Reptile Dragon II Build Review • Twin Motor FPV RC Plane

I’Ve got a build review on the reptile dragon 2.. Before i get into the content, i do need to let you know this. Video is sponsored by banggood.com i’d, like to say thanks to banggood, for sending me this reptile dragon v2 for review. If you’re in the market for dragon or any other rc, plane or equipment, make sure you check banggood out, they carry a full range of rc products. If you live in the states, they can often get things to you in 10 days or less. If you use that express shipping option, Va bene, let’s get into the material. You know when i made the first look video. I did this kind of face palm thumbnail and the reason i did that is because, when i opened up this kit, i saw a lot of hardware and there is a lot of work to do on this plane. A lot of screws a lot of little parts but there’s, nothing challenging about it. It all goes together fairly straightforward. I wanted to start out by showing you guys. I got the smart audio to work with the crossfire nano i wish. I could tell you what was wrong during the setup video, but i really have no idea so. I’Ll just show you by hitting the system button and then hitting crossfire, configure that’ll run. Then we click on the micro tx. So you can see down here. We’Ve got vtx settings, it says myvtx band and channel and then there’s also a power setting right there at the bottom, so notice on the monitor.

Right now, i’ve got the camera working, so i’ve got video feed on the camera i’m simply going to change the channel. Just to show you how simple this is, so you click on this field. You spin it a few channels away: click it again and watch the channel go bad on the monitor right now. Io, just change it back to channel 7. press enter, and here it’ll come back. So there we go there’s smart, audio control on the crossfire nano with lua on the tx16s. Again i wish i could tell you what was wrong during the setup video, but i just can’t after the video was over. I just plugged it in and it worked. I’Ll show you the nano rx configuration real fast just so you can see what that looks like if you want to set yours up for yourself. I’Ve got it on eight channel right now: s, bus on output, one smart audio on output four and on my channel map, just a straight channel map, one through eight. The first thing i’ll point out are the servo covers notice that they’ve got these nice composite plates. That cover the top of the servo, the servo needs to go into that pocket with a little drop of glue, even though i’m using 12 gram servos without glue the serve will move back and forth in that pocket just a little bit under pressure, i would have Preferred it if that control horn straddled, this reinforcement arm, like i’ve, seen on so many other epp offerings at this time, because i can tell you one thing: this foam will compress and while i was working on the plane, i did notice that the horns come loose.

Even with the compression fitting on the top side, so these are going to need to be glued in. I don’t have them glued in right. Now they need to be glued in also notice. Under the motor nacelle they’ve got an esc covering plate with ventilation. I think this pocket could have been a little bit deeper i’ll, try and give you a good look at it, so you can see but there’s just not a lot of space for airflow between that esc and the plate. So i think that pocket just needs to be a little deeper or they could have even made this plate a little taller either. One would have worked for me, but note that you need to make sure you have ventilation. I need to do a little work, making sure i hog out some of that area under the wing, so i can create some space for air to flow over the esc. This skid plate does come with a little bit of a lip, E, while i was initially tempted to cut that lip off with my lexan scissors instead, what i opted to do is take a razor blade and just carve a line in and press it down in There – and the reason i did that is this – is the landing direction and i thought by putting the lip down inside the plane, it’ll help preserve this landing skid and keep it on the plane. Finally notice on the wings.

You’Ve got this little thumb screw that locks. The wing panel onto the motor nacelle there’s, a wood block, locking mechanism and two spars a rear, spar and front spar, so everything feels pretty sturdy, even all the way out to the wing tips that feels pretty sturdy to me. I don’t really have any concerns. One of the mystery things on this plane that i haven’t figured out yet are these little embedded nuts i don’t know what they’re for i know what screws go in there, but i don’t know what they’re for there’s nothing in the directions that i can find about Them seems like they might be for outriggers to protect the servos. I just don’t know don’t, know there’s nothing in the book. That explains what those are for on the underside of the plane is that they have this little equipment bay cover and you can see an equipment tray. I didn’t use that one but there’s another one up here that i use for my vtx. So it is handy that they provide access to equipment trays with little covers very handy on the back of the plane. You can see the rudder uses the same capture mechanism as the ailerons for the servo on the push rods. Almost all of them were the wrong size and in fact, for the elevator push rod. I actually had to cut off the z, bend and re bend the z, because if i cut it off from this side, i would have lost my threads.

They have two openings for the elevator i’m, not missing my elevator servo it’s. Dall'altra parte, they don’t mention using two elevator servos so i’m, not sure why they did that. But maybe, if you have a heavy plane, you might want to put two servos in your plane, also check out the vtx antenna mount. I think that was a really cool idea, because what they’ve done is they give you this little composite donut that screws? On top of your sma mounting lug and that screws into a wood plate, that’s embedded in the airframe, so very handy, mounting mechanism for your vtx antenna and there’s the elevator servo. This is the connecting rod that i had to cut the z off of in order to get it to fit. Regarding the motors i’m using sunny sky 2212 1250 Kv, these are v3 sunny sky motors, and i just love them. I’Ll tell you that the radial mount that came with the sunny sky bolted right up to the plastic motor mount on the plane, nessun problema, no modifications required just it’s, just screwed right in also notice on the bottom on a nice job. They did routing the wires from the motor into the motor mount and then into the foam and into the esc, plate nice and clean and tidy. Yet it’s still easy to maintain. If you need to make a change or something goes wrong, you need to flip your wires around all very easy to do so, big props, to that very convenient and easy maintenance on this motor setup, Va bene, let’s get into the fpv equipment.

The gps. Puck is right here, that’s a nice little touch. This is a screw on affair, so without glue you can take it on and off. If you need to maintain your gps puck. One of my gripes about this plane is the nose they make room for a gopro and an fpv camera, che è grande. The problem is it’s very compact. They have this little plug up front that’s glued in and if they didn’t glue. That in that, would give you an opportunity to use some heat to shape this opening a little bit to make your cameras fit better. So i kind of wish they would have left that on glued. So we could modify this plug to make our cameras fit a little better. I can tell you that i’ve got them in there right now, but it’s very, very tight i’ll also point out that there is no retaining mechanism for the cameras. They’Re just compression fit only that’s it. You have to press them in and hope they stay notice. On the top there’s a couple more of those mystery mounting screws, i guess they’re for mounting equipment, maybe a flight camera i’m, not sure they make no mention of it in the book at all, but they’re there. So if you want to mount equipment, i guess that’s. What it’s for all right, let’s take a look inside the canopy i’ll. Tell you the biggest single letdown. Is this power distribution board, while the board itself is fine? There are two problems with it: one they don’t give you a three pin header for your lead to your flight computer.

I don’t understand why they give them for your esc. They give them for this esc, but nothing for your flight computer. I think that was just kind of weird. The second problem is they don’t, give you any kind of mounting mechanism at all and for everything else being focused on mounting equipment on this plane. I think that’s a real letdown, i don’t know why they didn’t provide any option to mount that power distribution board. What i wound up doing is: printing my own 3d part and it’s, a brace that fits in between these two wood side. Plates i’ll put a link to that part in the description it’ll be on thingiverse. If you need it for yourself notice, i’ve got the co pilot installed in the back and i’ve got my tbs crossfire receiver right there in that nice little compartment on the side. With my antenna coming straight out, the top – i only have three things left to do and the dragons ready to fly i’ve got to get a velcro strip in there for the battery i’ve got to balance it and i’ve got to get my props. The props are on the way, and i did order counter rotating props, both of these motors spin inboard, all right that wraps up my first look at the dragon. 2, i’d like to say thanks again to banggood, for sending this unit out for review and remind you guys, if you’d like to get a dragon 2 for yourself.

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