Review: Fullspeed TinyLeader 75mm Whoop

If you don’t want to forgo flying at bad weather – or just want to fly around in your house or garden – a Tiny Whoop is a good choice. These especially small mini FPV racers with propeller protection are light and robust. All the better if the little one allows for 3S lipos. We took a closer look at the Fullspeed Tiny Leader 75mm.

Fullspeed Tiny Leader 75mm

Tiny Leader 75mm (Original)

Tiny Leader 75mm (Original)

Tiny Leader 75mm (Original)

Tiny Leader 75mm (Original)

Tiny Leader 75mm (Original)

Tiny Leader 75mm (Original)

Tiny Leader 75mm (Modded)

Runcam Micro Swift + Thingiverse Canopy

Tiny Leader 75mm (Modded)

Runcam Micro Swift + Thingiverse Canopy

Tiny Leader 75mm (Modded)

Runcam Micro Swift + Thingiverse Canopy

Tiny Leader 75mm (Modded)

Runcam Micro Swift + Thingiverse Canopy

Tiny Leader 75mm (Modded)

Runcam Micro Swift + Thingiverse Canopy

Tiny Leader 75mm (Modded)

Runcam Micro Swift + Thingiverse Canopy

Tiny Leader 75mm (Modded)

Runcam Micro Swift + Thingiverse Canopy

Tiny Leader 75mm (Modded)

Runcam Micro Swift + Thingiverse Canopy + Thingiverse lipo holder

Tiny Whoops represent the smallest class of FPV racers. The Tiny Leader with its 75mm is not even the smallest representative. The first Whoops were actually limited to indoor use only, but thanks to stronger brushless motors and higher power consumption they can now be flown in the garden or park at moderate wind speeds without any problems.

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HD contra SD

Yellow Screen

The Tiny Leader comes in two flavors: with a standard SD camera and with an HD camera. The latter holds an SD card to record your flights in 1080p 60FPS. To install HD cameras in ever smaller FPV racers is a nice gimmick that many have been waiting for for years. Unfortunately, these tiny cameras aren’t really mature yet. The image quality is good, but the stability and durability of these cameras for use in racers isn’t really suitable yet.

We decided for the Tiny Leader with HD camera (the Caddx Turtle V2), but the Turtle was already defective from the beginning and showed a static, yellow screen only. Also a replacement Turtle, which Banggood kindly sent us, showed the same yellow static screen from the beginning. It turned out that many Caddx Turtle users seem to have this issue as well.

So after two Caddx Turtle cameras arrived in defective condition, we equipped our Tiny Leader with a good old Runcam Micro Swift, which you should always have at home. The Micro Swift not only delivers a perfect picture and is almost indestructible, but also fits perfectly into the Tiny Leader. It also makes the Whoop a bit lighter, since the Caddx Turtle’s additional PCB board is also omitted then.

Unfortunately Caddx hasn’t responded at all to our requests yet. While Banggood delivered perfect customer service as usual and helped us out with a replacement camera, Caddx showed exactly the opposite behaviour: consequently ignoring any customer requests. Too bad, so we can’t write anything about the Turtle V2 – except maybe that you should better choose the Tiny Leader with SD camera to be on the safe side.

Equipment

Otherwise, the Tiny Leader 75 comes with everything a good Whoop needs: strong and fast 11.000KV brushless morors, 8A ESCs that use 2S or even 3S batteries (ideal for outdoor use) and a strong video transmitter that broadcasts from 25mW up to 600mW and covers 48 channels.

Unfortunately, our test version didn’t contain any accessories, so we can’t write anything about that. Since the props are not only small and robust, but also protected by propguards, they are nearly indestructible. Replacement propellers can’t do any harm, but you can do without them for now. The fact that our Tiny Leader didn’t even have a rechargeable battery included (as it is a test version) is a shame, because we could only test it with a 3S 650mAh Lipo and can’t say anything about the flight characteristics of the normally included battery.

How does the Tiny Leader perform?

The Tiny Leader performs with both 2S and 3S lipos, which is of course a highlight. For indoor use, 2S lipos are ideal while you would like to use 3S lipos for outdoor tracks. With 3S batteries the Tiny Leader performs a lot faster and more aggressive.

The flight characteristics are very lively and agile, although we could only test this with a relatively heavy Tattu 3S 650mAh battery (56g). This small Whoop is indeed much more agile and powerful than you might think at first. The 11.000KV motors really have a lot of power – especially with 3S batteries. You should reduce the rates a little in Betaflight, otherwise the Tiny Leader might feel a bit tippy in the air. With moderate rates (about 600 deg/s) it flies much better and is almost perfect to handle. For indoor use even lower rates (or a 2S lipo) would be appropriate. Ideal are 3S lipos with up to 50g weight or 2S batteries with maximum 30-40g weight.

The configuration in Betaflight is fast and simple. The basic settings are actually quite good and you don’t have to change much here, except for lower rates. You also might want to adjust the OSD to your own needs here. The FrSky receiver built into our Tiny Leader binds without problems. The range of the Whoop is however somewhat limited, which is mainly due to the misplaced antennas, which have been placed somewhere between the Propguards. Both the receiver and FPV antennas should ideally be placed pointing upwards. This is done quickly though.

The FPV antenna is attached to the transmitter using an IPEX plug, so you can exchange it for a better (no soldering required), if you like to do so.

The canopy of the Tiny Leader protects the interior safely and reliably in a crash – but unfortunately only allows a relatively rigid camera position. Thingiverse already has a 3d-printable replacement canopy, which not only allows a little more camera angle, but also has a holder for the antenna, so that it can be easily mounted upwards. You can also modify this 3d model to customize the canopy to your own needs.

Unfortunately the enclosed battery holder of the Tiny Leader is a bit awkward, as it only allows the use of special 2S rod batteries. If you want to use lipos of your choice, you should print out our universal battery holder for the Tiny Leader, which allows you to strap on any differernt sized lipos of your choice.

Unfortunately we can’t say anything about the built-in SD camera or the HD camera (Caddx Turtle V2). The latter was defective in our case and also a replacement Turtle V2 unfortunately showed exactly the same error (“Yellow Screen”). However, the Runcam Micro Swift we finally used with the Tiny Leader is a great alternative. It delivers a perfect picture, is almost indestructible and it also results in a lighter Whoop than with the heavier Caddx Turtle V2, which also needs an extra PCB board.

Summary

The Fullspeed Tiny Leader 75 is a great Whoop, which makes a very good figure. Thanks to 2S and 3S battery support it can be used in both, indoor and outdoor situations. The 600mW video transmitter and the 11.000KV motors provide enough power for all kinds of manoeuvres. If the Tiny Leader is too agile for you, reduce the rates a bit and you’ll get a very easy to handle but powerful Whoop.

Unfortunately we can’t recommend the built-in camera of the HD version (Caddx Turtle V2), because it seems to have a very high failure rate and the support of Caddx… well… let’s say it’s suboptimal. But if you prefer the cheaper SD version or a Runcam Micro Swift for the Tiny Leader, you will definitely enjoy this Power Whoop.

With the Tattu 3S 650mAh batteries used by us in the test flights the Tiny Leader is quite fast and agile with about 3 minutes of flight time (aggressive flying style). This is good standard. The fact that the Tiny Leader also flies with 3S batteries is a big plus, because most Whoops can handle 2S batteries only.

Another plus: the motor cables are plugged in instead of being soldered. So there are no problems with bad solder joints. The motor plugs can also be easily removed to better get to the insides of the Tiny Leader.

The Tiny Leader makes a very good impression (except for the Caddx Turtle HD camera). This robust Whoop forgives almost any kind of crash. Apart from the HD camera there is not much that can break here, which is why we once again recommend the standard version with SD camera, which in our opinion has a better price/performance ratio.

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Author: Mike vom Mars
A couple of years ago, Mike emigrated from his home planet to Earth to study and examine the human species. His findings offer a deep insight into the nature of human beings and their strange society.