BetaFPV Meteor75 1S Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Edition

by Oscar
Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar

The BetaFPV Meteor75 is the first 1S whoop that supports the Walksnail Avatar system! The HD video feed from the Avatar 1S Mini VTX is just mind blowing, it’s game changing!

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Where To Buy?

Apart from the Walksnail Avatar version, they also offer HDZero version and Analog version.

Receiver options are ExpressLRS 2.4GHz (Built into the FC via Serial), Crossfire, Frsky/PNP.

Walksnail Version

HDZero Version

Analog Version

Get spare 1S 450mAh batteries here: https://oscarliang.com/product-vd7r

Spare Propellers (Gemfan 1635×3): https://oscarliang.com/product-w6kj

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Front Camera Lens

It comes with the following accessories:

  • 2x 450mAh 1S 30C LiPo Battery (BT2.0)
  • 1x Battery Charger (act as Voltage Checker too)
  • 4x Spare Propellers
  • 1x Walksnail VTX USB Cable for firmware update
  • 1x Type-C USB Cable
  • 1x Screwdriver

Specifications

  • Meteor75 Micro Brushless Whoop Frame
  • BetaFPV F4 1S 5A FC V2
    • F411
    • BMI270 Gyro
    • Firmware target: BETAFPVF411 (ELRS)
    • Built-in Serial ExpressLRS Receiver
    • Onboard BetaFlight OSD
    • 8MB Flash Memory for Blackbox
  • Walksnail Avatar Nano Camera
  • Walksnail Avatar 1S Mini VTX
  • Motors: 1102 18000KV (1.5mm shaft)
  • Propellers: Gemfan 1635×3 40mm 3-Blade (1.5mm hole)
  • Battery connector BT2.0
  • Recommended Battery:1S 450mAh
  • Weight: 39.7g (Without Battery), 52.7g (with 1S 450mAh)

The Meteor75 is the same size as the Mobula7.

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Size Compare Mobula75

Closer Look at the Meteor75

BetaFPV no longer uses SPI ELRS receiver on their new whoop boards, the new F4 1S 5A FC V2.0 now uses serial connection which means the RX can be updated/flashed independently and enjoys all the latest features of ExpressLRS. Although the antenna is just a piece of wire, it’s light weight, compact and should provide enough range for flying in the house.

However, the ELRS version of this FC does not support an external receiver. If you wish to wire your own receiver you should get the Frsky version instead.

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Fc Flight Controller Elrs

The new version of this FC also uses the BMI270 gyro. According to BetaFPV you should only use Betaflight firmware 4.3.1 or newer, and you shouldn’t flash this board with an older firmware version. With the 8MB onboard flash memory for Blackbox logging, it’s great for troubleshooting and tuning.

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Mini Vtx Connect Fc

Equipped with 40mm 3-blade props and 1102 18000KV motors.

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Back Vtx Antenna

Although it’s same size as the Mobula7, the Meteor75 is considerably heavier due to the Avatar VTX/Camera setup. It weighs over 10 grams without antenna. VTX output power up to 350mW. Equipped with an LHCP antenna.

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Mini Vtx Camera Wire

Camera tilt angle is adjustable between 0-45°.

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Side

The BT2.0 battery connector has lower resistance than PH2.0, which gives the whoop less voltage sag and more punch.

Although it comes with a charger, it’s a very basic one, now only slow, it only charges two batteries at a time. If you want to charge more of those batteries at the same time at a faster rate, I would recommend taking a look at this charger (scroll down to the end).

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Lipo Battery Mount

The battery holder is designed specifically for the BetaFPV 1S 450mAh size, if you are getting batteries of another brand, make sure they have the same width and height: 61x15x7.5mm.

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Walksnail Avatar Bottom

BetaFPV also sent me a selection of canopies for the analog metero75 (blue, black and orange), and an analog camera but it’s missing a VTX, so I can’t put this setup to the test yet :) The analog version is significantly lighter so I am sure it’s faster and more powerful.

Betafpv Meteor75 1s Tiny Whoop Analog Camera Canopy

How to Setup

The Meteor75 comes with the latest Betaflight 4.3.1. Original CLI dump can be found here.

To set it up, I first had to bind the Avatar VTX to my Fatshark Dominator HD goggles.

Then I flashed the receiver to the latest ExpressLRS V3 (it came with v2.4), you can do it via Betaflight passthrough or WiFi, receiver device is DIY 2400 RX ESP8285 SX1280.

Then in Betaflight configurator, Preset Tab, load the appropriate RC_Link preset based on your choice of ELRS packet rate, in my case it’s 500Hz.

In the Power & Battery tab, set Minimum Cell Voltage to 3.1V, Maximum Voltage to 4.4V, Warning Voltage to 3.3V. Amperage Meter Scale to 850.

I also wanted to flash Bluejay firmware to the ESC so I could use RPM filter, however for some reasons it didn’t recognise/detect the ESC’s, and gave me this error, so I couldn’t’ do it:

Unsupported Firmware
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ version '255.255' (Layout 255) is not yet supported.

Finally, setup arm switch, and it’s ready for first flight :)

If your VTX firmware is older than the goggles, you will get a warning when you power up the goggles. I have a tutorial on how to update the Walksnail Avatar VTX.

Flight Performance

The Walksnail Avatar HD system makes it so much more immersive and enjoyable to fly! The difference is like day and night, and it’s hard to fly analog again after getting used to the HD video :) I could fly to places where I used to get lots of breakup with analog, now with Avatar it’s just smooth and crystal clear 720p HD video.

Here’s the goggles DVR (what I see in the goggles!)

The BetaFPV Meteor75 hovers at 40-45% throttle, it doesn’t have the punch and power like the Mobula7, despite they are the same size, but that’s to be expected due to the much heavier weight. The Meteor75 flies more like a mobula6 with an empty battery and with more momentum. But it’s still very flyable and controllable. It’s fun exploring the house in HD video. The Avatar video feels very much like DJI image quality if not slightly clearer (probably because the OLED screens). And I can still see quite well even in very dim lighting.

The stock PID tune is really good. I tried to tune PID and filters myself to verify how good the stock tune is, and I have to say it’s pretty spot on and I don’t think you need to touch PID at all.

Flight time on 1s 450mah is about 3:30.

The Voltage/Current sensor scale parameters needed adjusting (see How to Setup section). Note that you can’t fly the battery as low as a typical analog whoop, I found the Avatar video starts to stutter and shows artefacts when voltage drops below 3.1V and it stops working completely (black screen) below 3.0V. So you should land before that (3.1V).

Although the Avatar 1S Mini VTX can only output up to 350mW, it still outperforms my analog whoop with 400mW VTX. However I noticed a pretty big drop in bitrate when there’s a wall between me and the whoop though it’s only a few meters away (from 50Mbps to around 20-30Mbps).

And as you are approaching the limit of the video link, latency starts to climb and much higher than a typical analog whoop. When you get higher latency, you would feel more disconnected and are more likely to crash, so beware and avoid pushing video limit. When your video signal gets weak, you shall see the edges of the screen blinking red inside the Avatar Goggles (or Fatshark Dominator HD), which is a really cool feature in the Avatar system.

And I think the ELRS (at 250mW output) can totally outrange the video link even though the RX antenna is just a piece of wire. I lost video and the RC link was still healthy and not even a “telemetry lost” warning.

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8 comments

eighties.fpv 8th December 2023 - 10:17 am

ESC Setup: 48 kHz or 96 kHz, what do you prefer?

Reply
Oscar 8th December 2023 - 5:23 pm

48Khz

Reply
Carl 27th July 2023 - 4:24 pm

could you please give me the pid tune i dont have it and my whoop is a bit wobbelli
thx Carl

Reply
Oscar 28th July 2023 - 1:48 pm

Go down to the “How to setup” setup, there’s a link to download the original dump of the CLI which includes PID tune.
You can either copy those codes into CLI, or use the preset tab to load it, but note that it will overwrite all the settings to stock settings. So maybe you want to just copy and paste the PID part of the code.

Reply
JLantz 18th December 2022 - 9:54 pm

“Then in Betaflight configurator, Preset Tab, load the appropriate RC_Link preset based on your choice of ELRS packet rate, in my case it’s 500Hz.”

Which one is the appropriate preset? There are 7 500Hz preset options, further each having its own options. This is so damn confusing!!

Reply
Oscar 19th December 2022 - 3:33 am

when you search for 500Hz, there should just be one option for ExpressLRS. I think you might see two, as the dev might have added another option for Betaflight 4.4. But choose 4.3 if that’s the Betaflight firmware you have on the flight controller.

Reply
JLantz 19th December 2022 - 2:33 pm

OK. There are dropdown menus within that preset. It says, “Attention!: review the list of options”.

Fine tuning: race feedforward, hd freestyle, freestyle, cinematic, ultra cinematic ???
Serial YES
Single Cell values YES
Cinematic Rates ???

Reply
JLantz 5th December 2022 - 1:13 pm

I am so damn frustrated trying to get this M75hd to work with my TX12ii. Too many different systems, protocols that these guides seem to only cover for a brief glimpse in time before the newest version of some firmware or some fork makes everything written obsolete. Half the stuff on this page is already different due to new firmware. I’m bashing my head against the fricking wall

Reply