That goes in the back of your radio and connects with your a joystick and thats cool, but thats, not the product, that everybody thought you were going to make when you said you were coming out with a new product, and that brings us to orcas newest product. The orca fpv control, which means we got to ask, is this an ultra high end quality and performance at any price controller, or is it kind of something out of left field? That leaves you wondering who exactly the intended? Buyer is im joshua, bardwell and youre going to learn something today: Music, Applause, Music, the orca fpv control that im reviewing in this video was sent to me by orca for the purpose of this video i have not received any cash or any other form of compensation In exchange for this video and no one has had any pre approval or conditions on the contents of this video before it was released. When people ask me the best way to get into the fbv hobby. My answer is always the same: buy a controller and then practice in the simulator until you start to be able to fly, and that leads us to products like this, the radiomaster t8 or this the jumper t light. These are less expensive radios that youre, probably going to outgrow, but theyll get you in the door, but these radios have a problem, or at least thats what the makers of the orca fpv control would say, and the problem with these radios is that they run open.
Tx, why is that a problem? Well, if you have ever struggled with setting up an open, tx radio, you understand what the problem is. Opentx has a huge learning curve and orcas goal with the fpv control is to give a budget radio that a beginner can buy. Get into the hobby not have to spend too much money and not have to hassle with all the hassle of configuring opentx. So just to be clear. The orca fpv control doesnt have any screen it doesnt have any menus or anything like that. It just has the basic controls that you would normally expect to see on an rc controller. Weve got a two position switch here: weve got a momentary, switch here and weve got two three position: switches here and, of course, the main sticks. That is it so then, how do you configure it with a smartphone app? Of course, this is the orca fpv control smartphone app available in your local app store, and if i just switch the radio on here, then we should be able to select that and connect and it connects via bluetooth. Now the first question people are going to ask is without a screen on the controller. How are you going to configure it in the field? You dont want to be pulling out your phone to configure it all the time, and the answer is actually that theres almost no configuration at all to do on this radio, so youre actually not going to be pulling out your phone all the time to configure it Here in the app we can go to the models setting, for example, and there are two models here: one is named orca and one is named quad and if we look at the quad model, for example its showing us the status of the sticks, yay, we can Move the sticks around and we can see you know what theyre doing and then the settings we can change are.
We can change the channel map thats it. You can rearrange the channels theres, no mixing theres, no outputs, theres, no theres, nothing. Of course. I tested this controller out on a simulator and what better simulator to try than orcas own fpv skydive simulator the simulator is free. In fact, it just won the best free simulator award in my fpv simulator roundup of 2022., by the way, if youre, looking for the best simulator best free simulator best for freestyle best for racing best for tiny whoops best in a whole bunch of categories, ive got A link down in the video description to that simulator roundup and you can check that out. Suffice to say the fpv skydive simulator is fine. It was easy to set up the controller and it was easy and fun to use the controller. Once i got going – and i again it should go without saying that if you dont want to use the fpv skydive simulator and you want to use something else, this controller will work with any of them. The controller will connect to the computer via usb or bluetooth. I used usb and i recommend you do the same, because usb will pretty much always have lower latency than bluetooth and lower latency will give a better experience when youre flying in a simulator, but that bluetooth is useful because it can also connect to your cell phone. You can connect this as a bluetooth, gamepad connected to your cell phone and yes, the orca fpv skydive app also runs on your phone, so if you want to have a little mobile fpv fun, this is a great choice for that.
Now, if we go back to the main screen of the app, the next thing i want to look at is the ghost option and immersion rc, who makes the immersion rc ghost control, link and orca are very. They work very closely together, for example, the orca fpv one goggles had integration with immersion rc rapid fire modules that nobody else had, and that partnership continues here with the orca fpv control, because you can see that i have gotten it with this immersion. Rc ghost module – and this is going to be controversial – the orca fpv control can be ordered without the ghost module, in which case it is used exclusively for uh video games for simulate simulators. Not video games, serious simulators. It comes with this nice plastic cover here. That goes in to make it nice and then, when youre ready to get your first real quadcopter. You have your choice of this ghost module thats it it doesnt work with crossfire it. Doesnt work with a multi protocol, module doesnt work with express lrs. It works with ghost only and on top of that it is this new form factor ghost module that is not usable in any other radio, now theres, nothing wrong with the ghost ecosystem. In fact, ghost is my favorite control link for my larger quads. I put ghost in all of my five inch quads and on all my smaller quads, like my three inches and below. I use express lrs ep2 with the ceramic antenna, because that tiny antenna is so so convenient on this little quest.
But is it okay to lock a person into ghost as their very very first radio, because if you were to buy a jumper tea light, you can put a module bay on the back of this radio? You can stick a ghost module on there that this one has an express lrs module. Dont worry about that. You can stick a ghost module on there and then, if you outgrow the tea light, you just take your ghost module off and you put it on the next radio that you buy. You havent wasted that money, and that certainly, is something thats going to be criticized by a lot of people when they look at this radio. Now the counter argument to that might be that a lot of people buy a very first radio with a control link inside it that theyre going to outgrow and abandon the multi protocol. Rip module in a radio like this theyre going to use free sky receivers. Then, eventually, theyre going to figure out that free sky receivers, suck and theyre going to upgrade to something like crossfire tracer, ghoster express lrs, so whats the big deal, and that would make sense if the price of this module setting aside the issue of e waste. That would make sense if the price of this unit matched the price of something like that. It looks like the radio itself is listed on orcas website right now for about 90 and the module is not listed anywhere separately, and so it seems like youre, going to be coming in closer to 130 or 140 dollars with the module hey there, folks, its joshua From the future, here, the actual price of the radio and the module is 120, not 140 im going to keep saying 140 throughout the rest of this video, because that was what i thought it was going to be its 120, not 140.
. If that matters to you, please make the adjustment in your head, at which point that is kind of a lot to pay for a radio that you are going to outgrow and move past, and that brings us to the discussion of the radios build quality. There are a lot of positive things i want to say about the radios design, for example. The ergonomics are quite good reminds me of a lot of the tbs tango 2 and thats got these long side panels to give your hands really something to grip, although it is technically a gamepad style radio, it definitely has ergonomics more similar in a lot of ways To the full size radios and if you decide to to pinch grip you i didnt find that i had any problems. Pinch gripping i might have liked the sticks to be a little bit longer. The sticks are not adjustable length they screw in and out, but they cant lock in any other position for thumbing the sticks felt great for pinching. They felt a little bit too short, but i had no trouble using them. There are nice convenient ledges here. So if you decide to rest your finger there or if you pinch and you rest, your fingers like that, it totally works grip tape along the sides. The ergonomics are quite good. The the radio has a built in rechargeable battery. It charges via usb plug here, usbc and thats the same usb plug you use when youre, using with the simulator a nice on off switch here very clear, tactile switch, no long, press short press or anything like that, but the overall build quality the fit and finish The feel of the radio definitely feels cheap, thats theres, no other way to put it so like when i move the gimbal here.
Do you hear that thats thats, not it that that feels about as rough as it sounds, and likewise the buttons yeah its fine? Its fine, it feels like a 40 or a 50 radio which is kind of what it is until you stick a ghost module in it and it becomes more like maybe 140 radio, at which point its got some tougher competition. So that brings us to the end of the video and, as always, the question should you buy it and as much as i appreciate what orca is trying to do with the fpv connect, which is make things simpler for beginners and and easier for them to get Into the hobby, i have some reservations about how theyre going about it, and a lot of that goes back to the price of the radio. This is a radio that you, 100 will outgrow and when you do all that money that you put into it is basically going to be lost. Maybe you hand it down to your little brother or something. The other question that i got to ask is: is this actually making life easier for beginners because, as far as i know, currently, you cannot buy, bind and fly quadcopters with ghost receivers in them now i assume that immersionrc and orca are working to change that, and Maybe, by the time you see this video that wont be true, but right now, if you buy a radio master zorro with express lrs in it or you buy a tbs tango 2 with crossfire in it, there are bind and fly quadcopters you can buy with those Receivers already installed and ready to go, and if youre, oh just solder in a receiver whats the big deal.
The big deal is that the whole point of this radio is that its easy for beginners and, if youre the kind of person who doesnt want to learn open, tx yet and doesnt want to set your radio up. You probably also dont want to solder a ghost receiver into your quadcopter, so the choice to put ghost in here instead of something like well, i mean. Obviously it was a political decision, a business decision, but if you really want to make life easier for beginners and give them a radio that you dont have to do any setup, you also need to give them a quadcopter that is legitimately bind and fly. And that means having a pre installed receiver and at this time that simply doesnt exist for ghost thats going to do it thats going to do it for this video. If you are interested in this product, there are links in the video description to places you can buy it, and i normally would say those are affiliate links but im not actually sure any of my affiliated stores are selling this. Yet i dont know if they are affiliate links. The way that works is you click the affiliate link and you make any purchase you want to buy this great. You want to buy something else, great doesnt matter, click the link go to your shopping check out, and i get a small commission, its a small amount, but it does add up and its an easy way for you to help support the work that i do here And doesnt cost you anything except the time to go, find that link and make the click before you shop.
What do you think of this radio? Am i being too hard on it like? I want to love it because i want to love anything that someones doing to make beginners lives easier, but it just feels to me like, by pulling them out of the open tx ecosystem youre, just delaying the inevitable theyre gon na theyre gon na get into opentx And theyre gon na learn it and that may as well, i dont know maybe thats too much to ask of somebody in the beginning. What about the ghost module? Let me think of this thing, thats what we need thats. What the world needs is another module bay form factor. We happy flying yall. What are you doing in here? The least you could do is subscribe or join my patreon or like just heres another video.
