We all love the Mobula6 because it’s so damn fun to fly. But what if I tell you there might be something even better? Let’s check out the new Happymodel Mobula7 1S Tiny Whoop.
Check out my buyer’s guide for the best Tiny Whoop and accessories.
Table of Contents
Where to Buy?
- AliExpress: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DBguz3f
- BG: https://oscarliang.com/product-124e
- RDQ: https://oscarliang.com/product-5ytr
- GetFPV: https://oscarliang.com/product-ja41
- Amazon: https://amzn.to/41EOflP
Unlike many other whoops from Happymodel, the Mobula7 1S doesn’t come with LiPo batteries, so you need to get your own. These 1S 450mAh packs work great and fit well in the battery bay.
Get GNB 1S 450mAh
Get EMAX 1S 450mAh
- GetFPV: https://oscarliang.com/product-cfaw
- RDQ: https://oscarliang.com/product-xbkw
- Banggood: https://oscarliang.com/product-ac20
- NBD: https://oscarliang.com/product-3yba
Also a good idea to grab some spare propellers
- BG: https://oscarliang.com/product-u5do
- NBD: https://oscarliang.com/product-qaaz
- GetFPV: https://oscarliang.com/product-6oa8
- 1S LiPo series charging board
- 1 set of spare propellers
- spare screws
- spare canopy
- screwdriver
- prop removal tool
- manual
- stickers
Key Features and Specs
The Mobula7 is like the Mobula6 in a bigger platform.
Left: Mobula7; Right Mobula6
Instead of 31mm props, they put 40mm props on the Mobula7. The increased disk area makes it more efficient and powerful at the same time. There are also some other improvements and new features too.
- X12 5-IN-1 AIO flight controller w/ built-in 2.4GHz ELRS (V2.0)and OpenVTX (400mW)
- New motors! RS0802 20000KV Uni-bell Motors with 1.5mm motor shaft
- RunCam Nano 3 – the lightest 1/3 CMOS 800TVL camera available
- Compatible with 1S Lipo (4.20V) and LiHV (4.35V)
Specifications:
- Input Voltage: 1S LiPo
- Max Continuous Current: 12A
- Motors: 0802 20000KV
- Camera: RunCam Nano 3
- Wheelbase: 75mm
- Dimensions: 99x99x40mm
- Weight without battery: 24.1g
- Weight with Emax 1S 450mah: 36.9g
Closer Look at the Mobula7
Frame and Canopy
The frame looks to be the mobula7 V4 frame which they used in the Moblite7 before. It’s a tried and tested frame that has been refined over the years, very durable almost indestructible.
The Canopy has been redesigned, it’s probably one of the lightest canopies I have seen in all the whoops I reviewed, weighing in at only 0.8g. Besides, it’s using all four mounting points, making it sturdy and not wobbling around which will help with avoiding jello in video. There’s also a piece of foam underneath the camera to further help with jello and protection.
Flight Controller
The Mobula7 1S whoop is using Happymodel’s X12 AIO 5in1 FC (with 12A BLHeli_S ESC built-in). Initially, they didn’t sell this FC separately unless you get the Mobula6 or Mobula7, but now they do which makes it possible to replace it if it gets damaged.
FC, ESC, VTX, RX, OSD all integrated into one single board! How compact is this?! It even has a current sensor!
The X12 AIO FC has ExpressLRS (ELRS) receiver built-in. ELRS offers ultra low latency (up to 500Hz update rate), and range is no longer a concern, your video signal will most likely to give up first before you lose radio signal. Another benefit of ELRS is the tiny little ceramic tower antenna (just under the canopy), no more worry about antenna wire getting in the way of spinning propellers.
Note that the ELRS receiver is connected via SPI instead of regular UART, while this is more compact and doesn’t take up a UART, this comes with a downside. By integrating the RX into the FC, the ExpressLRS code needs to be merged into the flight controller firmware, so you need to flash Betaflight in order to update the receiver firmware. But you don’t really need to update receiver firmware that often unless there’s a new feature or bug fix you really want. As long as both of your TX module and RX are on the same major version, they should just work fine.
Motor and Propeller
These are the same motor size (0802) and similar KV (20,000 vs 19,000) as the Mobula6, the new motors RS0802 on the Mobula7 uses larger 1.5mm motor shaft which is fantastic. Normally these 1S whoop motors use 1mm shaft and they can break even when you just trying to change props.
The props are Gemfan 1610 two-blade. This motor-prop combo has a lot more power than the mobula6 setup, it can manage to carry a bigger battery without compromising power.
Battery and Charging
The battery connector is a solid pin PH2.0, for this setup this is good enough. Perhaps not much, but I think you can still get a bit more power and flight time out of this whoop by using BT2.0 if that’s the type of connector you prefer.
I recommend using 1S 450mAh LiPo batteries as the tune is based on this specific battery weight, if you use something else it might mess up the tune. Not to mention the battery holder is catered for this very specific battery size too. If it’s loose just wrap a rubber band around the frame.
It comes with a series charging board which I absolutely love. Yes, it requires a LiPo charger to use it, and you can’t just plug it into a USB charger, but it’s much faster and easy to use.
Looking for a LiPo charger? Check out my recommendations.
Note that this is NOT a parallel charging board, it’s a series charging board. For example, when you connect 4x 1S 450mAh LiPo to this board, it becomes a 4S 450mAh LiPo! It doesn’t combine the capacity like a parallel charging board does. The benefit is that it doesn’t care what the voltage of the batteries is when you plug them in, they will all get “balanced” during charging.
You can charge up to four LiPo at the same time, just remember to move the jumper according to the number of packs you are charging.
Flying Experience
I heard so many good things about the Hapypmodel Mobula7 1S whoop, it’s one of the reasons I decided to give it a try. And I can confirm it’s just as good as what everybody says about it.
The PID tune is really good out of the box. It’s one of the best 75mm whoops I have ever flown. I think I enjoy the Mobula7 more than the Moblite7 – not only the overall specs are just better and it’s more robust, I don’t need to “fix” the camera angle every time it crashes.
Thanks to the 400mW VTX and ExpressLRS receiver, I am able to fly around the whole house without any signal issue.
The Mobula7 has a lot more power than the Mobula6 and can go faster in straight line. Because it carries more weight, it tends to “drift” around corners and doesn’t feel as precise as the Mobula6. But with practice I think that’s something you can get used to.
The efficiency is decent, I get over 5-6 minutes of flight time on a 1S 450mAh, and it actually got some serious punch too when flying outdoor when it’s not too windy.
It’s slightly louder than a 65mm whoop because of the two-blade props and being a bigger, more powerful whoop after all.
Setup
The manual is really helpful when I was setting up the whoop. There are only a few things I have to do to get my Mobula7 off the ground.
The Mobula7 came loaded with Betaflight 4.3.0. The firmware target is: HAMO/CRAZYBEEF4SX1280
Here’s the original CLI dump.
I just had to bind the ELRS RX to my radio (plug in battery and unplug, repeat it for 3 times to enter bind mode). Then setup switches in the Modes tab for arming and angle mode, rearrange the OSD, and we are in business.
The other thing I will do when I have time is to flash Bluejay firmware to the ESC, it allows the ESC to run at higher RPM frequency for better efficiency and enable RPM filter for better flight performance.
Happy flying.
Mobula6 or Mobula7?
Between the two I’d get the Mobula7 because:
- ELRS support
- More powerful 400mW VTX
- More powerful and longer flight time
- Better motors
44 comments
Why is their 2 SD Cards on the quad?
2 SD cards? where did you see that?
I have mobula 7 1s pnp with flysky fs-a8s rx. Compatible??? Am using wire assy. that came with rx. Newbie here. FC flashes as if bound but nothing happens. Please help………. Tom s.
I do not like that PCB of camera is near to ELRS-Antenna. If you reduce camera angle it may damage antenna by crash.
Hi Oscar,
Great review just purchased on because of the positive comments all the way round.
Just a question for you or other readers who are familiar with this whoop.
Does it have a barometer or way of sensing the height, very curious about the Max height that I reach during flights.
The readout option is enabled on the OSD but I noticed that no value was appearing during its first flights.
If available, then “How to enable?”
Thanks in advance
No it doesn’t have barometer.
Oscar thanks for confirming.
Much appreciated 👏
I just recieved my new Mobula7 1s elrs v2.1 and running betaflight 4.3.1 and using 450mah lipos.
I’m getting a telemetry lost warning from my Zorro now and then and idea what this could be? A faulty aio board perhaps?
It also seems be draining the batteries really quick I’m only a learner so I’m basically just hovering and circling around the lounge room at the moment no punch outs or aggressive flying and I’m only getting a few minutes of flight time with a 450mah is this normal?
Having an issue with video not receiving more than a few feet. Not sure the issue. Any suggestions? Have tried changing channels.
I have tried to use the gyro data of Mobula 7 1s HD to stabilize the video with Gyroflow without success! Please any help will be appreciated!
For example, How to discover IMU orientation of the recorded data: zXY??
I tried to flash Bluejay firmware and the quad died (it gliches). It would be great to have a step by step procedure.
I had the same issue. It’s because the startup power is too low. Happymodel suggest: “When use Blujay firmware with 48khz, should set startup power to 1100/1200”. It was still a bit too low for me and when my battery was near 3.0 Volts it was still struggling to start the motors. I increased both sliders by +10 points every step until problem was gone completely.
Will BETAFPV 4pcs BT2.0 450mAh 1S Battery 4.35V 30C/60C FPV Lipo with BT2.0 Connector fit in the battery slot?
I have a lot of those.
Of course, I will change the leads to BT2.0 connector.
Will it work ok?
Thanks
Yes they do fit, but they are a tiny bit too small so they can slide out in a crash. I simply put a couple layers of masking tape and that works nicely.
Got one of these last week and set it up and flew today. All great except the video has a ton of jello with no apparent cause. Screws and lens tight, foam in place, no wire binding, etc. Flies really good, range is great (even 25mw video worked surprisingly well up to low control RSSI @100mw/250hz), but the jello really takes the shine off an otherwise impressive whoop.
anyone else having thrust issues? was having an issue with one of the esc’s and now i can barely get the drone off the ground at full stick forward
Hello! I have a bunch of 300mah batteries from my 65 whoops, can this mob 7 fly good with these batteries?
It should work fine but mounting them could be a little tricky because the lipo mount is designed for 450 size battery, it’s too big for 300.
Yes. Try wrapping a 2-3 layers of masking tape around the middle of the battery. This will increase the battery width just enough to ensure a snug fit.
Hello Oscar
I need help. I am new and I want to connect my mobula 7 1s with betaflight. I installed both stm32 and cp210x drivers and its still an unknow device under USB ports. Pls help I have no idea whats wrong. I tried different cables and rest of my laptop. Nothing worked any help?
have you read this article? https://oscarliang.com/fc-driver-issues-flash-firmware/
Try the suggestions there, if all failed, try a different computer, or try the speedybee app on your phone.
Hi Oscar, i got a new Mobula 7 1s and it flies amazing (thanks for the review).
It has a bit of ringing to the motors. Any filter configuration you can suggest to remove it ?
I already flashed Bluejay 96k and it didn’t solve the issue (but together with BT2 makes it last more than 5 mins on 300Mah)
Hey Oscar, I’ve got a problem with mine. My motors are having a hard time starting up. I was using the BJ at 48k, and it was running ok, until recently when one motor started having trouble starting up and eventually all 4.
After trying everything (I’ve got basic experience with all settings in BF) and the ESC. I flashed BLHeli_S again.
I was so sure that they would work but still nothing. Now I’m using the official dump with no luck.
All motors make sounds, motors don’t appear to have difficulty moving when I spin them around. I can feel all the magnets properly on each motor’s full spin. Only thing I haven’t tried is take them apart. Can I do that and how?
Anything else in mind that I could try?
Need to increase motor start power in esc configurator.
Hello, I just got v2.1, is it recommended to do anything special before 1st power on mobula 7? To prevent gyro burn like on betafpv FC?
Cheers
Mine came with Betaflight 4.3.0 RC3 so it’s doesn’t have the same gyro bug as in RC6.
So I shouldn’t be worried? And just plug battery and have fun? Or just try something with boot mode 1st to be sure?
Best to confirm with the shop you bought it from, if anything goes wrong you have proof and can claim a replacement or refund.
Hi Oscar, I love your reviews…
Do you think this Mobula 7 can manage an insta360 go 2?
Hi Oscar, I have issues with VTX range. ~~20m max on 400mW. Same antenna setup as other whoops.
Any idea?
Hi Oscar,
I’ve been having fun flying the Mobula7 ELRS. The board is a HappyModel X12 v2.1. I have 2 issues which I am not sure if you have experienced.
1. I put a Runcam Thumb on it powered directly via the AIO FC via the GND/+5V. The thumb works perfectly for a while, and then powers off. I suspect it could be due to insufficient Amps or Voltage drop.
2. Somewhere I read that the X12 V2.1 FC supports 1-2S. So I tried connecting a 2S battery to it. The FC detected the 2S properly, and even BetaFlight software displays the correct voltage and recognises it as 2S. However, once I arm it with the 2S battery, it takes off straight up like a rocket. I wonder if there is any setting that needs to be adjusted to fix this. Would be good to fly with 2S, and it may help with the Runcam Thumb issue above.
Thanks in advance!
Those motors are rated for 1S, on 2S the RPM will almost double so that’s probably why it shoots up!
Try adjusting motor output in Betaflight.
I have a tutorial on how to do this for 4S drones with 6S LiPo, the principle is the same but make changes to the CLI code, for example change “motor_output_limit” to 50.
https://oscarliang.com/4s-6s-lipo-same-motors/
Hi,
Where did You buy x12 v2.1 version from? Did You solved motors issue? How it flies now?
Hi Oscar,
I ordered Mobula 7 elrs but I haven’t ordered 1s lipo yet. I’m planning to order gnb 1s 530 mah, does it fit the battery holder? or the 450 mah is the ideal batt for the drone in terms of flight time and others
I think they might be thinner than the 450mah? If the dimension is true they should fit but might be a bit loose, just wrap around the frame with a rubber band, that should hold well.
Hello Oscar,
I recently bought the Mobula7 with ELRS built-in. It was super fun to fly.
After disassembling the canopy just out of curiosity and then reassembling it, my Mobula7 is no longer flyable. As soon as I hit the ARM-Switch it begins to jump up and down and it sounds like extreme oscillations as a result of excessive gyro noise. Whenever I disassemble the canopy incl. Camera, it just flies perfectly fine again.
Do you have any Ideas onto why this happens when I put the canopy back on? Might be the vibration of the Canopy interfering with my gyro? I’ve put the foam right back where was too, directly under the camera.
Thanks in advance and greetings from germany!
Are your canopy screws done up very tight, the gyro on this board is very sensitive, make sure the gummies can do their job. Just put the screws in until they bite and won’t fall out, hope this helps.
Hello
I just got the Mobula7 1s can you tell me how to update the firmware of the elrs? What target should I use?
And how to install the bluejay firmware on the Mobula7 1s….
Thanks
The elrs receiver in the Mobula7 is a SPI receiver, hence it’s not configurable with the ELRS Configurator, the firmware for the receiver it’s embedded in the Betaflight firmware, so if you have the latest Betaflight firmware you have the last Elrs firmware.
Hello Oscar,
I need your help, so Mobula7 1S ELRS is my first FPV Drone, it arrived like 3 hours ago. I had it connected to Betaflight and because of wrong radio setup, I reset the Betaflight configuration (because I didn’t know what to do. Then the drone won’t arm and react then I tried to follow all settings in the manual paper. My question: How to use your CLI dump? I feel some options still missing because right now the motors won’t spin when armed. I want to revert the options to original.
Thank you for your help.
First of all, go to the first page in Betaflight Configurator, and find the button where it says Reset Settings.
Then copy the CLI dump I provided, paste it in the CLI tab in Betaflight configurator. Finally, enter “save”.
Now your Mobula7 should be back to its original settings as you received it.
Hi Oscar, just did this same process but BF is saying I don’t have a motor protocol selected…whats the correct motor protocol to select? (Also having trouble binding the Zorro internal ELRS Module too. Any tips/tricks on that would be much appreciated.)
Right… Connect the drone to Betaflight Configurator, go to the “Motors” tab, and select “DShot300” as the ESC protocol.
Regarding binding, make sure your Zorro’s internal ELRS module is on 2.X firmware. Plug in battery and unplug, repeat it twice, the 3rd time you connect the battery, the drone would be in bind mode.
The first charging board HM sent out didn’t have the jumper and I was disappointed to find out that the new ones have it. Oh well, that’s what I get for ordering one asap ha.