This review was nearly a DISASTER: HDZero Freestyle V2 VTX

hi there everyone strap yourselves in for some seriously oscar-worthy VTX power output testing this has got everything tragic lows euphoric highs I can't wait to share it with you let's head on into the intro hi there everyone today we're going to be looking at a brand new VTX from HD zero the freestyle V2 this is another one watt VTX for the HD zero system with a more compact form factor more similar to the cadix Vista or dji03 in this video we're going to be looking at all the key features of this VTX on the bench and I'm going to be putting it through some output power testing to see if it really lives up to its one watt of claimed output power it's a lot to cover in one video so let's not waste any more time let's dive right into it all right let's take a look at this brand new VTX on the bench starting with the form factor you can see that the new freestyle V2 is significantly more compact in terms of footprint compared to the original freestyle VTX and if I grab my calipers here I can measure it up and it's 30 millimeters long by 29 millimeters wide by 40 millimeters tall so that's very similar in form factor to something like the calyx Vista it's going to fit into most three to five inch quads with absolutely no problems it's got 20 by 20 M2 mounting which is absolutely standard and you can see that the whole VTX is shrouded in this anodized aluminum heat spreader which is going to add durability and also keep the VTX from overheating if it's just sitting idle before you go fly looking now at the connections to this VTX if I turn it on its side this here is the firmware updating port and it uses this very small firmware update connector that hd0 are using nowadays and you're going to need one of these little adapter boards with this small cable if you want to be able to connect the VTX to your goggles to do firmware updates so just check if you have one of these boards already because my VTX didn't come with one and you are going to need one so make sure you order one of those if you need it there's another little connector here which is for a keypad so you can adjust the band Channel and output power of the VTX just with the ht0 keypad I don't have a keypad and I don't use that Port because I do all of my configuration through the OSD but it's there if you want it at the back of the VTX on top there is this UFL connector for the antenna and it comes with this neat little plastic clip which you screw down over the UFL to hold it in place which is a nice feature coming to the front of the VTX you can see we've got a couple of ports here there's a mipi connector which is for the camera and it again has this little plastic clip that screws down over the top of it to keep it nice and secure and we have this little locking connector which is what you use to connect to the flight controller and it comes with this cable which has power ground and TX and RX the VTX can be powered up to 6s battery voltage 25.2 volts and it specifically says High volt 6s packs are not supported so 25.2 volts is going to be the limit for this VTX you can buy the new freestyle V2 as a standalone VTX direct from hd0 for 100 US dollars or if you prefer you can buy it as a kit with the hd0 Nano 90 camera which has the 90 frames per second sensor in there and that kit is going to set you back 150 and it does come with a little adapter for 19 by 19 millimeter camera mounting as well before we dive into Power output testing I have a couple of thank yous to make the first is to HD xero for providing this VTX to test and the second is to all of my patrons over on patreon Whose support contributed to the test equipment editing and all of the work that went into this video both in front of and behind the camera if you'd like to join us and support more independent test and review videos like this as well as get early access to new products that I'm working on and access to my entire back catalog of testing data on props Motors escs batteries and vtxs then check out the link in the description and join up on my patreon today I'd really appreciate any support that you can give all right let me take you through the test setup for my VTX output power testing here we have the hd0 freestyle V2 VTX it's connected to the Nano 90 camera and also to a flight controller which is providing power and also allowing me to control the channel band and power settings on the VTX over the MSP connection the flight controller is powered from a power supply set to 16 volts which is equivalent to a 4S pack and I have checked that the output power from the VTX doesn't depend on Supply voltage within the range that's specified so 2s to 6s the VTX is connected through a 30 decibel attenuator that's very important to protect the uh the next part of the equipment is connected to this Analog Devices adl5902 true RMS power meter which is what I'm using to measure the output power of the VTX and that's passing information to this Arduino board here which is doing some calculations and displaying the power output on the screen we've got a couple of values that are in millivolts which are from this adl5902 but the value that you should be interested in is this milliwatts reading here which is showing you the conducted output power down the antenna from the VTX at this moment so you can see it's 39.1 milliwatts right now I also have this fan which is being used to blow air onto the VTX to keep it cool as it would be in flight so that the VTX doesn't overheat and that helps it maintain a consistent output power now that I've got this test set up I'm going to run through all the different Channel and power settings on this VTX and then we can look at the results oh past Chris you are so naive you thought it would be simple just test the VTX and present the results and everyone will be happy well that's not exactly how it went all right so let's take a look at the results from my VTX output power testing and as you can see there's a broad Trend in the results which is that the VTX delivers less conducted output power on higher channels and that's true of all HD zero vtx's the higher the frequency the lower the output power they always deliver their maximum output power on Race band 1. and as we can see on raceband 1 the maximum output power of the freestyle V2 is 247 milliwatts that doesn't seem right [Music] Carl what did you say the maximum output power of the freestyle V2 is at this point I got really worried because I like HD zero and I really like Carl and I didn't want to make a video saying you know that new one watt freestyle VT actually just launched yeah it delivers 250 milliwatts of output power maximum but that was definitely the direction this video was headed in fortunately I was able to go back and forth with color on this for a couple of hours he is super responsive and we did figure out the cause so let's skip to the good bit all right so I've got the VTX set up on the bench and what Carl has told me is that if I undo these four screws we should see a change in output power so it's currently set to race Band 1 and you can see it's delivering about 247 milliwatts if I undo these four screws just a little bit not too much just a little bit okay maybe a little more oh that did it 1344 milliwatts 1.33 Watts just from undoing those screws we have increased the output Power by 1.1 Watts well I guess all that test data I collected is utterly useless now and I'm going to have to do it all again yay me just to put your mind at rest this is an issue with prototypes of the freestyle V2 VTX and has been fixed in the main production run that said if you do find you're getting less output power than you expect maybe try loosening the screws can't hurt with the screws slightly loosened the power output results are totally changed now we see that the hd0 freestyle V2 is by far the most powerful digital VTX I've ever tested it delivers well in excess of one watt of conducted output power on raceband 1 2 and 3 and then it starts to dip down in power at higher frequencies as all HD zero vtxs do and it gets down to about 435 milliwatts on Race 8 on that maximum power setting this is a huge amount of power for a digital VTX it's way more than anything from DJI walks now or even most analog vtxs to be honest so if you're really looking for range and penetration on the h30 system and you're looking for a true one watt VTX this is definitely that looking at the lower power levels the 500 milliwatt power level is a little bit more than 500 milliwatts about 687 on race one dropping down to about 300 on Race Aid and at 200 milliwatts it's 330 milliwatts of output on race one dropping down to 179 on race 8. on the 25 milliwatt setting which is going to be important for racing Pilots it delivers above 25 milliwatts across the board all the way from race 1 to race eight anywhere from about 50 milliwatts all the way down to about 33 34 milliwatts so you're gonna probably need to use the adjustment feature that's provided by hd0 to tune the output power to get it exactly on 25 milliwatts for racing with no adjustment it's likely the power level will be a bit too high and I would say that's kind of where you want it to be you want the power level to be too high and then adjust it down so that you're absolutely on 25 milliwatts on race day pip mode is quite variable as well anywhere from four and a half down to just over one milliwatt um depending on whether you're on Race 1 or race 8 and that's still a reasonable amount of power in pit mode so that's something to be aware of let's get some weights for the system so just the VTX on its own 23.6 grams with the included cable 24.3 grams with the Nano 90 camera 31 grams with the included antenna 32.4 grams and with the Nano 90 camera adapter for 19 millimeter camera mounts it comes in at 32.9 grams if you're interested in weight you're probably wondering if you can decase this VTX to save a few grams and the answer is yes you can and actually it's not too difficult this will void your warranty but that's true of decasing any VTX so that's not going to stop me and it may not stop you either all you need to do is remove the four screws on the top of the VTX so once those four screws are out you can do kind of what I would call the first stage of a d case which is where you just remove the top part of the casework so this just comes off really nice and easily and you can also remove the bottom part of the casework as well it's got a little bit of thermal paste on there which can just make it a little tricky but if you go gently you can just pry that off you may also need to undo the screws here for this little mount oh yeah there we go once you've got this off this is kind of the first stage of the D case and this will save you a little bit of weight let's see how much so the first stage of a d case will save you 9.3 grams and this is pretty easy and pretty low risk there's only one caveat which is that you need to be careful not to root the antenna from this VTX back over the board so make sure that your antenna is going to come from the UFL and then just go away from the board and you don't have the wire coming back over the board that's the only caveat with doing this first Double D case everything else should work just fine and I think you should expect the VTX to overheat a little bit quicker without these heat spreaders on the top and bottom now let's look at a second stage or a full D case to do a full D case all you need to do is disconnect this little mini antenna connector over here so just sort of there's a little bit of glue so just kind of move that around until the glue breaks and then gently slip a flat head screwdriver under the connector and just pop it off the board like that pretty easy just be super careful not to damage any of these tiny surface mount components next to it once you've got that little antenna connector disconnected it's really easy just to gently separate the two boards making sure the antenna goes down through its little slot there we go like that and a full D case like this is going to save you quite a lot of weight let's take a look at the scale so our first HD case saved us 9.3 grams and this second stage gives us 14.6 grams reduction that's going to leave the VTX weighing in at just 9 grams if we then add the camera 15.6 grams and with the antenna and the little cable and everything we're coming in at a system weight of just 17.8 grams which is really really light for a one watt VTX like this and makes it very suitable for small two or three inch quads one final thing to mention about the decased VTX is that these outer mounting holes look like they might be 25.5 by 25.5 but they're not they are 25.5 by 24 I think so this isn't going to fit easily on a standard 25.5 by 25.5 woot mounting you're going to need to make an adapter or use the 20 by 20 mounting holes all right so after that roller coaster ride we come to the end of the video and it's time for the conclusions and overall I think this new freestyle V2 VTX is probably the best HD zero VTX that you can buy today firstly it's a true one watt VTX there's no antenna gain nonsense like you get with DJI or walk snail Avatar it delivers more than one watt of conducted output power on multiple channels so it's going to give you heaps of range and penetration it's a really nice form factor that a 20 by 20 mounting and compact form factor is going to make it easy to fit in almost any three to five inch frame it's got that nice aluminum shroud for durability but if you want to decase it to save weight you can and it ends up being only 9 grams once it's decreased so it ends up much much lighter weight and that's going to make it suitable for running even on small three-inch toothpicks if you think this new freestyle V2 VTX is right for you then I've put some links down the video description where you can get yours today direct from HD zero and they are affiliate links which means that if you follow them and make any purchase at HD zero I get a small commission and it's one way you can help support the independent review and test work that I do on this channel and it doesn't cost you anything so if you're able to I'd really appreciate it if you could use those links that's all I have for you for today so until next time I wish you all very very happy flying

Channel: Chris Rosser

Views: 15,082

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Id: 6YuapmdNVKM

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 22 2023