Which is the best 3" Quad 2018 ?

[Harlem]

So many new and old good 3" Quads i can't decide. Would love to hear from Guy's that have two or three of the best ones and advise. Please don't give statements like ''so and so Quad should be better because it has so and so''. That is annoying because it doesn't work like that and hence is very unhelpful (although they obviously mean good).

Note by best Quad i mean best flyer, durable, can learn and improve greatly. I don't mean the fastest or most powerful.

My shortlist is (in no particular order):-

GepRc Phoenix (pricey but maybe worth it) (F4 board)?

BabyHawk R 3" (can buy BnF - but only Frshit)

Full Speed Leader 3 (not an X frame but seems no problem)? (can buy BnF)

XPKRC X3 (SP Maker Model - via BangGood) (can buy BnF)

Diatone GT M3

iflight Razor x125 (can buy BnF)

[ched]

What sort of flying do you do, freestyle, racing etc?

[Harlem]

Freestyle, i am actually getting back into Quads after a while away. I aim to focus more on Quads now and not Fixed Wing 3D so much. This means i will be inventing new Quad manoeuvres soon 

Kinda want to progress ultra quick and invent new trippy and snappy manoeuvres, some of which can be done on fixed wing, but i have never seen them done on a Quad. I.E. Snake, Wall, Weeble Wobble and the many turnarounds/flip overs.

Thanks Harlem

[Cheredanine]

I would string suggest you look at 5 inch, a lot of acro manoeuvres require momentum, for that you need mass, which 3 inch don’t have, that’s why if you look at any of the serious pilots they are running 5 inch

Also all the ones you list seem to be cr4y Chinese bnf.

For a 3 inch freestyle you want:
1. Convention for freestyle is a short-x frame, doesn’t matter if the arms are x, h or dead cat layout, but distance between motors left to right should be longer than front to back. Also top mount lipos, or more accurately the centre of mass should be as close to the line of thrust (horizontally) level with the props. This puts you COG in the same place as your COR, making it smoother and more responsive without natural bias to a given aspect.
2. One of the major problems with micro brushless is oscillations from motor clogging, requiring high filtering and low pid. The wiser the motor stator, as a general observation, the smoother the quad will fly, the less filters you will need,
3. Blheli32 on 48khz pwm is smoothest esc solution,

Generally it is pretty easy to self build better than bnf

[Sweet Pickle]

Yep, what he said.
Explains perfectly why my SPCmaker shakes like the proverbial pooping dog, even with pids tuned way down you can fry an egg on the motors............. BUT and this is a big BUT. I just put 3.5.1 on this morning and flew a quick pack and it did come back moderately cool for the first time.
Watched Albert Kim's new video this morning, I've been meaning to reverse motors for some time to see if that helped and early impressions are that it SEEMS to have helped, along with putting some smaller tri blade hulkies on over the stock 4 blade.

[Harlem]

Ohhh thanks Guy's, well that explains why you never see many amazing tricks on the little Guy's.

Good job i didn't pull the trigger. OK, i am thinking a super light model as a 5" then as i can fly and learn manoeuvres LOS.

Not into building, i just hate messing around, each to their own i guess.

My eye was on this one Diatone GT M515.

Does anyone know any forums where people talk about learning tricks and manoeuvres?

Cheers Guy's Harlem

[Cheredanine]

Just so you are clear, that is a (failed) attempt at an ultralight racer.
Also diatone have a bit of a rep for breaking, which racers don’t particularly get bothered about but generally is mandatory for freestyle

I could pick it apart more but honestly it just isn’t good

There is a good reason for self build other than you get a better quad, and that is sooner or later you crash it and have to repair it. If you built it you stand better chance both of identifying the problem and fixing it.

But putting all that aside,
If you really want bnf, for a decent freestyle acro quad, this is the sort of thing you are talking about, there are 2 chameleon Ti options and a rooster on page 1 and a reverb on page 2
https://www.quadcopters.co.uk/ready-to-fly-artf?sort=sort_order_asc&page=1

Now I appreciate you may be on a budget (another reason for self build)
And all three of those frames are expensive so I am gonna do some looking around see if I can find a decent freestyle bnf at a reasonable price, but you may want to look at hobbyrc, they have a build service, that would you to get something like:
TBS source 1
Brother hobby r6
F4 flight controller
30 amp ESCs,
Rx
And assuming you want fpv, a swift and unify pro hv
Depending on the build cost, that is about £180 without fpv and £230-40 with.
That will seriously outperform the diatone as a freestyle quad (and becaus the diatone is underpowered for a normal racer or heavy for an ultralight one, beat it at racing on some track types)

[Harlem]

Ohh thanks Cheredanine, £200 would be better than £500 because of my aggressive flying style. Anybody who has seen me fly fixed wing will know how much of a unique and aggressive style i have like nobody else in the World!
Those ShipBags on FaceBook that like to fight in gangs will see this unique aggressive nature with my elbows and teeth when i catch up with them :)

When i stop crashing as i did with fixed wing,,, then i will move on to a £500 Quad.

[UrbanFPV]

GEPRC Sparrow is a good acro quad with the thicker baseplate.  I find it very durable now and works well with cyclone 3052 props.  It's great for flying proximity but can be a bit twitchy which means if you learn to fly it smoothly, you will be super smooth when you go to 5".

I find myself warming up with a 3" and then going to 5" for doing some proper freestyle.  That said, momentum moves are fine with the sparrow you just have to carry more speed and when you're landing something like a lazy powerloop, you will need much more throttle to stop you crashing into the ground.

Still love it though for ripping round and going for tiny gaps.

[Tryingto]

[Harlem]

Yeah UrbanFPV i know what you mean as my Ex Wife used to like warming up with a 3" 

There is a guy on YouTube who has just about every 2 1/2" and 3" quad on the market (RC-Fan NL) and he always states, his go to Quad is the sparrow and when you see him fly it he can really work that Quad 1000% more than his other Quads, even the new GepRC Phoenix 3".

Just wish GepRC Quads weren't so expensive, but maybe that's where i am going wrong, maybe i should just get one.

So much choice i really am struggling to make a choice.

[Cheredanine]

Gel F.C. aren’t expensive, they are the cheap end of the market, but the sparrow has a proven history