The Demon EVO250 Mini Quad Frame has just been released and I am very happy to have the chance to test it. This is probably one of the highest quality mini quad frames I have reviewed so far on my blog.
Overview: Demon EVO250 Mini Quad Frame
This frame is designed and made in Poland, all accessories are from the EU. Many top notch, popular mini quadcopter frames such as the Blackout and QAV250, are from US and Australia. And now, I think we finally have something that can represent Europe!
Check out DemonFrame’s Product Page for complete info about this frame, and their Facebook Page.
Here is my Mini Quad build log with this frame.
Design of Quadcopter Frame and Assembly
Table of Contents
Frame Dimension and Weight
The motor to motor distance is just over 250mm, and it fits 6 inch propellers perfectly.
it has a long body design, which helps the props to stay out of the camera view.
The whole frame weights about 175g. Some might worry about the weight, but I don’t think that’s a problem at all for a mini quad that runs 4S with 6 inch propellers.
Arms and Body
The arms are replaceable if you manage to break them (although they do look very difficult to break), which has a special design. Spare arms are also available from DemonFrame’s store.
The arms are over 3mm thick, and the body plates are 1.5mm.
Screw holes on the frames are all of 3mm diameter.
Recording Camera Mount
Special tilted damping platform for recording cameras, such as the GoPro, Mobius or Runcam HD. This is a simple but extremely useful and effective design for mounting your camera, which is missing on most mini quad frames.
With the tilted motor mounts, and this tilted GoPro platform you can achieve 25 degree without any additional customization. If you want a larger angle just add some damping material under the cam and tilt it more.
Simple PDB
The PDB that comes with the frame is relatively simple. It distributes power for the 4 ESCs, provides outputs for voltage measuring, FPV camera and video transmitter. I was told the PDB supports upto 100A of current.
PDB close-ups, from front to rear of the frame.
FPV Camera Mount
It allows very large FPV camera tilt angle (up to 45 degree without top plate in view), thanks to the large hole design on the camera mount plate.
But we need to take into account of the 10 degree motor mounts if we are using them, you don’t want to over-tilt your camera. :)
Check out this tip on how I make tilted FPV camera.
Angle Motor Mounts
The frame comes with optional 10 degree motor mounts. These wedges are getting more and more popular with mini quad racing, because they allow better aerodynamics, and require less customization on tilting your cameras for fast flying.
The motor mounts are universal for mini quad, the hole patterns fit 1806, 2204, 2206 and 2208 motors. It’s referred to as wedges in their manual.
If you are flying in any self level modes (such as angle mode or horizon mode) with angle motor mounts, remember to set your pitch angle to -10 degree for compensation.
A tip from Demon, If you have the Naze32 rotated by 90 degree, be careful, you have to set yaw ( 90 degree for example ) and than set roll instead of pitch ( -10 degree ) – its a cleanflight bug !
Long Body
Apart from the long main body, the frame dimension is similar to ZMR250.
I was told I can use this cmix table with the EVO250, which is similar to the custom motor output mixer I use for my ZMR250 mini quad, probably due to the similar shape.
# mixer mixer CUSTOM cmix 1 1.000 -1.000 0.776 -1.000 cmix 2 1.000 -1.000 -0.776 1.000 cmix 3 1.000 1.000 0.776 1.000 cmix 4 1.000 1.000 -0.776 -1.000 cmix 5 0 0 0 0
What Makes EVO250 Frame Stand Out?
From my discussion with the frame creator, Demon, he told me EVO means “evolution”, which suggests he’s always trying to improve his products and constantly evolving.
I asked him what makes the EVO250 frame stands out in the competitive mini quad market. Here is a summary what he pointed out:
The EVO250 is designed from ground up purely for 6 inch props. With traditional 250 mini quad, they are mostly, originally 220mm size designs which were intended for 5 inch propellers, but later added longer arms to allow 6 inch props. Therefore you can sometimes see the propellers showing in FPV footage. This will not happen with our genuine 250mm design, which allows more than 155 degree view angle.
Its a “string theory” frame, I mean, each part is designed in such way that bending moments during crash are spread a lot better than in regular frame, as you can see centre plate and PDB overlap far into the arms, top plate is also designed in such way that its very hard to break it, as you can see bottom section ( PDB with centre plate ) is extended far ahead of top plate.
Suggestions
Overall a quality frame, You can tell from just quick inspections, the bolts, nylon standoffs, nuts and carbon fibre are really good quality.
I think the arms can be made thinker (maybe 4mm?), I have yet to stress test this frame to find out how tough it is right now, maybe it’s already tough enough.
PDB can have FPV equipment power separated from the main power. This gives users the options to run a 12V FPV system on 4S, or have a filtered power source for the FPV gear. Maybe they can offer built-in power filter / voltage regulator on their PDB.
I will start a build log with this frame in the next few days.