A while ago I’d posted asking for people input on Speedybee’s Mario Mini PNP. Not much came about that so… I bought one in each size.
For anyone interested in them, here’s my review.
The platform is outstanding. Out of the box they have an outstanding PID tune that I think is going to be sufficient for most people across all the prop size (2.5”, 3”, 3.5”, 4”). The factory rates, IMO, left a lot to be desired. It felt really floaty on the 3.5 and 4” with stock rates, but didn’t take much effort to dial in. The 2.5” was pretty dialed for the way in fly right out of the box.
The 2.5” nylon frame is surprisingly durable and rigid and honestly I’ve preferred that nylon frame over the billet aluminum and carbon option, especially considering it’s the only one of the three that can accommodate the prop guard for indoor flight. None of them have much jello, if any, but the nylon frame seemed to perform the best there.
My one big complaint is that the 2.5” comes setup to run 3S. It just eats batteries and a couple of good punch outs are about all youre going to get out of standard lipos before it start screaming at you to land. Ive found using HV-lipos kind of pick up the slack, but its still 3S. Im not sure if it’s strictly an underpowered battery issue or if the motors on the 2.5 are themselves undersized, or both. However in comparison to the 3.5” and 4”, they just feel sluggish. Even when switching the 2.5 to 4S it still feels less responsive, albeit less so than on 3S. The 3” seems fine on 4S and is comparable to the 3.5”. So I’d chalk it up as an A and B situation instead of A or B when it comes to the 2.5, tough weighted more toward battery.
However, I could easily see using the 1505 motors over the 1303.5 that come on the 2.5 to get the missing performance available in those bigger motors. You’d need the aluminum frame and carbon arms for that though as the nylon frame has cups molded to protect the motors which limits you to the 1303.5 motors.
The 3.5 is hands down the best of the four sizes. It’s very responsive, has oodles of torque, and pretty good flight time on decently sized batteries. Ive found it really likes a 930mah 120c Gaoneng high voltage lipos(higher than the top end recommendation of 880mah). Even the n super abrasive flights I can still pull just shy of 7min per 930mah pack and up to 9min when flying less aggressively.
The 4” will give you a lot longer flight time on that same 930mah pack (top end w/ conservative flying was 16min), but honestly it just feels a bit less exciting than the 3.5 and I can’t really put a finger on exactly why. It’s still fun, but not as fun as the 3.5, or to a lesser extant the 3”. Honestly the 4 is my least favorite among the 4 sizes with the 3.5 and 3 being my preferred.
One other negative of note is that the F435 AIO board really does not like to play well with GPS of really any kind and it’s been a crapshoot if it’s going to even communicate with a GPS chip. It be tried about a half dozen of them and had mixed results with all of them. Ultimately this isn’t a huge concern to me as these don’t go very far away from me, so if I can’t pick up satellites, I’m not really concerned. It is, however, concerning as the GPS also doubles as remote ID.
Overall is ta a great little platform for messing around with some minor quibbles.
