the luminear and this is the quality of threads, screws and fasteners. (some were even rusted) You may want to replace your 2.5mm frame fasteners with ACE hardware 2.5mm fasteners with a more reasonable hex key on it. The factory hex size on these are 1.5mm. You will have a hard time finding an allen key at 1.5mm anywhere (in the U.S.). So replacing them will let you have a normal 2mm hex.

The battery location is completely stupid, in the rear. The quad will fly, but poorly. If your pids are out of whack or your FC is crap, then you will lose control frequently if you are liberal with the controls and throttle. I suggest modifying the battery location to the bottom and raising the landing arms, again with different bolts from ACE or somewhere of that nature. (either do this or balance it all out with a big dumb GoPro on the front, which we all know is not necessary because of RunCams and the such) Once I made the battery under the frame the quad flies great, like a giant racer. If you're not center balanced your rear motors will do more work and possibly reduce lifespan due to always running hotter. Also your flight times will be reduced due to the rear motors drawing an inefficient amount of current. You'd think it would balance out with the front motors doing less work, but this is simply not the case, amp consumption and motor efficiency is not linear. I gained almost 2 minutes by balancing.

I also see many people flying these with giant motors, the recommended motor size of 2216 is perfect. Anything much larger and you're again, going to lose flight time. And even though everyone says it only takes 8" props, thats not true. Either that or they are not aware there is a number between 8 and 10, its called 9. APC makes 9x4.5MRs that do fit. They clear the frame by a couple millimeters. Now if that is too close because your rat nest of wires, then sure go back to the 8s. But even eCalc will tell you, as I did, you're going to gain almost 2 more minutes of flight time.

One more thing I did was replace the shock absorbing screws with metal ones. Why they went with plastic here I'm not sure. You have the entire upper frame and its components depending on 6 plastic screws and 6 pressure fit pieces of rubber. Do enough rolls and you will surely lose the top part of the quad. So replace the plastic screws with metal ones and use a nut and a washer that are larger than the hole.

My setup? Heavy, because I wanted a lot of stuff onboard, thats what a 400 is for right?
Flight time, about 15 minutes.
Battery: 4000mah 4S.
FC: Naze32 Full Rev. 6 with a Neo Ublox N6 GPS attached.
Receiver: EzUHF Diversity receiver
FC firmware: Cleanflight 1.13, 1.14 has leveling issues
Motors (which I too thought would not be enough, but turned out to be crazy powerful): ZTW Black Widow 2216 with built-in ESC
UBEC: Luminear 5V 5Amp
FPV Cam: Runcam Owl (this thing sucks for daytime flying, currently being replaced with a luminear 650 something)
FPV transmitter: 32-40 Ch. IRC 600mw 5.8Ghz non-raceband version
Props (like I said 9" props fit fine as long as your wiring is tidy) but the 8x4.5 APC props work fine. You will need to machine down the center of the prop hub if you use the blackwidows. In their infinite wisdom ZTW did not raise the prop shaft. All the black widow motors 22 dia. have the same prop shaft height which is stupid. You won't be able to fit most 8" or larger props on the shaft because they're too short, leaving you no room to fit the nut. So expect to dremel down, or in my case, machine down your prop hub height to make them fit if you use these brilliant motors. There are props that have (so called slim) hubs that fit, but they suck.

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Certified Buyer Rated

Nov 04, 2015

awesome platform, make sure when using 4s lipos to use a voltage regulator on the leds. 5 min modification required to the pdb tracer between the power and the led.

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Customer Rated

Jun 19, 2015

I built this frame. In the fitst minute the pcb has burned. I didn't understand. Everything was good. I think the pcb was shorted.

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Customer Rated

May 08, 2015

Just finished my build of the Dart 400 frame. Pretty happy with the quality of the kit, everything fits together nicely and looks well made. At first the kit felt on the heavy side but after finishing the build the total weight was 1200g including a 3300mah 4s and Gopro. Im using the 980kv Sunnysky motors with 8x5inch props on 4s. 30amp ESC and APM flight controller with GPS. To balance everything out i put the batter under the frame and my electronics in the middle and GPS up top. hovers at around 40pcnt stick. I have added a picture to the files section.

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Customer Rated

Apr 08, 2015

The arms delaminated where they meet the motor and broke on a rough landing (not a crash) . Really disappointed with that! Otherwise the quality is good. Finally HK has some spare parts but i want new LONGER arms that arent crap!!!!

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Customer Rated

Jan 05, 2015

Light weight, goes together easily, I had two screws that had a messed up allen, but it came with enough extra's I didnt need them, flies great, cant wait to put more time on it! Wish there was an option for longer arms, but I did fit 9" props on mine.

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Certified Buyer Rated

Dec 10, 2014

Very good for the price. A bit on the heavy side, however the integrated PCB is very good for making a neat looking quad. Definitely won't take anything larger than 8" props, so use 7" or 8" props with 1100-1200kv motors, and a 2800mah 3S for best use.

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Customer Rated

Nov 07, 2014

I've now built this frame up with ESCs, motors and FC. I'm currently outfitting it with my FPV gear. There's a lot of good things to say about this frame. All parts fit great and are accurate and snug. There are no extra screws or hardware so dont lose any. Frame feels very solid and strong when put together but I wouldnt advise worm burning or wraping it around trees because it's not made for that and will definitly break. But it looks like it will be an excellent FPV/AP machine if cared for. For the money, this will do everything a QAV400 will do and save you a bundle. In case you dont know, this is a clone of the QAV. It even has the top cutout on fwd end for the Luminear gimbal. Haha. I love the rear battery connector and there's lots of room for FPV gear. The few things I dont care for are as follows:

1) The short arms. Limited to 8" props. This forced me to go 4S using my existing motors.

2) Fwd LED burns out in three minutes with a 4S battery (trust me I Know).

3) The CG is going to be tail heavy without a fwd gimble so this forces you to put main battery on the roof and move it forward (like a mini quad). Ive put all possible flight, FPV, and AP gear in the nose and she's still tail heavy with battery down below on rear deck. Oh well. It will simply look like my mini QAV250 which I love.

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Customer Rated

Sep 14, 2014

Finally HK is giving the competition a run for it's money! What a nice kit for such a budget conscious price. As soon as I saw it released I purchased one along with the Dart 250 and DHL delivered in 3 days. The frame is larger than I expected. All frame plates are 1.5mm minimum thickness, the arms are 5.0mm thick as advertised but one of the arms I got is only 4.90mm. I guess that's the trade off with these clones but i'm not complaining. I like the built in LED light in front and the Battery connector plug in at the rear. Built in PDB is also excellent. Motor mounts will accept 16x19mm bolt pattern so I ordered NTM2826 1200kv motors and a Turnigy Heavy Duty 3000mah 4S 60C lipo. I am going reuse my F20A esc's with simonK for this build. I can't wait to get this all together and fly it. Here's my unboxing review in youtube (copy and paste link) . . http://bit.ly/1tNzlDE