Darwin FPV - CineApe 35 test flight and setup. Is it a good outdoor beginners quad ??

Took the new CineApe 35 out for few minutes at the park this evening, thought Id put this together with some first flying impressions and an overview with my experiences setting it up on betaflight and a couple unexpected hangups. Overall I m pretty happy with this one so far, it seems like a good balance of smaller size and a decent lifting capacity with the added benefit of GPS for tracking, speed, altitude Etc.
UPDATE - I confirmed with support at Darwin FPV that this is indeed the 1w VTX included on this quad, I guess some were mislabeled since the units look almost identical to each other. The only catch is it doesnt have the correct VTX tables from the factory and needs an update to enable the full power, the support desk was fairly quick to get back to me and provide the correct table to load up in betaflight.

[@hobbyhowiefpv219]

Very nice, Not sure if this will work for you to update the flight board but you can try Inpulse RC Driver fixer to put it in DFU mode then go back to Beta Flight an flash. Never messed with GPS on my CineApe cause it does not have one, but I put a Walksnail Avatar 1s mini on it cause the camera was ok but HD was so much better, Happy Flying, Thumbs up👍

[@theroaduntraveled8875]

I actually tried the impulse driver fixer, it still said it was detecting too many ports and would freeze up, I have the original cineape too and these two are similar but definitely some differences as well. I definitely agree on the camera, already thinking about upgrading it. Thanks for stopping by !

[@tettymeets]

Hey Man, amazing. Is it INAV?

[@theroaduntraveled8875]

No its more of an entry / mid level quad I d say, no barometer or compass so I dont think INAV could work, though I will say my only experience with INAV is on planes. Either way I think its definitely a nice simple little quad for a reasonable price

[@jonsproductionstudio]

Hi, can you change the ELRS receiver, so that you can use FrSky or an other protocol?

[@theroaduntraveled8875]

there is another comment string on here where we talked about crossfire working. Try and read through that if you have a chance. Basically according the manufacturer its possible but need to take power source for it from the SBUS port, though with FrSky you may be using it through the SBUS port anyway. Either way you have to use one of the spare ports, there is no way to solder on this board that I can see

[@jonsproductionstudio]

@@theroaduntraveled8875 I had overlooked the comment, but thanks anyway

[@theroaduntraveled8875]

@@jonsproductionstudio You might want to double check with Darwin FPV customer service but it sounds like you just need to find a way to connect it into the SBUS and update the port in Betaflight

I would like to use crossfire instead of the embedded ELRS. Do you know how use the free connectors (there is no indications) ?

[@theroaduntraveled8875]

Thats not something I had thought much about since Im using ELRS exclusively now. I know you wouldnt be able to solder anything on it because there is a waterproof coating all over the board that would be hard to remove. As far as the connectors I think you should be able to connect your crossfire receiver with the UART2 connector that plugs directly into the board if you already have the right JST connector attached to your receiver. From there you should be able to configure things in the ports tab of betaflight so that it recognizes that instead of the built in SPI. I couldnt tell you 100% though as I ve not used crossfire myself. Do you already have this quad or were you thinking about buying it ???

[@theroaduntraveled8875]

So I was just playing around with mine trying to see if I could hook up an external receiver and noticed you are not going to want to power a receiver directly off the UART2 on this board as it uses the full battery voltage instead of 5V. Unfortunately the 5V UART1 is taken up with the GPS, I m sure there is a way to connect it but think it will involve a bit of cutting, splicing and soldering

Hello, thanks for your answer. I already received the quad, and it seems well designed. Do you know what are the 2 free JST connectors for (one with 4 pins, the other with 3 pins) ? there is no indication anywhere. Regards

[@theroaduntraveled8875]

Check the wiring diagram in your instructions, the two free JST connectors are the bottom right and left shown in the diagram, the 3 pin is showing SBUS and the 4 pin has TX2 and RX2 connections. I was originally thinking you could connect the 4 pin to your crossfire and select it as the serial rx in the betaflight UART2 port. But after finding it has full battery voltage that wont work, so I m not exactly sure other than running power from one of the 5 volt connections. Have you contacted the company to ask if external receivers will work ?? I would think they must have built it with a way to add different receivers

thanks for the explanation. Sorry, I didn't see the wiring diagram, now I got it. I've asked the Darwin FPV support service to understand why did they put +BAT instead of +5V on the JST connector with TX2/RX2. I'll keep you informed

[@benjaminmitchell1940]

Hey, I just got one of these and could really use some help bro

[@theroaduntraveled8875]

Im happy to try, whats going on ??