85mm whoop is the candy spot for the DJI O4 — it’s highly effective sufficient to hold the additional weight of the air unit whereas not being too huge or noisy for flying in parks. The Happymodel Mobula8 is kind of an outdated design, however Happymodel has up to date it with a brand new cover to assist the O4. I’m extra interested by Happymodel’s O4 Extensive Angle Lens resolution (they name it the FOV extender). It will increase the digital camera’s discipline of view (FOV), making the flight expertise extra satisfying and stabilized footage extra usable — much like how the Flywoo wide-angle lens works. It will likely be attention-grabbing to seek out out which wide-angle lens performs higher.
In search of micro quads with DJI O4? Try this round-up and my suggestions: https://oscarliang.com/micro-drone-dji-o4-lite-comparison/
The place to Purchase
You will get the Mobula8 O4 HD Whoop from:
What’s within the Field
- Stickers
- UV filter
- ND8 filter (pre-installed)
- ND16 filter
- Spare digital camera cover
- Two further units of propellers
- HQ 2x2x3
- Gemfan 2023R triblade
- Screwdriver and prop remover
Specs
- Wheelbase: 85mm
- Flight Controller: CrazyF405HD ELRS AIO FC
- ESC: 12A 4-in-1 (Bluejay firmware)
- Receiver: Constructed-in ExpressLRS 2.4GHz
- FPV Setup: DJI O4 Air Unit + Extensive Angle FOV Adapter
- Battery: 2S (XT30 connector)
- Motors: EX1103 11000KV
- Propellers: Gemfan Hurricane 2023 tri-blade (1.5mm shaft gap)
- Dimension: 120mm × 120mm × 53mm
- Weight:
- With out battery: 52.6g
- With 2S 550mAh: 82.2g
For an HD whoop, that’s impressively mild — solely 82g together with battery.
Mobula8 Construct & Design
The Mobula8 is a 2-year-old design, and they’re mainly utilizing the identical {hardware}. Nevertheless, on this new model, Happymodel up to date the cover, designing it particularly across the DJI O4 Lite Air Unit. In addition they created a wide-angle lens for it, which improves recording high quality and total flight expertise.
Digicam Mount & Cover
The O4 digital camera is hard-mounted inside the cover — there’s no tender mounting.
The O4 Lite antenna dangles out the again with none assist, which might be a weak level. It will possibly get near the props or snag throughout crashes. I want Happymodel had mounted the antenna extra securely.
An ND8 filter comes pre-installed out of the field. In the event you plan to fly indoors the place there’s not a whole lot of lighting, chances are you’ll need to take away it first. ND16 and a clear UV filter are additionally included. You undoubtedly need both an ND or UV filter put in as a result of the digital camera may be very uncovered — these filters present some safety to the lens throughout crashes.
Happymodel O4 Extensive Angle Lens
The spotlight of the Mobula8 O4 is the wide-angle lens.
In the event you’ve flown the O4 Lite in inventory type, you’ll know the FOV is kind of slim — every little thing feels nearer than it really is. The wide-angle lens dramatically improves the flight really feel.
Nevertheless, you might even see corners and edges in 4:3 mode. It additionally provides a bit of additional weight to the quad.
Set up is comparatively easy — simply clip the wide-angle lens onto the O4 digital camera. It’s secured by two tabs on the again. That is much like Flywoo’s older design however feels safer. Nevertheless, it shares comparable points with lens glare and inner reflections because of the further glass. Flywoo’s new extensive angle lens resolution is healthier in that regard as a result of it replaces the unique O4 housing and lens solely.
The lens weighs simply over 3g, about 2g lighter than Flywoo’s new resolution.
The mount width is 18mm. The lens itself is way wider than 18mm and stands proud fairly a bit. It additionally will get in the way in which of the entrance cover screws — accessing them requires bending the cover to maneuver the digital camera out of the way in which.
The ND filter is held in place by two tabs and may be very tight — putting in or eradicating it isn’t simple.
Picture High quality
The FOV is wider than Flywoo’s — you see extra of the environment — however the fisheye impact can be extra noticeable when evaluating Happymodel and Flywoo aspect by aspect. That mentioned, I don’t discover the fisheye impact problematic. It feels effective in flight and is completely flyable.
You possibly can see the lens housing within the corners contained in the goggles. It’s much more noticeable within the air unit’s onboard recording — it appears to be like such as you’re wanting by way of a tunnel.
Stabilization works effectively in Gyroflow. Processing the HD footage crops out a lot of the vignette, and you may get rid of practically all of it by setting the FOV under 1.0. I set mine to 0.97, and virtually every little thing disappears.
I additionally observed barely diminished sharpness across the edges, however that’s anticipated with any wide-angle lens.
Flight Efficiency
The quad hovers at round 21% throttle. Flight efficiency is surprisingly clean and secure — higher than anticipated, particularly given the weird PID tune. The filters and PIDs are set conservatively, so there’s undoubtedly room for enchancment.
It’s additionally value noting that it’s not utilizing bidirectional DShot, so the tune isn’t totally optimized.
For a 2S micro quad, it’s fairly highly effective and feels agile. Nevertheless, there may be noticeable prop wash and a few instability when recovering from dives and split-S maneuvers. You might attempt reversing motor path and operating “props out” — which will assist scale back yaw washout.
It’s additionally surprisingly quiet — from about 100 meters away, you may barely hear it.
The truth is, it feels extra like a small 2S toothpick than a conventional whoop. This is likely to be one of many best-flying O4 Lite tiny whoops I’ve examined to this point.
That mentioned, there’s undoubtedly room for enchancment within the tune. As you may see, filtering isn’t fairly enough and the quad sounds a bit noisy. I additionally suppose the PID values might be refined additional.
With a 2S 550mAh LiHV battery, I’m getting round 5 minutes of freestyle flying. That’s fairly environment friendly and a stable flight time for this setup.
Set It Up
I don’t suppose Happymodel put a lot effort into configuring Betaflight. Even the craft title is mistaken — it’s labeled “Mobula7”.
Authentic CLI may be discovered right here.
The DJI O4 isn’t activated out of the field. You’ll want to attach it to DJI Assistant 2 (Shopper Drone Sequence) by way of USB to activate it. The Air Unit have to be powered throughout activation, so be sure that a LiPo battery is plugged into the drone.
To bind ExpressLRS, use the WiFi methodology. The receiver is a Happymodel EP1/EP2 2.4GHz RX operating ELRS firmware 3.0.1, related to UART2.
Listed here are the Betaflight adjustments I like to recommend:
- Allow DShot Beacon
- Change channel map to “Default”
- Allow Telemetry within the Receiver tab
- Pitch channel has slight jitter — set RC deadband to 2
- Arrange your arm swap and beeper in Modes
- Within the OSD tab:
- It got here with the mistaken format chosen (despite the fact that HD was proven).
- Choose “Auto”, save, then swap again to “HD”.
- Allow and place the OSD components you need.
- Disable “Core Temperature” — it’s not helpful.
Handbook: https://www.happymodel.cn/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Mobula8-O4-Handbook-document.pdf
Last Ideas – Is It Value It?
I used to be initially a bit postpone by the “old-fashioned” design. It felt like Happymodel didn’t put a lot effort into updating the Mobula8. However after flying it, I type of perceive their method — they’re merely recycling a platform that already works effectively.
And truthfully, the Mobula8 flies effectively. It’s clean, agile, quiet, and enjoyable. Paired with the O4 and the wide-angle lens, it turns into a very stable combo. It won’t look flashy, however you gained’t be upset by the way it performs within the air.
If you’d like a micro whoop with DJI O4, that is undoubtedly among the many higher choices when it comes to flight efficiency.
Get the Mobula8 O4 from:
The wide-angle lens is a good addition. Picture high quality isn’t fairly pretty much as good as Flywoo’s newer resolution, however Happymodel’s model is lighter and higher for total flight efficiency. Flywoo’s method feels extra polished and streamlined, with barely higher picture high quality, whereas Happymodel’s resolution feels extra DIY — however nonetheless delivers a widened FOV and stable outcomes with much less weight penalty.
General, it’s a robust package deal — particularly if flight really feel issues extra to you than absolute picture perfection.