I'm not sure if there is a particular spot to post reviews so I'll just post this one here. This is a review of the HT-450 "Witespy" quadcopter which I received about a month ago. I will be reviewing the DJI Naza version, but they are also available with Quadrino or MultiWii controllers. The full specs of my purchase are as follows: HT-450 Witespy Quad DJI Naza Flight Controller w/GPS Stock Witespy Motors Stock Witespy ESCs 9x4.5 Gemfan props Spectrum DX7s Transmitter w/AR8000 Receiver Horyzon HD V3 Video/FPV Camera Fatshark "Attitude" FPV goggles w/Immersion CP antennas & 250 MW Vtx @5.8 Ghz Total Cost, fully installed, configured, tuned, & tested about $1800 I'm going to end the suspense right here. This thing is absolutely awesome. The build quality is top notch, it's obvious it was assembled by a professional. The HT-450 frame is very durable. I've had a few medium and one bad crash and the frame has held up splendidly. The only casualties have been a few pairs of landing gear (you will go through a lot of these, buy spares!), several props (See landing gear. Buy lots.), and one motor mount. The frame itself is still in perfect condition. The landing gear is annoyingly fragile, but I believe that's by design to absorb the impact and protect the frame. Still they're not cheap, and you will go through a few of them while you're learning. Overall I give the HT-450 frame an A (the fragile landing gear keeps it from being an A+) The completeness and promptness of my order was splendid. Witespy promises delivery within 2 weeks of your order, and mine was shipped in exactly 1 week. Shipping was free, and my shipment arrived with everything I had ordered. Everything was properly configured, all I had to do was charge the batteries and it was ready for it's maiden flight. I suppose you could probably tweak the gains a bit to your liking, but being new to this I didn't really have anything to compare it to, and as far as I'm concerned it flew great out of the box. I haven't touched the settings, I'm happy with how it performs as delivered. It also came with both 9" and 10" props and extras of each. RTH on failsafe was configured correctly out of the box. I had a conversation with Paul Baxter (Witespy) prior to ordering, and he told me flat out he will not configure RTH on a switch because he feels it's a safety hazard, but he would tell me how to do it if I wanted it set up that way. If nothing else I'm smart enough to take the advice of an expert, so I left it as is. I've tested the RTH/Failsafe twice and it works perfectly. The one minor ding on the configuration was that IOC was not configured out of the box, but one call to Witespy and changing one setting on my Tx got that going. The camera and Fatsharks worked perfectly out of the box. The only thing I've had to adjust is the brightness and contrast, which need to be adjusted for the lighting nearly every flight anyway. My videos are clear and jello free, the mounting job is excellent. The FPV package is a little pricy, but even so it was still worth it to have it all set up and mounted correctly. I'm going to deduct half a point for not having IOC set up because I did waste a bit of time trying to figure that out prior to calling Witespy, so I'll give setup and configuration another A rating. It would have been a nice touch to throw in a handful of the cable ties used to secure everything, but that's very minor and not worth a deduction. Lastly I'll talk about after purchase support, and all I can say is Wow. If there was a higher mark to give than A+ I would give it. Paul responds to emails, and either answers when you call or returns your call. I can't say enough about this, I'm a total noob to this hobby and the great support I'd heard about from Witespy was one of the reasons I went with them, and they live up to their reputation. He even offered to tune up a 2nd, Quadrino based HT-450 I purchased on E-Bay, and although I decided to try and fix that one myself since I bought that one to learn on, it's very comforting to know I can ship it to Witespy and can get it fixed up right in the event I'm not able to repair it myself. In summary, I highly recommend the HT-450. The quad itself is excellent, the prices are reasonable, and the support is outstanding.
Thanks for this review! It gives folks an idea of what is required to have a fairly full featured setup of a mid-sized quad. It's fairly typical, I think, for people to look at the prices of some quads and think "well, for $500 I could get a complete setup"....when the truth is that you usually get what you pay for! I think we all have to address the issue of the importance of Flight Controllers. They are the most expensive item in most setups and you do often get what you pay for (or, in some cases, you have to do a lot of work in configuring).
That's VERY true. I researched this for several months before I finally settled on the Witespy. I looked into several cheaper options, and as you would expect most of them worked most of the time, but when they didn't the support was terrible, and they often used propriety parts so getting replacements was expensive. There are lots of good options out there for custom builds or even ARF kits, but not so many for fully configured built to your specifications quads, and for my first one I wanted to go RTF. It finally came down to the Witespy or the Phantom, and I went with the Witespy even though it was more expensive because it was the only option that gave me exactly what I wanted at a price I could afford. You probably CAN get a full RTF FPV setup for around $500, but what you'll probably be getting is a hard-to-fly, easily broken quad that's expensive to repair, has a crummy 3" screen for FPV, and produces choppy video full of jello. As you said, you get what you pay for, and $500 is too much to throw away on junk! I will definitely be buying more quads from Witespy (ReadyToFly Quads) in the future, my experience with them has been top notch.
I to bought my first quad from Witespy . Since then I have build a DJI f450 The first thing you notice is the weight difference. The HT feels like a feather compared to the f450. I did change a few things on HT , the landing gear is gone replaced by a 450 hell size landing skid .you can come down hard with out the worry of breaking landing gear and turns out it is lighter. He offers a dome to put gps in looks very cool. I replaced radio receiver. added light strips (Red and Green ) for bearing and put the LED on the bottom so I can see red light to tell me it's time to land. Did not have much added because this is my trainer but I can tell you It's just a start . Paul was a great help . I had problem getting into assistant and he called and got it going . I am now on my third quad . Each one has a purpose. . I tried my hand at Helis a few years ago without much luck. Felling is quads will fill a niche that may put Helis in the back seat ...we will see Will
