Today I am checking out NewBeeDrone’s latest tiny whoop – the AcroBee65 BL V3. BL stands for brushless because this quad uses brushless motors instead of brushed ones, which is more durable and powerful. There are a few improvements which we will talk about in this review.
Table of Contents
Where to Buy?
Get the NewBeeDrone Acrobee65 BL V3 here: https://oscarliang.com/product-d397
In the box, there’s only the whoop, and no accessories.
Improvements from the V2
The new BeeBrain BLV3 flight controller has been improved for easier DIY builds and maintenance.
It offers more range: 50% increased in radio receiver range and VTX power is increased from 25mW in previous version to 125mW.
Upgraded ESC MOSFET for higher power.
Closer Look
FPV camera angle is not adjustable, but in my opinion it’s set at a decent angle that doesn’t require adjustment for indoor flying.
The weight of the Acrobee V3 without battery is 23.0g.
The frame is the same plastic design from previous Acrobee whoops, which has been proven to be really strong.
Here we have a refined power system – new Gold Unibell 0802 18000KV motors and Azi Triblade propellers. Newbeedrone seem to be going back and forth with the number of blades, V1 was tri-blade, V2 was quad-blade and back to tri-blade in the V3.
I like the translucent props and frame canopy, it makes the RGB LED onboard even more visible and impressive in the air.
Talking about LED, there are two bright RGB LED on the FC. By default it fades on and off which look really cool. You can configure them in the LED Strip tab in Betaflight to do other stuff like throttle indicator and battery voltage indicator.
Micro USB connector is easily accessible from the bottom. All the motors have connectors that plug straight into the FC, making replacement easy.
VTX power has been increased from 25mW to 125mW, therefore they added a little heatsink on the bottom.
Radio range has been improved by using diversity receiver – as you can see there are now two RX antennas, one on top of the FC and the other on the bottom. Both the RX and VTX antennas uses U.FL or IPEX connectors, which makes it easier for repair.
The battery fits perfectly in the battery bay, but it doesn’t have much resistance. I think it might be a good idea to use a rubber band to hold the battery more secure in place just in case it slides around.
These are the LiPo batteries recommended by Newbeedrone, 1S 300mAh HV Battery: https://oscarliang.com/product-ensh
These battery weigh 8.5 grams each.
This is the charger I am using to charge those batteries. Get it from Banggood: https://oscarliang.com/product-hf2v
Do I Recommend It?
Yes. It flies great, almost plug and play with my TX16S radio, and the hardware quality is overall excellent.
It’s designed with flying in low light and LED track in mind. The FC camera image is super clean even when there’s little light, very little noise. And it also handles bright/dark environment transition well.
It flies super smooth and is well tuned out of the box, unlike many other tiny whoops that usually comes with the mediocre default Betaflight tune.
The other tiny whoop options that I’d recommend would be the Happymodel Mobula6 and Moblite. Compared to the Acrobee, the Acrobee is noticeably more powerful that the Mobula6, but it’s not as powerful as the Moblite6 because it’s about 3 grams heavier. If you want pure power and speed, consider the Moblite7 instead. However, both the Moblite6 and Moblite7 are very flimsy, for example the camera constantly requires adjustment after every crash. Happymodel makes some of the cheapest models that fly well, but if you got the budget and want a reliable whoop to fly at home, I’d definitely get the NewBeeDrone Acrobee V3 instead.
How to Setup?
Setup was very easy. The FC is already flashed with the currently latest Betaflight firmware, 4.2.9.
FC board target is BEEBRAIN_BL_V3_BASE. The stock CLI dump can be found here.
The Beebrain BLV3 has two UART’s, UART1 is set to MSP, UART2 is unused. There’s no UART setup for SmartAudio but somehow you can still change VTX channel and power via Betaflight OSD. It’s probably built into the Betaflight firmware for this FC.
Gyro/Looptime is set to 8K/8K, running DShot600 ESC protocol. Note that bidirectional Dshot and RPM filter are not enabled. I don’t feel it needs it anyway. It flies very stable and smooth out of the box.
You can bind the Acrobee BL V3 in Frsky D8 protocol. To enter bind mode on the quad, simply enter bind_rx in CLI (or press the “bind receiver” button in the Receiver tab). It can also bind D16 (V1) if you set Receiver Provider in the Configuration tab to Frsky_X, but make sure you disable Telemetry feature or you will get bad range.
Finally, set Arm switch, Angle mode switch and flip over after crash. You are good to go.
I tried setting DShot beeper, but it didn’t seem to save the setting and doesn’t work for some reason.
Balloon Racing Gates
NBD also sent me some of these gates for practicing at home. Get them here: https://oscarliang.com/product-yvmt
The Newbeedrone balloon gates are affordable and super compact as they can be folded. Obviously you can’t fly any quad without prop guards around them as the spinning propellers will break the balloon. They are only designed for tiny whoops.
Inner diameter of the gate is 37cm, outer diameter is 60cm.
15 comments
Trying to flash the esc’s to reverse motors so I can go props out on the BLV3. What type of board does this have? The NBD site says the BLV# supports BLHeliS so I downloaded BLHeliS_32 and it is asking me to select an Arduino board to communicate. I don’t know what type of board this has, do you? I am enjoying trying to figure this out but my knowledge is EXTREMELY limited here, so I am in WAY over my head. Is this even worth it? Every whoop I have with props out is WAY stable. I do like the BLV3 as it is, but I ASSUME props out would be even better, so I want to give it a go. Am I right or am I just wanting something I don’t already have? I realize I asked a lot here but I switched the motors around 2 days ago and I still haven’t gotten them spinning yet. Please help me if you have the time, Oscar. Thanks!
You said it, it’s got “BLHeli_S”, so you should download the BLHeliSuite program for it. The BLHeliSuite_32 is for BLHeli_32 ESC, so that won’t work.
Alterniatvely, just go to this website, it’s an online ESC configurator: https://esc-configurator.com/
No need to download or install anything, but it only works in Google Chrome.
I am guessing there is no way to get it to bind to D16 V2 without adding an external receiver? I was really hopeful but I can’t figure it out.
That’s right. I don’t think the SPI receiver can be updated to D16 V2.
Would you think it a good idea to update to BF 4.3?
For the Acrobee? Probably not unless you know how to tune it after flashing. the Tune it comes with is pretty optimal.
The camera is too dark and poor quality, change it with Caddy Ant-Lite, same weight and fits perfectly, but solder the cable, but no problem with the Fc.
Switch to BT 2.0-300mah battery, 3 min flight time and power until the end.
He can easily manage 450mah, almost as agile, flight time 4-4.50 minutes.
More power than Mobula6, better tune, but less flight time.
Overall the better whoop, but also more money
Do you know if it is at all possible to set the VTX to 25mW to be usable in most race settings.
I’m super new to FPV and drones in general. I have ordered the NewBeeDrone BLV3. Would you be able to make a tutorial on how to bind the BLV3 to an FrSky X-lite pro?
What flighttimes do you reach?
I’m Using GNB 380mah 60/120C and got low battery warnings within 10 seconds.
Only got 50 seconds of flighttime.
Convert to BT 2.0, 300 mah = 3-3.30 min flight time and max power until the end
But how can we buy them in europe (netherlands) ? There is not a list of dealers, I can not find them.
Yes, but they currently don’t have stock to send to EU dealers yet as far as I know.
shop.rc-hangar15.de
It’s a relyable german Shop.