So congratulations good morning, quadcopter 101, here with a review of the new gdrc, 4d f4 gps. Drone. Now, why am i interested in this particular drum? Well, for one thing, this is a folding motor folding drone for maximum portability, with two axis gimbal, which is nice, but what i like about it is folks. It is a relatively low cost drone for what you are getting okay. I believe this is under the 150 price range uh, sometimes lower. It was on sale this week, actually in their 128 price range. I don't know how long that's going to last, though, but uh what i like about it again: a little custom, folding drone uh with a two axis: gimbal, okay, that's it's, getting it's starting to be more and more common to see stabilized video drones in the hunt Under 150 price range and that's great that we're starting to see that now i did mention um it's, folding um, it does come before. I forget it does come with a nice carrying case. I always forget to show this, but it cut you know making it extra portable with this nice carrying case, but let's pick it up and take a look at it now now it is not a lightweight drone. It is 400 grams with its battery making it a little. You know somewhat heavy. You know because it does have a big hefty battery with this i'll talk about that better here shortly, but since it's 400 grams.
That means this will require registration in most countries. So keep that in mind folks, um let's see what else about i mentioned. It is gps. It is single gps system uh, which means this can take for you, the first time that you take this out and out in the open and try to bind it to a the gps signals. It could take up to 15 minutes for that first connection, where it realizes that it is no longer in china and then from for fall on flights. After that first uh lock on. I expect those lock ons to be much quicker. Okay, but the first time you take this out in the field it could take up to about 15 minutes. All you got to do is just let it sit there, and you know i go out there with a fully charged battery the first time. It was the purpose of just getting a gps lock, but again for follow on flights, expect much faster, lock on once it realizes where it's located at in the world. With that gps system, you get the automatic return to home and landing capability on command through the controller on loss of signal from the controller or on low uh voltage of the battery. It will also return to home and land. Now the drone does have brushless motors. Pretty good uh, powerful brushless motors that i don't have the actual specification. What brushes motor this are it's, not included in the description for this but um.
You know with brushless motors, you get improved durability over a brushed motor drone. Now the battery for this is a 7.4 volt, 3500 milliamp per hour battery let's see if i can bring that up and hope that's focusing. But with that in mind, this is a nice big battery but and notice that it is charged through a micro usb port. Now don't go trying to charge this with your micro usb with any micro, usb cable, in fact, there's a warning here: it's telling you to use the provided charger that comes with this drone. This is the provided charger, and why is that? Well, this battery does not have any smart, uh electronics inside here to know when it is fully charged to stop further charging of the battery okay. That is provided through this thing here, it's attached to the charger. Okay, if you try to use a regular usb cable, you will over charge this battery. Okay, instead make sure you use this charger. This charger does have a micro usb port on the engine here, but again do not use a regular micro, usb cable to charge this or you will overcharge battery use this charger. Okay, enough said on that warning: okay, other things about the drone. It does have optical flow sensor and ability, in addition to the gps system. This uh helps maintain stability stable hover when the drone is close to the ground. Okay, that helps to further stabilize the drone other things about it.
It does have a two axis: stabilized gimbal. You know in the under 150 dollar price range again that's, one of the main reasons. I was interested in reviewing this drill because of that now with that the camera on this is a high definition camera, but it's 2048 by 1152 pixels records video at that resolution. To a onboard micro, sd card slot right there now since 2048 by 1152, you know that is not a standard resolution. Folks that's kind of an odd one um, but you know if you upload to youtube youtube and automatically will probably downgrade that to 1080p. So keep that in mind um, but it is higher definition than 1080p, but an odd one um it records at 25 frames per second for those video files out. There are interested in the frame rate um. Also it records still photos to the micro sd card. I had the same resolution of 2048 by 1152, meaning they are just simple frame grabs from the video now this also records to your phone at either 1080p or if your phone has a fast enough processor, it will interpolate the video going to your phone up to 4K resolution: okay, so like, if you have an apple iphone, this will interpolate the video to 4k resolution, but it will not improve the video the quality okay, that is a false 4k in effect um. You know electronic enlargement of that 2048 video or actually it's. 11. 52 p video uh and sending it up to 4k so again, uh it's, yeah it's a fake way of saying that this is a 4k drone.
It is not. Okay, keep that in mind so just uh giving you a heads up there now this does have a capability of fpv, follow me or position waypoints, and also you can add music to your videos from that that are coming from the drone using the 4d rc gps. App now a side note that i always have to mention this drone or that app and use of this drone with that app requires a phone with 802.11 ac wi fi capability. As i stressed it all these type of drones, they call themselves five drag 5g drones. It does not require 5g phone, it just requires 802.1 ac, wi fi, but not everybody has that type of wi fi on their phone before purchasing. This drone is very important to first verify that your phone indeed has 802.11 ac wi fi capability. And how do you do that? Well, just google, your google search your phone's model name along with the terms 802.11 and the term specifications and then look in the search results to see if your phone comes up with 802.11 ac wi fi in the search results. Now uh let's go over the controller. This is the controller that comes with the drone. There is no real inten. These are both fake antennas, folks there's no antenna wire going up in either one of these. However, this controller is pretty, is specified to give you about two kilometers range control range. I find that very hard to believe, okay and more realistically, maybe about 600 meters or something like that, but um again they're saying uh, two kilometers you're not gon na get two kilometers fpu video i'll tell you that right now from the stroke – and i really doubt You'Re gon na get two kilometers control range, but you will be able to fly this easily out beyond your line of sight view of this drone so be careful there.
You know, if you lose sight of that drone, you can bring it back by just simply pressing return to home button, but let's go over all the buttons on this thing in the upper left corner you hit, you have control of your gimbal moving it down or Up, if you press this button, it raises the gimbal. If you press this button on the right, it lowers the gimbal view if you hold this button down, while turning on the controller you'll switch from a mode to or yeah mode, two to mode one controller which in effect, moves the throttle from here to over here And then you can switch back again by holding that. Actually, i think you have to go over this side. I'M. Not sure you hold the button down again and turn it on again. It should switch back to the other. Stick other buttons on this particular controller. Is this is your rates button? If you want to make the drone fly faster, you can press that button and give you more pitch control and then more speed, and also, if you hold this button down for about two to three seconds, the drone will enter into headless mode. I'Ll demonstrate what headless mode is when we go out in the field. I'Ll do some um crane shots with a drone to do using headless boat uh? This button here is for doing a uh couples or gyro calibration with a quick press and the drone winner into uh compass calibration by holding this button down for about two seconds to do.
The gyro calibration of the drone and again i'll demonstrate that when we get out in the field, this button here is return to home and landing automatic return to home and landing. If you want the drone to come back and land just press that button there, this button is for switching between taking a photo by quick press or starting and stopping the video by a long press. And finally, you can turn the gps off. If you want to just fly this in sport mode by pressing this button here – and you can turn it back on by pressing the button one more time, so that is the controller, the controller it has its own built in three point: uh six or one 3.7. Volt battery at 300 milliamp per hour that also is charged by micro, usb port. Here you can, for the charger, use your own micro, usb, cable, again, don't use a regular, your own micro, usb cable to charge the drone battery, though, as you will overcharge it. Okay, let's go over. Finally, what you get uh in the box. Again you get that carrying case. I just showed you uh. You get the instruction manual and i want to go over the instruction manual, real, quick it's available in english, uh, chinese, french and uh. Finally, also in russian, i guess there's some people out there wondering if the instructions come in russian, they do just let you know so. English, chinese, french and russian is in the instruction, video and additional items you get a spare set of propellers for their quadcopter.
A charging cable, a micro, usb charging cable for the controller, along with a little micro screwdriver for repairs on the drone. You get the charger and you could get one two or three batteries that come with this drone. If you do intend to do multiple flights, you know with this drone um and you'd, like your own set of batteries, do not buy the drone and then expect to buy purchase batteries in the future. Buy the bundled packages where you get one two or two or three batteries that come with extra with a drone, because, as i mentioned always shipment of lipos via mail from china, can be very difficult if you're shipping, the lipos by themselves. If you want extra batteries with this, drone buy them at the time you purchase this drone so that they can bundle those batteries in the package with the drone. Okay, um banggood will not ship these. Well, sometimes they will to some capital trees, but it can be very difficult to get extra batteries if you want to purchase batteries alone because of shipping safety restrictions of lipo batteries, especially international air shipment, so that's what you get in the package let's take this out Into the field and see how it flies so hope you enjoy this flight good morning, quadcopter 101, here with a review. The flight review of the gdrc f4 on a slightly brie actually it's a very nippy morning here at pleasant ridge park kind of chilly 45 degrees and my fingers are hurting.
Okay, let's get this in the air. To start it up, you press this back button hold it down until you hear those cheap trips from the uh eses put it on the ground and then turn on the transmitter and bind it with an up down movement. And now we have connection to the drone. Now we are going to need to wait about five to ten minutes here. Folks, this is a single gps drone. It takes a while for it to lock on, but while it's doing that i'm going to connect my wi fi to the drone and then connect uh. The app turn on the app and connect that also to the drum so hold on folks and i'll. Give you an estimate of how long it took for that gps to lock on after we do such okay. We still haven't connected yet but um. What i'm going to do? It'S been about two minutes, but uh right now: i'm going to do the compass calibration while we're waiting here and you can do it through either the app again by pressing this button, geocomp button and holding it down for three seconds or you can do it through. The controller or through i'm sorry do it through the controller by pressing this button for three or four seconds, or you can do it through the app by uh. This screen here and all we need to do is hit guide calibration and right now the lights are blinking red in the back and in the front, blinking, blue, red and blue, and we need to do uh.
Several horizontal turns until we hear a beep like so and then put it nose down like so and continue with uh clockwise turns like so until we hear a second beat. Okay, that is the compass calibration compass calibration, is completed and we're going to continue waiting for this uh app or for this drone to connect to the wi fi, because we still don't have any satellites connected it's been about three minutes now so hold on folks. While we continue okay, we got lock on it, took a good eight minutes to get lock on and right now i i have nine satellites and you can also tell that you're locked on, because the back lights will start blinking red blink, blink blink blink. So we now have satellite lock um to take off actually let's start. The video recording first by pressing and holding this button here photo video button and notice. It'Ll say that currently, your mobile phone does not support 4k video, whether to use 1080p video. What that means is folks it's going to be recording 1080p video to my phone. However, it will still be recording that higher resolution video to the sd card on the drone itself, so we are ready to take off now there's a thing about this drone in. Let me mention that before we take off, if you get a satellite lock on and then you go flying and then you land and turn off the motors on this drone, it also will turn off the gps system and you're going to have to restart the drone.
To get that gps back again, and that seems to be a software glitch with this drone, another software glitch that i noticed in a practice flight i did a few days ago, is that this does not like wind. Okay, if you go flying winds about 10 miles per hour, which i was doing the other day, it starts to become erratic in flight. So i do not fly this on breezy days very breezy days. We have a win today, but it's only about six to seven miles per hour, but you get it above 10 miles per hour and you might have problems just let you know, okay, to take off both sticks down and out to start the motors giving a throttle Setting it up a bit and getting in the picture here and checking stability and saying how do you like my sweatshirt today, folks because it is breezy? Okay, now sticking up the cameras, so my lips are moving at the same time, so it doesn't look like a badly dubbed movie. Okay, first off uh, i am going to just send it straight up so that we can see lake erie. What did i do rates? I just changed the rates to high rate. I don't want high rate, i went low rate but setting it up and at the same time checking stability as it's, going straight up. Until we see lake erie we'll go up to about 25 meters or so yeah.
I don't think we're going to see lake erie today because there's a haze out there but i'm checking the stability again, and it looks good up there and as such i'm going to push forward – and here we go flying around the area going off forward forward forward. Now let me turn it. I want to check its turning ability fly back in this direction. Now there's a guy down there, metal, detecting. I don't want to disturb him while he's doing that turning nobody else in the park today, except me and that metal detector guy. So right now it's, fine, okay, but again, remember folks, if you're flying on a breezy day, this it can get erratic. The signal looks good on my phone. Let me get it pointed in this direction away from the sun and from right about there. Let'S, try a return to home and landing pressing return to home, see what it does it's coming back coming back coming back now again, i am going to stop the descent i'm not going to let it go all the way down, because i don't want to restart The drone to get the gps signal back again so, as it comes down we're, going to stop the descent and i'm going the way i'm going to do. That is i'm going to hit the return to home button one more time there. It comes on its own, see how close it is to the pad looks to be about a meter off a meter and a half off.
Maybe okay pressing let's, see if it's going to make a final descent yep and stopping it by pressing the return to home button. Okay, so return to home works. Let me get into the view again. Next thing: we're going to try is follow me folks. Oh one other thing: let me hit the upper right corner there and what i need to do is we got beginners mode turned off: okay, everything's, good there. This does have a geofence by default and you are going to need to turn it off in the upper right corner by turning that beginner's mode off and also you're, going to also possibly need to set a flight distance and a flight maximum flight altitude and hit Save to enter that into your drone, but i have mine, turned off and set up already, so let's come back out of that and right now, okay we're done there. Let me find it now in the upper left corner, see that box press that box and if we're gon na do follow me. Let me go up a bit higher too hit that gps follow gps. Follow is activated let's see if it actually works. The well it's. Looking at me, let's see if i walk away, is it following? Yes, it is so follow. Me does work on this, so you know um. This is a lower cost, gps drone with two axis gimbal and uh. You know they made some shortcuts here, or some trade offs here uh with this particular drone to get that low cost, one of them being.
They got a an older gps system in here uh that takes quite a bit of time to lock on and i'm guessing. They they got a batch of old gps, uh chips, gps systems from older drones and implemented it let's see if it'll follow me as if i walk to it. It'S, like a gps or like it, doesn't move away from me, but it twists with me watch that let's go over here and walk around and see it up. There folks see if it'll turn with my as i go by it or if it does when it, when will it do that there it goes it's. Turning now toward me, so that's follow me not the best. Follow me in the world, but not the best drone in the world either. So, okay, next thing uh orbit position let's. Try that push wait a minute, pushing pulling backward seems like oh jeep. Follow me stone. Turning that off, okay, it doesn't want to turn off. Maybe if i select the different uh features such as orbit surrounding pressing surrounding see what happens there? Okay, it doesn't come out. Oh doesn't, want to come out of gps. Follow me. I don't know why. Folks, let me hit that lock see if that unlocks it was. It locked in there now gps follow, so i think i had to hit that no it's still doing it. I want to do surrounding it. Doesn'T come out of gps. Follow me so there's a bug in the app that won't, let it come out gps followed once you activate it uh with that in mind, i'm gon na have to go back to the pad, go back to the pad.
Have it follow me actually i'm pushing forward and it's flying backwards? I'M, not sure why that is, but we're going to go back to the pad land it and unfortunately i am going to have to restart the motors and shut down those motors, so landing i'm gon na just land right in the grass. What sticks down on that? Okay, now i don't know why the app is locked in follow me mode, but right now, oh, i noticed i still got satellite signal, so maybe i am wrong: okay, okay. We still got satellite signal it's just that we got locked with the app so i'm going to restart this app so hold on. While i do such folks man before i do make sure i turn off that video camera recording and hold on folks be right back restart, nap. Okay, i restarted the drone and luckily i was wrong folks. It locked on fast that time so i'm not sure what the problem is with the lock ons i had previously. Maybe it was the site i was flying at near my home, but right now, let's make sure that that follow me is turned off it's off now. So i don't there's a glitch here folks uh with follow me in that you can't turn it off once it turns on. Hopefully, it'll fix that in a future update of the app but uh let's start the video recording again and confirm we're gon na go 1080p record it to my phone, get it back into the air down and out throttle up checking stability.
Okay, let's go over here. I'M, pushing forward and we're gon na do orbit orbit position over in this area here going up a bit higher right about there and pressing that checking stability again, because the breeze is picking up but uh we are going to do surrounding surrounding. I press the button and it's flying over there. I have it set up for 10 meters of orbit position it. This was the position where it was at and there it goes orbiting and let me sink up as it orbits now. The wind is coming from that direction there so, as this goes off in this direction, it's going to climb as it goes in as it gets on the other side of that 180 degrees it's going to descend because of that air pressure sensor that's controlling it there. It goes descending, let me get a low lower, but the position seems to be working fine, which is good. Now i wonder if i can turn off that orbit position we're going to check that here shortly, let's see. If i can do that, pressing that box again and pressing orbit position – and what do you know it doesn't turn off pressing the box again pressing unlock unlock, you can't turn this okay, these advanced features you can't turn them off. What, if i hit return to home while it's doing this, will that fix? Will that turn it off it climbs to 30 meters and where's it gon na go okay, that's.
One way to seems to turn it off is to hit return to home Laughter, okay, as it descends i'm gon na, stop it when it gets low again, so that that turned it off hitting return to home button. So that's an issue with this particular app. Okay. Before we go in the waypoints, which is next i'm gon na, come down a little right, leave it right there i'm hitting return to home. I hit return to him to stop it. Let'S enter the waypoints button this time going to turn that lock button off. You know you can't seem to turn that off, but let's hit the waypoints, which is waypoint flight and switching. I want to go to map mode satellite view, let's see if i can find us on here. Okay, where are we at okay? If i hit center position on this map mode, it doesn't seem to help it let's see if i can find it just by looking at the map, if i can get a guesstimate where we're at no okay, raspberry fairview. Let me we're over in this area here close to the border of gerard. Let me go back to satellite view from here. Satellite and not very good resolution either. Is that the park well i'll tell you what folks i can't zoom in to where we're at because it won't. Let me is that it so we're going to quit right there trying to do satellite view, because it ain't working can't get us to figure out where we're at so turning satellite uh we're.
Going back to this view here, we're going to finish out the flight by coming down and doing just flying it. Oh, you know what i haven't done yet coming down again. Syncing up the cameras, i haven't shown the camera. Okay, uh photos. Turning off the camera, the video camera saying how you like my shirt today, my sweatshirt today, folks, okay there's one photo one photo and another photo so: okay, uh for the remainder of the flight, let's turn that video camera back on and then hitting confirm. We'Re gon na stay in 1080p and sticking up the cameras for this portion of the flight. I am going to go to higher rate we're, going to try this at the sport mode and see how that gimbal works, see how that gimbal works in sport mode or in higher rate we're in high rate now went up a bit higher. So i don't hit anything but let's push forward and fly in high speed, see how it does at high speed. You know. One thing i got to say is so far the fpv video looks good. Okay, let's! Stop it right there. Now that high speed flying causes. It to be a little erratic, so i don't recommend going to high rate in gps mode, so cutting going back to beginner mode and coming back toward us so yeah it bounced around quite a bit there in high rate. So you probably want to limit high speed flying while in um.
What do you call that non gps mode out just altitude old flying? Okay, let's go back back up again: we'll go up higher we're, going to finish out the flight just showing the camera fly around the area until our battery gets low. Let'S try a right turn. This time right. Bank turn slow. Turning nfl is still metal detecting over there and let me come back down again and i want to try a couple other things in that i haven't done our headless mode yet coming down coming down coming down and as it descends we're just going to corkscrew down To the ground, because i don't want to come down too fast. First we'll try a rocket and then we'll try the headless mode coming back. Okay, now to do rocket or plop it here and then we're gon na lower that gimbal by pressing the down button. Maybe that's the up button, okay, which one makes the gimbal go down this one, the right one you got ta hold it down and it's slow, slow to sit Music. I guess that's. Okay, though see if i can go all the way down. That seems to be it right there next time so from there, let's go straight up Music i'm. Also pulling back so i stay in the picture with a rocket rocket is set okay from up there lower raise that gimbal back up again hit me up again. Coming back up right about there and then going back into another corkscrew quick, screw descent how's my battery power, my battery power says it's getting low starting to get low but i'm wondering what's.
It do on low battery so we're going to keep on flying. Just to see what it does on low battery descending descending descending, it descends real, slow and bringing it back to me. Okay, we're gon na go into headless mode. Now, stick up the camera again let's see here. I think let's point pointed in that direction. When i took off go back up again and the headless mode, where are you on these buttons? I got ta hold this the rates button down for two seconds: okay, we're headless mode, pushing forward that's the forward position, lowering the gimbal down! Is that one? Actually, i want to go in the sun, so we're gon na toward the sun, because i'm gon na pull back on the stick, this time and pulling up up and away panning shot going into the sun. Okay, then press second headless mode button, one more time pushing forward and coming back down in the opposite direction. Descending toward me trying to keep me in the view on the screen. Okay, so far, things are working uh, except for the bugs in the app and the advanced flight modes, there's a lot of bugs in the app so gdrc. You ought to think about updating that app there's, some bugs in the advanced flight flight control mode. So i would recommend fixing that now let's say in low battery. Please return in time. Okay, so i'm hitting cancel uh actually i'm going to keep flying folks, i want to see see what the limits are on no battery i'm going to keep it close to the ground.
Oh won't, let me go any further, so it does have a uh. I guess this is: how far away are we from takeoff point 17 meters? Can i fly toward the landing pad pushing forward yeah, but it has a geo fence. Let'S watch bumping into the geofence right there, geofence of uh about 17 meters, 18 meters let's show that again on low battery it doesn't. Let you fly here. I guess it would bring you back toward this position here and watch i'm going to push forward push forward. Watch it bump into that geofence like a electronic wall in the sky. It won't go any further, so so with that mine let's go back up one more time right about there that's good enough and just do a slow, rotate above the area around the area. Slow. Pan around the area up a bit higher too notice, all the trees are empty of leaves. We had some wind and that's the end of fall. Folks next step is winter itself or that's coming coming back down so yeah um. You know i mentioned the other day. I was flying into that wind. It became very erratic because it was breezy. I got ta admit it was about uh 10 to 12 miles per hour when – and this did not like that. So again, if you considering this drone it's a low one day, drone seems to be locking on faster. Now, though, i don't, i don't, know what the issue was there at my house, maybe trees blocking the signal.
Okay, so let's give my final thoughts here before it does its final return to home sticking up the camera and making sure my hat's straight going up a bit higher because the wind now can get down. Actually, i might go like here: i'm looking into the sun. Okay, so this particular drone, you know it's a low cost gps drone because of that they did make some shortcuts in the design design features. Mainly, it has an older gps system, it's, not dual gps, which means expect longer lock on times to get that lock on. Okay, the wind's picking up a bit here let's see how it handles this breeze here: okay, i'm. That wind here is about eight miles nine miles per hour. It'S getting close to that limit that i saw the other day, but you know again: they they made some uh trade offs engineering trade offs to get this to be a low cost, gps drone well still having gps, and that two axis gimbal two axis gimbal seems To be working, but you know it's not working entirely perfect. You know i saw some um off balance there, as we were going around the advanced flight control features of the app there are bugs in the app i can't turn them off. Once you get started and also the waypoints feature, i can't select center position. You know where, where it'll locate, where you're at on the map and then automatically scan onto that position, you have to manually scroll it, and i just had a hard time finding my position out here in uh, where i'm flying at this location here so again, the Advanced flight control features need some updates on the app i don't know if gdrc is going to actually pay to do that, but if they do, that would be nice to make make this work as designed uh, you know, follow me and circle me did work.
However, i could not turn them off. I couldn't figure out why i couldn't turn them off the other way. I did turn them up was able to find a way to turn them off was to hit that return to home button and hitting that return to home button seemed to turn off. So i guess you could theoretically hit the return to home button and, as it starts to do that ascent uh to 30 meters before it goes home, you could probably hit that return to home button again and that would that did turn it off. So those are the issues that i saw with this particular drone, so gdrc f4 drone it works um, but again you know being a a lower end, gps drone. It does still have some issues, so: okay, let's i'm waiting for this battery to get real low. Okay, it's showing real low on my my screen here, i don't know: if that's recording, can you see that folks? Oh there we go and it looks like it automatically lands wherever it's at it's at it doesn't. Do it ascent and landing at the landing pad on our battery? Instead again it brings you within that 30 or 18 meter circle, 18, meter circle and then lands wherever it's at when it reaches full low low battery. So that is the gdrc f4 gps. Drone low cost gps drone from gdrc let's get my face in the sunlight, so you can see me so hope you enjoyed this flight.
