The Eachine Wizard X220 V3 is a budget 4S 5″ FPV racing drone you can buy off the shelf. You can get start with flying without building the whole drone by yourself which saves a lot of time and effort, but is it worth it and does it fly well? Let’s find out in this review.
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I’ve never owned a Wizard X220 until now, so I can’t really compare the V3 to the previous versions. My first impression is that, you get what you pay for really, there’s a reason why it’s so cheap. You simply can’t compare the Wizard to other more expensive options.
If you really have a small budget, $200 is the absolute maximum you can spend on a drone, then the Wizard X220 V3 will definitely get you in the air and let you practice flying. It actually flies pretty well after some tuning which I will share with you in this review. However I think Eachine could have done better in many small details.
Also, some of the design choices are very “2019” – F405 FC, Single BLHeli_S ESC, 4S, cable for Frsky R-XSR receiver…
The one thing that is 2022 would be the USB-C port on the FC.
With that said, the quad is totally functional, it’s got the latest BMI270 gyro, VTX SmartAudio works, and it’s got a buzzer and RGB LED that are missing on many more expensive models…. Can’t complain really for the low price. There are also LED underneath the motor, but they are covered by 3D printed TPU skids, only visible at night.
And I hope Eachine would start selling spare parts like motors, ESC’s, arms, frame plates etc separately to make repairing cheaper. At the moment none of these are available.
Closer Look at the Wizard X220 V3
The frame feels very stiff, sturdy and strong, that’s a good sign for durability and decent flight performance. The arms are 5mm thick, held in place by only 2 bolts which is a clever design, makes it easy to replace the arms. However I don’t seem to be able to find spare arms online so not sure if that matters after all.
Some bolts on the frame and motors are not fastened securely. And the motor screws used are 1mm too long, a couple of them actually dig into the motor windings if you tighten them too much.
You will notice there’s only one FC board in the quad with a VTX sitting on top. It’s a flight controller with power distribution built-in. I have not seen this type of board for a few years now. It’s usually used together with single ESC’s that are mounted on the arms.
The advantage of single ESC over 4in1 ESC is that they are cheaper to replace if you damage one of them. But again, I can’t find those ESC sold separately… Also it would be nice to have some protection on those ESC, bent propellers in a crash could damage them (rarely happens but better safe than sorry).
The FPV camera lens needs more protection from crashes, for now I just push the camera back a little bit.
To install the GoPro TPU mount, it needs longer screws which are not included. The mount fits GoPro 5, 6 and 7.
Out of the box, it comes with a 3-pin receiver cable which is for the R-XSR i assume. Poor choice in my opinion as it’s not a popular choice anymore these days. But it’s still better than not including anything at all I guess, so credit to Eachine where credit is due.
VTX antenna needs to be strapped to the frame, otherwise if it gets caught by a branch in a crash, the antenna can get pulled away from the VTX, which ultimately results in the VTX overheating without an antenna attached.
When it comes to configuration, there’s little, it’s basically Betaflight default. In the next part I will show you how I set up mine.
How to Setup
First thing first, I don’t like how they mount the FC stack. I normally use a long bolt and put a nut in between the frame and FC to minimize any movement. I recommend using a 30mm long bolt here.
Next up is installing the receiver. I am using the Radiomaster RP2 with tower antenna because it’s the only ELRS receiver I have left. I recommend using one with external antenna like the RP1 for better range.
The ESC comes with BLHeli_S 16.7 firmware. I flashed mine to Bluejay (24KHz PWM) so I can enable RPM filter in Betaflight. Tutorial: https://oscarliang.com/bluejay-blheli-s/. I needed to reverse motor 1 and 4 to run “Props in”, if you want to run “props out”, reverse motor 2 and 3.
The FC target is GEPRCF405, it’s loaded with Betaflight 4.3.1 (Jul 13 2022) out of the box.
Flight Performance
I flew the default settings, quite decent performance given it’s not been tuned yet. But it can definitely fly better once tuned.
Unfortunately one of the ESC died on 2nd flight, so I couldn’t do anything further with testing. Therefore I cannot recommend this quad for this reason. No replacement ESC is available for sale also. I might try to replace it with an ESC of different brand and see if I can carry on flying it and tune it.
Update 26 Sep 2022 – I fixed it
Upon close inspection, one of the ESC died because the FET is damaged as you can see. That happened on second flight.
I also found that the LED below the motor is actually connected to two of the motor pads on the ESC, so they light up when the motor spins. People have been doing this for a while and I think it shouldn’t cause issue as those LED draw very little current.
I simply swapped out the faulty ESC with a spare ESC I have. It’s different brand (Emax) and specs (30A), but it’s also BLHeli_S ESC. I flashed it with Bluejay just like all the other ESC’s on this quad, running DShot300, all seem fine so far. I will test it further later this week and report back.
Update (27th Sep 2022) – Another ESC died
Another ESC just failed (one MOSET must have died), and the motor just twitches when moving throttle and motor doesn’t spin. Very disappointing ESC hardware quality, I will probably replace all the ESC and give this quad away to somebody who need it.
The esc I am considering buying has a little white wire and a little black wire but the x220 v3 only has the little white wire. What should I do about this?
hey do you possibly have a file i can flash onto my v3 that has the factory presets? mine was factory reset and no longer works. i tried using your cli but with no luck. if you could help that would be much apreciated.
The default CLI dump I linked to in this review is the factory settings. If that doesn’t work for you then maybe something else if wrong. Are you getting an error or something?
Yea, those ESC are extremely unreliable, never used anything with such high failure rate (multiple reports from other users as well). Its best to replace them in case they fail mid air.
Another ESC died in my following flight, so I basically gave up on this quad. In the end I replaced all the ESC to the Holybro ones and gave this quad away to my patreon. So no more updates on this quad.
Excelente información, sobretodo para los países latinoamericanos en dónde se encuentra casi nada de información sobre este tipo de drones q son los más accesibles para este lado de el mundo…
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14 comments
The esc I am considering buying has a little white wire and a little black wire but the x220 v3 only has the little white wire. What should I do about this?
Hi..what betaflight for my x220…
Will it break if I put a 40A esc on it?
No it should be fine.
hey do you possibly have a file i can flash onto my v3 that has the factory presets? mine was factory reset and no longer works. i tried using your cli but with no luck. if you could help that would be much apreciated.
The default CLI dump I linked to in this review is the factory settings. If that doesn’t work for you then maybe something else if wrong. Are you getting an error or something?
Thank you for saving me time, i was exactly worrying if i will need constantly fix something on hardware on this drone, so i will stay away, thank you
I have the same quad same situation motor1# on mine. I was gonna replace the esc however u said another esc fail .. so now I’m thinking about it
Yea, those ESC are extremely unreliable, never used anything with such high failure rate (multiple reports from other users as well). Its best to replace them in case they fail mid air.
Update?
Another ESC died in my following flight, so I basically gave up on this quad.
In the end I replaced all the ESC to the Holybro ones and gave this quad away to my patreon. So no more updates on this quad.
Excelente información, sobretodo para los países latinoamericanos en dónde se encuentra casi nada de información sobre este tipo de drones q son los más accesibles para este lado de el mundo…
I regret that PDB FC are so rare these days. You can still buy decent single ESCs, but they are pointless if you need to use a separate PDB.
Great thanks for the review !
I can’t wait to see the rest of the article