Need to construct a 1S long-range FPV drone however undecided the place to begin? Then you must positively take a look at the NewBeeDrone LionBee. That is basically a way more refined tackle the 1S 3-inch nano long-range FPV drones many people experimented with a few years in the past. NewBeeDrone has clearly optimized many facets of the design. Let’s learn how it performs on this assessment.
Be taught extra about long-range FPV flying on this information: https://oscarliang.com/long-range-fpv-flying-mini-quad/
The place to Purchase
Get the LionBee equipment from:
The LionBee is bought as a DIY equipment, not a pre-built drone. The equipment comes with all of the elements and also you’ll must construct it your self. Many of the elements are plug and play, the one factor that you must solder are the motors.
- 1× LionBee AIO Flight Controller
- 1× LionBee 3-inch Carbon Fiber Body Equipment
- 4× 1202 11420KV Motors
- 8× Gemfan 3020 Propellers (4× CW + 4× CCW)
- 1× BeeEye FPV Digicam
- 1× NewBeeDrone Honey Dipper 5.8GHz U.FL (IPEX1) Antenna
- 2× Modular replaceable 18650 battery holders
- 1× M10Q GPS module + 3D-printed GPS mount
- 1× BeeT-Antenna for ExpressLRS (ELRS) 2.4GHz receiver (MHF3)
- 1× JST1.0 6-pin to JST1.25 6-pin GPS cable
- 2× Velcro battery straps
- 2× Zip ties
- 4× Adhesive mounting pads
- Numerous screws and {hardware}
Specs
- Flight Controller MCU: AT32F435
- Gyro: ICM42688P
- Barometer: SPL06
- OSD: Constructed-in
- VTX Output Energy: 25mW – 800mW
- Receiver: Constructed-in SPI ExpressLRS
- ESC: AM32 32-bit, 5A
- Enter Voltage: 1S Li-ion / LiPo
- Safety: Full reverse-polarity safety
- Mounting Sample: 25.5 × 82mm
- GPS: M10Q collection
- Marketed Flight Time
- Hover: ~20 minutes
- Cruising Flight: ~quarter-hour
- Weight:
- GPS: 2.6g
- FPV cam: 1.7g
- Motor (every): 4.3g
- VTX antenna: 2.6g
- RX antenna: 0.5g
- Drone (with out battery): 64.8g
- Drone with 18650 battery: 112.8g
How Does It Examine to the HGLRC Rekon3 Nano?
The HGLRC Rekon3 Nano is one other widespread 3-inch 1S long-range drone from about two years in the past, however by right now’s requirements, the LionBee is the clear winner.
Weight
The LionBee is barely lighter at 112.8g, whereas the Rekon3 Nano weighs round 115g (each together with an 18650 battery). For a 1S long-range platform, that weight distinction issues.
GPS assist
The LionBee comes with GPS out of the field, whereas the Rekon3 Nano doesn’t. Whereas it’s technically attainable so as to add GPS to the Rekon3, it requires FC pad remapping because of the lack of spare UARTs—and also you’ll additionally must design and print your individual GPS mount. That provides pointless complexity.
Present Sensing
The LionBee features a present sensor, which is extraordinarily necessary for long-range flying. The Rekon3 Nano doesn’t have a present sensor.
Sturdiness
The LionBee makes use of thicker 2.5mm arms, whereas the Rekon3 Nano’s arms are only one.5mm thick.
Setup Complexity
The LionBee requires nearly no tinkering—it simply works when you construct it. With the Rekon3 Nano, I bumped into a number of points, together with video subject which required including an exterior 5V BEC and capacitor. Additionally ESC wasn’t utilizing Bluejay (and 48Khz), so it wanted flashing to enhance effectivity and filtering. The FC and ESC configuration on the LionBee is optimized proper out of the field for environment friendly long-range flights, saving customers a whole lot of time
Antenna Selection
NewBeeDrone clearly discovered from the Rekon3’s shortcomings. The LionBee makes use of a correct circularly polarized antenna as a substitute of a dipole, which massively improves video high quality and reduces multipathing interference. That stated, the receiver antenna mounting may nonetheless be improved, because it introduces one other potential vary bottleneck.
RGB LED
There are 2 RGB LED on both sides and they are often configured/turned off in Betaflight. The Rekon doesn’t have any LED.
BNF vs DIY
One benefit of the Rekon3 Nano is that it was out there as a BNF (Bind-and-Fly) drone, that means no meeting was required. The LionBee is at the moment solely out there as a “developer equipment”. Hopefully, NewBeeDrone will launch a pre-built model sooner or later.
Additional Studying: In case you like long-range drones that use 18650 batteries, additionally take a look at the HGLRC Rekon35 V2. It runs on two 18650 cells and is supplied with DJI O4, providing a really completely different however equally attention-grabbing long-range expertise https://oscarliang.com/hglrc-rekon-35-v2/
Constructing the LionBee
The construct course of is pretty simple. NewBeeDrone gives very detailed, step-by-step directions, which makes all the course of a lot simpler—particularly for builders who could also be new to micro long-range quads.
NewBeeDrone particularly designed this AIO flight controller for the LionBee, which additionally doubles as a part of the battery holder. Every thing is built-in onto a single board: flight controller, 4in1 ESC, VTX, and ExpressLRS receiver. This all-in-one design vastly simplifies the construct and reduces wiring complexity.
The one soldering required is connecting the motors to the FC. Every thing else is just about plug-and-play.
They’ve already taken care of probably the most fiddly elements—putting in rubber grommets in tiny mounting holes, becoming the battery holders, and so on. All that you must do is plug within the elements, assemble the body, and safe every part with screws. You continue to get an incredible sense of feat from constructing one thing from scratch, with out the same old frustration.
Many of the non-carbon elements are 3D printed TPU, doens’t look as good as injection molded plastic however feels sturdy.
A Be aware on Reverse Polarity Safety
The flight controller is marketed as having reverse polarity safety, however sadly, it didn’t save my board once I by chance inserted the 18650 battery the mistaken means round. That is a simple mistake to make with these cylindrical cells—particularly if you’re not paying consideration. The second I linked the battery, smoke got here out, and the flight controller not mild up once I insert the battery. That was primarily my fault, however NBD may additionally take this chance to look into why safety didn’t work this time.
The present sensor seems to have been broken consequently. I reported the difficulty to NewBeeDrone they usually urged a workaround to bypass the present sensor. It labored and I used to be capable of fly the quad for now, however I used to be not capable of monitor present draw. A minimum of I used to be nonetheless capable of full the flight testing for this assessment.
Battery: Nitro Nectar Gold 18650 3000mAh
With this quad, battery high quality issues quite a bit. You have to use good 18650 cells—low high quality or counterfeit batteries will fully smash the expertise. Excellent news is you will get your 18650 straight from NewBeeDrone, I’ve examined their Nitro Nectar Gold 18650 and they’re thus far the very best 18650 I’ve examined for lengthy vary flying, even higher than Molicel P30B!
Get them right here: https://oscarliang.com/product-zh6e
They weight about 48g per cell. Some individuals speculate that they might be rewrapped Ampace JP30 cells, however I haven’t confirmed that myself.
When flying the LionBee on 18650 Li-ion cells, you possibly can let the voltage drop as little as 2.8V and even 2.7V per cell to make use of the total out there capability.
I do know it goes in opposition to what we have been taught, to land when the voltage reaches 3.5V, however that’s for LiPo. For Li-Ion it’s allowed to go decrease, and since it’s below load, you’re going to get some voltage sag particularly for batteries of such low C-rating like Li-Ion cells. Whenever you see 2.7V-2.8V and land, it’s going to get well to round 3.0-3.1V (and even greater). Anyway, you must experiment with the battery you’ve gotten, and decide what’s the minimal protected voltage you must land.
I additionally examined the Molicel P30B on this quad, and it carried out very nicely too, however the NBD battery has barely extra punch.
Flight Efficiency
The LionBee flies fairly nicely for a quad that’s powered by a single 18650. It’s somewhat shaky when it’s windy, however that’s to be anticipated from a low energy 1S quad. It’s additionally highly effective sufficient to tug off primary freestyle strikes, and feels nimble within the air.
It’s not notably quick, hovers round 30% throttle, has a high velocity of round 75km/h. However it’s extra environment friendly and cozy when cruising round 40km/h.
Effectivity is great. With solely mild cruising in calm climate, you possibly can count on as much as quarter-hour of flight time, protecting 9km of distance.
Relating to vary, I used to be capable of fly 800m+ with stable video. I may have gone additional if I hadn’t nearly reached the top of the sphere. The principle bottleneck to most vary seems to be the ELRS receiver antenna placement. Mounting it vertically as a substitute of horizontally would seemingly enhance vary consistency. It’s additionally partially blocked by the body, so I observed RSSI was greater on the way in which again than flying out. In case you actually need to push vary to the utmost, a variety receiver can be a good higher answer. Try this publish about selecting ELRS receivers: https://oscarliang.com/expresslrs-receivers/
Very quiet, you possibly can hardly hear the quad 100m away.
GPS efficiency is great. I used to be capable of get a GPS repair inside one minute (8 satellites) on a chilly begin, and after about 10 minutes, it was locking as much as 26 satellites, which could be very spectacular for a tiny GPS module that weighs lower than 3 grams.
Nonetheless, Rescue mode wasn’t setup out of the field, I needed to manually allow it in Betaflight. However even with principally default settings (I solely needed to enhance hover throttle to 1300), it labored high-quality for the open discipline I used to be flying. As all the time, you must fine-tune Rescue Mode based mostly in your particular flying surroundings. Discover ways to configure Rescue mode right here: https://oscarliang.com/setup-gps-rescue-mode-betaflight/
DJI O4 Assist?
I might completely like to see a DJI O4 model of this drone—it will make the flying expertise much more pleasing.
In the meanwhile, it solely assist analog FPV system.
Supporting DJI O4 would in all probability require a very completely different flight controller—one with a dependable 5V BEC able to powering the O4 Air Unit, whereas nonetheless working on the extraordinarily low voltages of a single 18650 cell (all the way down to ~2.6V). The BetaFPV Matrix 3-in-1 FC may probably be a candidate, but it surely’s not designed for Li-ion battery, so additional testing can be required.
Body mounting compatibility would even be a problem, because the body doesn’t assist regular 25.5×25.5mm FC mounting.
How you can Setup
FC firmware: Betaflight 4.5.1, goal LIONBEE_V2_REVB. Default CLI might be discovered right here.
It’s utilizing ELRS receiver (SPI), to bind, merely enter your binding phrase within the Receiver tab, or click on the “Bind Receiver” button to get receiver in bind mode.
ESC firmware: AM32, Goal LIONB_G_F421, Model 2.19, Bootloader v13 (PB4), MCU F421, 48Khz PWM Frequency.
Betaflight Setup
- Configuration Tab: the drone has no beeper, so ensure to setup DShot Beacon
- PID Tuning tab: Set your individual charges
- Receiver tab: Enter your individual binding phrase
- Modes tab: Setup switches for Arm, Angle mode, Turtle mode and Beeper
- OSD tab: Customise it to your desire (it makes use of NTSC format)
- Energy tab: scale back voltage warning to three.1V, lowest voltage to 2.7V
In case you solder the motor wires as proven within the handbook (similar wire order), you might must reverse a few of the motors. In my case, I needed to reverse motor 2 and three, in any other case the quad gained’t take off. Be aware that the drone runs “props out” (reversed motor course).
Rescue mode in Betaflight additionally wants organising.
Enhancements I’d Prefer to See
- Mount RX Antenna vertically
- Add A small buzzer (solely ~0.7g)
- Provide BNF model
- Assist DJI O4 model (can be good with the wide-angle lens mod)
- Up to date FC firmware to newest Betaflight 2025.12, and benefit from the brand new Place Maintain characteristic
Conclusion
That is probably the most refined 1S long-range drone I’ve examined thus far. It really works nicely, has a considerate design, and NewBeeDrone provides every part that you must construct it—together with the battery—making the method comparatively hassle-free. The construct directions are clear and simple to observe. That stated, it’s not a newbie drone. It’s higher suited to intermediate or skilled pilots. Some soldering is required, and that you must be snug organising Betaflight. With a single 18650 battery, you possibly can fly round for 14–quarter-hour, protecting 8–9km distance, which is unbelievable for exploration.
Get the LionBee equipment from:
I genuinely loved constructing it too—it’s a enjoyable little mission that’s nicely thought out, with every part becoming collectively properly. Nonetheless, I can see why some pilots would like a prebuilt choice, and I feel NewBeeDrone ought to significantly take into account providing a BNF model.
