When you first see a Wizard X220 quad, you might mistake it for a QAV-R frame as its design is undoubtedly “inspired” by the QAV-R racing frame. However one thing this has over that frame is this one uses purple, and lots of it with painted carbon fiber sides, purple motors, purple ESC stickers, purple props and even a purple battery sticker with a … black battery strap! The nice thing about Eachine quadcopter kits is that they include all the bits you need to go flying at a great price, so lets take a closer look at this Wizard X220 kit.
Whats in the kit?
The Wizard X220 includes all the bits you need to get flying, it even includes some extra prop nuts, and some tools to attach them which is great as I am forever loosing them. Also you get some extra zip-ties ans screws should you need to do any repairs.
Otherwise here are the main components you get:
- Wizard X220 FPV quadcopter
- Integrated PDB
- 2300Kv motors with motor protection base
- 20A BLheli-S ESC
- Naze32 6DOF Rev6 flight controller
- 700TVL CMOS FPV Camera (2.8mm lens) on an adjustable camera amount
- 48CH FPV transmitter
- FlySky iA6 Receiver (PPM)
- 1500mAh 11.1V Battery
- B3 Battery Charger
- FlySky i6 Radio Control
When you look into the specs you can see that eachine are using all the latest gear with BLheli-S ESC, 48CH FPV transmitter but for some reason they use a naze32 flight controller? Irrespective of that, its great to see that a the wizard X220 actually flies very well out of the box without any need to tune anything. Looking into the settings in betaflight and on the ESC’s everything seems fairly decent, it even has oneshot mode enabled (something many of the cheaper RTF quadcopters dont have). However it should be said despite all the well tuned settings, you should note that as this is a freestyle quad some beginners might find it abit too sensitive to fly. But if you are looking for a decent but affordable quad to throw about the wizard X220 is the ideal quad for you.
Reasons to get the Wizard X220
- Designed for freestyle flying with the tri blade props to give excellent response, blade tracking and thrust (although they are less efficient and slower than equivalent 2 blade props). But 3 or 4 blade props are best for freestyle FPV.
-Includes everything you need for a freestyle FPV racer at a killer price, just pair it to your FPV goggles (something like the EV800 will work well with this) and you can go flying. - Uses BLheli-S ESC that work with cleanflight passthrough mode which makes it super easy to update firmware and configure ESC. These ESC have also all been correctly setup with active breaking, and oneshot mode enabled on the FC.
- Includes a nice 48CH FPV transmitter so you have lots of channels to choose from, however its abit difficult to change the channels as its mounted inside the frame.
- Components are compatible with 4S lipos, so its easy to upgrade to 4S (from the incldued 3S battery) when you want more power.
- Loads of free props included with the kit (you get 10 pairs, so thats 20 props), these are 3 blade props which are great for freestyle FPV flying.
What could be better
- The FPV camera, although adequate is not exactly a runcam swift (HS1177), if these are coupled to a mid range FPV goggles it should be fine, but as you get more serious you will probably want to upgrade the camera to something better (like the swift)
- Likewise you will also want to eventually upgrade the antenna (we suggest the TBS triumph antennas as they give impressive range and video quality)
- Better mounting of the video transmitter to allow you to change channels easily.
- The included NAZA32 flight controller, although fully capable is getting to the end of life as newer F3 flight controllers are becoming the standard. However you can change the settings to run the control loop at 1Khz, with gyro readings at 4Khz (details on this later)
Motors and ESC
The motors on the wizard are the same as those used on the Falcon 250 Pro which are 2204 2300KV motors. These produce about 440g of thrust and the motors on the Wizard have been anodised to match the purple theme of this frame. The best part is that these motors are controlled by BLheli_S ESC which mean they will run quiter and you will get even more performance out of these motors thanks to the impressive BLheli-S firmware.
The motors are also mounted on some plastic mounts which help keep your motor safe when you crash it into a tree or brick wall!
Its got LED’s
Under each motor there are some ultra bight LED’s with red ones on the left and green ones on the right to help with orientation if flying line of sight. Otherwise it just looks cool when flying.
FPV System
The FPV system is one of the places where this quadcopter has its slight weakness. To start you get a rely nice 200mW FPV transmitter with 48 channels which is awesome. Furthermore it has a reinforced right angle antenna connector which is another bonus. However because of its awkward mounting its very difficult to get to the DIP switches to change the video channels which is rather annoying. Also you get a rather bad stock antenna with this kit. Its also nice to see some attention to detail with the battery plug having some rubber grommets between the layers of carbon fiber to avoid the cables getting pinched, or cut.
The camera has a decent resolution at 700TVL and although its adequate, it is nothing particularly remarkable. It is however mounted quite nicely with an adjustable mount to suite any fling style and its also well protected should you have a crash.
Speed up the looptimes
By default the looptimes have been set to run at 500hz, with a gyro update frequency of 1Khz. This field fine out of the box, however I would suggest you increase the looptime to run at 1Khz, and the gyro update frequency should be set to 4hz. This will cause the CPU load to run at about 35% which is ideal and will give you abit more performance from your NAZE32. This is done on the system configuration section in the Configuration Tab within betaflight.
How Does It Fly?
When I took it for its first flight I was very surprised with the performance from this quad. Being at the lower end of the price spectrum for a ready to fly FPV quad, I was not expecting the world. However as soon as it lifted of it nips through the air with some seriously fast full throttle punch-outs. Out of the box the quadcopter is well tuned for freestyle FPV flying with the response being rock solid. The X220 can easily hold up against other FPV quad-copters costing over £100 more.
I would not recommend this to someone who has never had any flight experience as out of the box the rates are very sensitive (to give excellent freestly performance), but some new pilots might find this too sensitive or twitchy. Despite this I can highly recommend this quadcopter to anyone looking to get into FPV.
Overall Impressions
I do think that the wizard is best best yet quadcopter of this class that eachine have released, it is tuned to fly great of the box. It includes everything you need to get started with an FPV freestyle quadcopter, and BLheli-S ESC give you impressive flight performance. Furthermore the ESC and flight controller and are super easy to update and configure via passthrough mode. So when I decide to try 3D flying this will be the ideal frame as its affordable and has great performance. It is built well and in a modular manner to make any future repairs easy.
Where to Buy
What do you think of the Wizard X220? And ofourse if you have any questions just ask below!
Also if you do own one, check out our Wizard X220 Getting Started guide.
Comments are closed.