The HappyModel Larva X, a fantastic 100mm micro quad. Supplied by Banggood

[@CurryKitten]

If you are interested in this quad, then please use this (affiliate) link to take a look at the full product details www.banggood.com/Happymodel-Larva-X-100mm-Crazybee-F4-PRO-V3_0-2-3S-2_5-Inch-FPV-Racing-Drone-BNF-w-Runcam-Nano2-Camera-p-1539449.html?p=E81211714085201408XQ&KZbin&

[@MCsCreations]

Great flying and review, Wayne! 😃 Looks pretty nice!!!

[@CurryKitten]

Thanks MC - yeah, it was pretty sweet I think, just need to get that perfect lipo size

[@phatpastor32974]

Great review bro! One of the best I’ve seen on this quad!

[@CurryKitten]

Thanks - it's a great little machine

[@slowentropy4531]

Love this quad sooo much! It's now my only quad and only having one unit the Larva X can really satisfy in all sorts of flying. Due to financial constraints I'm using it to race again 5inch drones haha. They are so darn cheap you can have a little fleet and some tweaks make it really competitive on a race track.... Definitely my favourite drone and I don't really need anything more for a while, bang for buck this thing is all smiles and I'm blown away what you can do what it :)

[@CurryKitten]

This is a cracking little quad - I don't think it gets enough praise for what it does. Maybe because people don't think of it as a toothpick as much as a small quad. Interesting to hear you can make it competitive against 5" racers. Presumably it does better on a really tight technical course ?

[@slowentropy4531]

@@CurryKitten yeah it does alot better on tight course as it loses big time on straights hahaha. But it is competitive and I'm paying $70 US delivered for the quad, that value is just insane for the joy this thing brings... Guys hate me racing it though as it is not nice to be over taken by a tiny little happymodel quad hahaha. I love it, especially now as it has 3d print between canopy and the new motors have 4 screw holes and XM+ reciever just make it perfection :)

[@filiped7298]

Thanks for the review. There are so many models out there these days that I’m left a bit puzzled

[@CurryKitten]

There's a lot out there for sure. Happily enough though, there seems to be more and more decent ones

[@polemagnetfpv]

Great review for this quad and yes I have been using 550 gnb batts from the start and the Avan props. I use there tune on rate 1 and set my own tune on rate 2. This one and the Sailfly are my go to's for under cover flight (if you know what i mean).

[@fpvdave]

Great review Wayne. I'm still waiting for mine to ship and looking forward to giving it a go

[@CurryKitten]

Hopefully it'll get to you soon - have fun with it !

[@theherborist]

Mine shipped yesterday. Hoping for the emax props!

[@fpvdave]

@@CurryKitten I have been flying for quite some time and as much as I love my Eachine Diatone ER 349 SX, I just love flying the Larva X. I can fly it around the back garden at home and also out in the Bush amongst all the trees. I can't put this one down. I love it. Have you flown any of this size that are better ??

[@HumbleHeartMinistry]

I use RDQ 650mAh 3s on mine and it does great! Got some 3s 550s and a few 450s I use also sometimes. Love this little quad! Just got a new one. My old one got rebuilt about 5 times, and now has the vtx and camera from my old et-100 in it, as old camera and vtx is in pieces from one of the crashes. And cut an old canapy up from my drone graveyard to make it fit on frame.The drone is mostly hot glued together now. Kinda looks like a big clob of flying hot glue now! LOL! But still flies great! Gonna try my new one tomarrow, just set it up tonight! Happy Flying!

[@CurryKitten]

It is a fantastic little quad this one. HappyModel brought out some great models in 2019

[@yodayedi2325]

Great review as usual. Absolutely right, 1103 motors needs more amp than 3s 300mAh can provide and 3 blades are better to fly than 2 blades. Please keep on with this micros. PS You didn´t mentioned the diamond vtx with dvr.

[@CurryKitten]

Thanks for that, and thanks for pointing out the DVR thing... why ? Because some idiot (that would be me) didn't read the spec well enough and didn't even spot it! Ok, I feel a follow up coming on :D

[@theherborist]

Haha i was about to ask: could we have some dvr footage? :) followup! :)

[@late2thegatefpvdfreeman319]

Ya the diamond is a HUGE selling point

[@CurryKitten]

I didn't notice it at all when I was reading through the spec. Hands up - I totally missed it, but looking forward to trying it out now (although a week of rain forecast typically)

[@yodayedi2325]

​@@CurryKitten When UK stays in EU the sun will shine much more..... ;-)

[@jlarson42]

Great review. Love your explanation of everything as you're flying. Fun looking flyer. I learned acro on a happy model snapper7. 🤓

[@CurryKitten]

Nice - I fell in love with my Mobula 7 :)

[@jlarson42]

@@CurryKitten Gave the Snapper7 to my son in law so he could learn acro in his backyard. :-)

[@slowentropy4531]

I've been enjoying the Larva X on the HQT65 bi blades and it really flys well. To the blades spin up instantly and it's fun to just hold it on full throttle as the battery sag doesn't really happen on Bi Blades at all

[@CurryKitten]

One of the reasons I liked the Larva X so much (ironically enough) was because of the Triblades. I'd been flying a lot of bi-blade equipped toothpicks, and this thing really handled much better for them

[@slowentropy4531]

@@CurryKitten indeed they do grip better. But for small sacrifice in grip (easily made up for with throttle) you get a 5min flight time easily at a race pace on a 3S 450mah!!! Simply beautify and has become my favourite quad, tri blades for racing against 5inches for sure but only need a couple mins flight on for that :). 5mins mate give it a try, plus I just loooooove that scream!!! Hahaha Cheers hope you're well and safe

[@off-grideverything533]

Not sure about the RxSR, but the XM plus has firmware updates that allow you to put rssi on channel 8 instead of 16. Maybe they didn't have the rssi aux channel declared, so you are able to do updates, and have the channels set up how you would like? Although that's still simple enough to change after the fact, so I couldn't tell ya.

[@CurryKitten]

The RxSR doesn't put the RSSI signal out on a channel, it sends it back to the radio as telemetry. It's why we go through the slightly strange loop of having the RX send it back to the radio and then having the radio send it back to the RX where the FC picks it up as RSSI so it can be shown on the OSD !

[@off-grideverything533]

@@CurryKitten oh alright, still just learning opentx, and the frsky system. Xm plus is the furthest advanced I've played with haha. But looking at an access receiver when I move to a larger quad. So I guess not declaring a channel is either assuming people will be happy with TX telemetry, or just laziness. Cheers!

[@davehayes5766]

I was suprised your 3s 300 had so many warnings....i use the new beta 3s 300s on my Larva and you can fly very hard for a good 3/4min👍Give the betas a go😉 great review❤

[@CurryKitten]

It's quite possible that my 300mAh 3S's are all a bit past their prime (although they tend to work fine on the smaller toothpicks) this seemed to really benefit from a slightly bigger lipo for me though

[@davehayes5766]

@@CurryKitten ill have to give my gnb 3s 550s a go now😉

[@bobsterit2463]

I am amazed.. How do you keep your bearings when you fly out among trees and brush where you can't see yourself anymore ? when i do this I get lost on which direction is home and it is very scary not know which direction you are flying.

[@CurryKitten]

It is very easy to lose yourself. I tend to start by flying up and down a path (is there is one) to get a feel for what I'm looking for and then I start going in to the trees a little, but keeping the direction the same and trying to recognise my exit points. That said it can be very tricky - there's so many times that I've had to rely on my ears to get back. I'm first listening to which side of me the quad is on and then working out if the noise is getting louder (I must be coming towards myself) or quieter (I must be going away from myself, turn around!) :)

[@paulriggs42]

Great video, my larva x just arrived along with some new HDO’s.... one question, you wear glasses, I need glasses for reading and close up reading, where can I get some lenses made for my HDO’s ? Thanks a million

[@CurryKitten]

Some people have said their own opticians have been able to help them, I use custom diopters. Take a look at this video about them kzbin.info/www/bejne/o4aQkHR4ntacntk

[@tigertom53]

Ordered mine on September 9th hope to receive..😁💪✈️🤞

[@CurryKitten]

Hopefully it'll be with you soon - have fun with it

[@JB-cq2wo]

Hi Wayne, What is a good version of rapid fire to update too ? I just got mine in the mail for my HDO's

[@CurryKitten]

I've got 1.1.3 on mine, although generally you can stick on the "latest" version and be good. I went to 1.1.3 as it added the Menus as an OSD in your view so you could go through the options without taking the goggles off your head... I find that pretty useful

[@JB-cq2wo]

Thanks I'll go with 1.1.3

[@slowentropy4531]

Do you think the EACHINE Twig is faster than this mate? If so is it worth owning the twig as well? Cheers mate.

[@CurryKitten]

Personally I like the LarvaX a whole lot more than the twig. The Twig was good, but I didn't see it as anything special

[@slowentropy4531]

@@CurryKitten thanks mate :) yeah I love the Larva X and it's my favourite quad of all time by far. I was just checking if I'm missing out on something cheap and great... Just can't beat the Larva and again today it won a race against 5inch hahahaha. 650mah on an open track and I could hold it absolutely 100% throttle for 3 mins straight.. Crazybee V3 is a great board in my experience so far.

[@codyfournellcsrf5164]

I just got this drone.. How did u get ur goggles so stable?

[@CurryKitten]

Do you mean the reception in the goggles? I use the RapidFIRE module, but more importantly decent antennas!

[@codyfournellcsrf5164]

@@CurryKitten do antennas make a huge difference? I just got my first mini drone and goggles but when I get better goggles I really don't want much break up as that kills it for me

[@CurryKitten]

Yes - it can do. If you've stuck to the little "rubber duck" style linear antenna you may have got in your goggles then they suffer a massive loss through de-polarization. So certainly worth getting some circular polarized antennas and a diversity video receiver module. I usually use the Menace Periscope antenna kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3rKY4SgjLN7fck and the Pico patch on my goggles kzbin.info/www/bejne/qnTWcp5vjLGejaM

[@codyfournellcsrf5164]

@@CurryKitten I'm looking at getting a new set of goggles and idk what to get I was looking at SKYZONE SKY02O but idk

[@chadpeterson5723]

I'm still have not seen a video with anyone trying venom battery like the fly series I've had great luck with on my torrent and other 110 stuff it's a small 3s light not a high c rate but really do good on my set up to date I hope one day to see someone try them good option

[@CurryKitten]

Quite honestly, I'd not heard of Venom, but I'd certainly be happy to try some if I got my hands on any. This little quad does seem to need a decent C rating in a lipo to cope though

[@chadpeterson5723]

@@CurryKitten I do agree on c rate if it's true . One think I notice is there is a trade off with high c rate you get much larger cells costing a weight ratio that sometimes not worth it. So I decided to try some lower rates c batteries and I was very happy with the results flight times where still close to same but I didn't notice any loss to my punch outs venom been around long time but is a USA company . They have a life time warranty to all there batteries you can trade in for credit towards more so some good things. They also seem to have a better c rate or should say closer. I've had people try out some of my 4s 75c and 90c they all notice more powerful response and less sage but maybe they don't have anything for your location sucks if true would like to see what others may be missing . I started with them with rc trucks and cars and they have a big following in the planes in the USA

[@chadpeterson5723]

One other thing they do they come with three ends for different set up with the bigger batteries kinds nice I can use them on my RC cars and drones and plains.

[@chadpeterson5723]

Just checked weight on a beta 2s 450 80c and my venom 3s 450 the beta is 29g and the vemom is 36.4 and my 4s race series 1500 Mal 75c is 172g and the 90c 1300 149g with my blade theory XL I get around 4 to 5 minutes flights

[@Sircleanfpv]

😪😭 The gyro of mine broke after the first day😭😭😭

[@FlyingFun.]

450mah works well, 350mah might be the sweet spot though to keep it light as possible. I can get 4 minutes from the 300mah cruising and freestyle if I don't go crazy. It's defo a nice quad this one.

[@CurryKitten]

Depends what I'm doing - I flew the 300 through the trees, and I got an easy 5 minutes there because I couldn't put the hammer down as much, but free of trees and opening it up, it feels like something bigger is required

[@FlyingFun.]

@@CurryKitten flying the park was nice on 300mah just occationally blipping lots of throttle and fast crusing etc, I tried a 460mah 3s and it slowed it down a little needed more throttle for longer for the punchouts and I got one complete spaz out for a few seconds which recovered before hitting the ground luckily so I stuck to the 300mah after that.

[@n.masako4453]

That's amazing technology. I went around. Cool candy

[@RADERFPV]

It is cool technology, I went around too, the candy was delicious. 420.

[@CurryKitten]

I don't know what this candy is, but I want some, it sounds like good stuff !

[@RADERFPV]

@@CurryKitten Ha ha ha, only n Masako holds the key to such wisdom :D I don't know what I'm saying either, it's Friday. Love your reviews though, that I know.

[@johnshropshire3399]

👍👍

[@MadDragon75]

Mine is good for'4S. Just upgrade your motors.

[@gerrysquire]

nooooo another small quad. ahhhhh

[@CurryKitten]

Bad news for you - there's another one in a box here to look at (weather looks really bad all next week though(

[@gerrysquire]

@@CurryKitten ah well as you have so many now you must have one you can send me?

[@baughaninastorm]

Happymodel Q.C is absolutely abysmal even by Chinese standards. I can't believe they have managed to gain any traction in the market.

[@CurryKitten]

Traction - probably because the Mobula7 was pretty outstanding. Honestly, I've not had an issue with any of their stuff so far - at least in hardware failures. There's been plenty of setup that's been needed, but it's kind of expected.

[@baughaninastorm]

Different experience for me. I ended up changing so many parts my nickname for it was Triggers Broom. Pure unadulterated garbage.

[@UnboxMind]

This is a not honest review?

[@CurryKitten]

Is that a rhetorical question? Always honest, let me know if there's something in particular that concerns you about the review.