Eachine US65 Pro - 2S power whoop
• Chris Landa
The Eachine US65 Pro has some sentimental value for me, since the first article I wrote on this blog over three years ago was about the Eachine US65. A lot has happened since then and I was super excited when Banggood offered to send me one for review - unfortunately at this point I am already a bit late to the party since this copter has been released in late 2020. If it is still a good choice in 2021 you will find out here.
The Eachine US65, is a 65mm, 2S whoop set - it comes with the copter, batteries, charger, props and a nice carrying case.
The copter itself weighs in at 24.3g without a battery and 38.5g with the two included, 1S, 250mAh Eachine branded batteries. The version with SPI receiver will be a bit lighter though.
Electronics
The AIO flight-controller is a CrazybeeX V1.0, BLHeli_S ESCs, video transmitter and in some cases receiver are integrated on the board.
The video transmitter is 25mW only - which on a 65mm whoop is good enough for me. The integrated video transmitters tend to have a bit more interference than running a dedicated transmitter, and this is the case here too - nothing that really distracts from flying, but you definitely see a difference.
The camera used is a Caddx Ant with an image ratio of 4:3 and a resolution of 1200TV lines. It is screwed to the canopy and the angle can be slightly adjusted. The canopy is open on the sides and is very similar to the ones used on the Eachine AE65 and URUAV UZ80
Receiver
Interestingly enough, this comes with a lot of different full range receiver options. Mine came with an FrSky R-XSR, but you can get the following options:
- FrSky R-XSR
- FrSky SPI (integrated into the flight-controller)
- Crossfire Nano
- FlySky
The price will obviously vary according to your selected receiver option. Usually on my 65mm whoops, I prefer to go with the FrSky compatible SPI receivers, but it was not available at this time, that’s why I went with the FrSky R-XSR receiver.
Motors & Props
The motors are Eachine branded 0802 motors with 14000KV. They have a shaft diameter of 1mm and are spinning Gemfan 1219, three blade props. The props are a bit lose and tend to come off in crashes. To fix this you can increase the tension between shaft and prop hole with a piece of floss, which will ensure the props to not come off anymore. The motors have a three hole 6.6mm mounting hole pattern which is pretty much standard for 65mm whoops.
You can use any other 31mm prop of your choice, as long as it has a 1mm shaft hole.
Although advertised as 1-2S whoop, you are not getting a plug to bridge one of the battery plugs, and in my opinion 14000KV on this slightly chubby setup would be a bit under-powered on 1S, but on 2S it is an absolut blast.
Frame & Canopy
You can get the frame with a US or a German flag design. Being from Austria, it could lead to interesting situations if people would spot me with the German flag, so I decided to go with the US version instead. Generally, I am not a big fan of this “patriotic” design - but since this is pretty much a standard sized frame, I might swap it to a BetaFPV frame once this one breaks. Other people might like it - I know people from the US quite enjoy putting their flag on all different kind of stuff, so maybe it caters better to the US audience.
That being said, the frame and canopy both seem to be relatively sturdy, had quite some hard crashes and so far nothing broke. Either I am lucky with this one, but usually the Eachine frames do not tend to be on the tough side, so a spare frame & canopy is definitely something you should also pick up.
Charger, Batteries and flight times
Included are four, 1S 250mAh Eachine branded LiPo batteries with GNB27 connector - or to be more precise, the Eachine knock off of this connector called ET2.0. I really do not like this connector, it always feels to me as if the battery is not plugged in completely, and if you plug it in completely it is basically impossible to get the connectors apart.
That being said, I prefer this connector over a rolled pin PH2.0 connector. Along the road I still might swap the connectors for two, solid pin PH2.0 connectors, simply because I have a lot more batteries I could use with it.
Unfortunately the included batteries are not of the highest quality and they all puffed up after the first couple of charges - they still seem to hold charge well.
The flight time is a bit over 4 minutes indoors with the stock batteries, when flying them down to around 3.1V per cell, which results in around 3.6V resting voltage - pretty impressive in my opinion. Outdoors I get a solid three minutes of flight time with stock settings and firmware.
But it gets better, after flashing 96kHz Bluejay ESC firmware I gain a bit over a minute of flight time indoors - so up to 5:30 of flight time indoors.
The low voltage alarm is set too low, if you ask me. When flying till the alarm goes off, I can barely take off anymore and the battery is well below 3.5V resting voltage which is just a bit too low for my taste.
Included is a 6 port charger and a matching power supply. Although I ordered from the EU warehouse, my power adapter had the US plug. I am not sure if this is the case because I went with the USA themed frame - maybe the version with the German frame includes a power supply with the proper plug, so unfortunately the power supply is pretty much useless for me, but basically any 12V, 3A (and up) power supply will do. You can also power the charger from a 2-5S battery via XT60 connector, which is a nice touch. It also has an USB output from which you could for example charge your phone.
The charger is honestly a bit sketchy and flimsy. It tends to get quite hot, but it has been working reliably for me for well over 100 charge cycles now - it is the same that comes with the Eachine AE65.
Battery Options
Unfortunately there is only a very limited selection of battery options for this copter - the 250mAh batteries with ET2.0 connector are only available from eachine. GNB stopped production of their 1S 300mAh cell and are now replacing it with their 1S 380mAh cell. Basically the same form factor, just a tad heavier than the original 300mAh cell, but a good gram heavier than the Eachine 250mAh cell, so you basically add 2g witht those batteries.
Unfortunately I do not yet have any of those cells, but once they arrive, I will update here. So currently your best option would be to use the GNB 300mAh cells and modify them with an ET2.0 or GNB27 connector.
Flight Characteristics
At first it was a bit overwhelming for me on 2S indoors, but within a couple dozen of packs I got used to it, I might still add a throttle limit at 85% for indoors, simply because I can see that I am not using the full throttle range indoors.
Outside it is an absolute blast - you can freestyle it with no issues, flips, rolls, powerloops, everything is possible. This whoop opened my eyes to a whole lot of new spots that are now really fun to fly. They previously were too sketchy for a toothpick to rip around with or just too boring with a 1S whoop.
Turtle mode also works perfectly, so you can just flip over after a crash without doing the walk of shame.
To get a feeling of the performance, check out my IGOW 3 entry submission video - here you can see the US65 Pro in action on stock settings.
Software
It is very unfortunate that the US65Pro comes flashed with Betaflight 3.5.7 - a version which at this point is three years old and lacking a lot of features that you actually really want to have, especially: VTX tables and RPM filtering.
The stock tune is actually not too bad, apart from the voltage alarms being set a tad too low. If you fly it down till the voltage alarm pops up, you have severely over-discharged your batteries.
You can download the original CLI dump here.
If you intend to keep the stock settings, I would at least suggest you increase the voltage alarm settings to 3.1V - this will still give you a solid 4 minutes of flight time indoors, without sacrificing your batteries.
After the first couple dozen packs I upgraded to Betaflight 4.2.9 and instantly the quad flew more locked in - with default settings. I then enabled RPM filtering, adjusted filters and PIDs to my liking, and I have to say: I will never understand why in this day and age anyone would want to fly with 3.5.7 - the current Betaflight version just flies so much better.
You can download my CLI dump here - keep in mind that you will also need to flash your ESCs with an RPM capable firmware like Bluejay.
Increasing flight time
As mentioned in the battery section, after flashing the 96kHz version of Bluejay I gained over a minute of flight time which is pretty impressive - so even if you keep the old Betaflight version you can still get a huge gain by just upgrading the ESC firmware.
Conclusion
Although being on the pricey side with around 130$ on banggood, I would recommend this power whoop to more advanced pilots. It really packs a punch and you should already have some experience if you want to fly it indoors.
Outside it is also a blast with 2S. I can see this whoop getting similarly popular as its now almost 3 year old predecessor.
The “patriotic” frame is something that you have to like - it’s totally not for me to be honest. But where I come from we are generally not that crazy about our flag that we do not need to put it on all the things. I suspect it might be something that resonates with the American audience though.
The only moot point in my opinion is the old firmware, I don’t understand why it does not come with a more recent version of Betaflight.
Chris is a Vienna based software developer. In his spare time he enjoys reviewing tech gear, ripping quads of all sizes and making stuff.
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