RaceFlight RevoltOSD Review | Hypetrain or Trainwreck?

RaceFlight RevoltOSD Review

If another person tell me how much they love RaceFlight I’m going to slap someone. Just kidding. So many people have been raving about RaceFlight I had to see for myself. Does it live up to the hype? Let’s find out!

First off, this post is from the perspective of someone almost new to RaceFlight. I tried RaceFlight once over a year ago. My motors got super hot and it didn’t fly well at all. That’s when BetaFlight was getting good so I never bothered to fix the RaceFlight setup. That was the original Revolt Skitzo edition board, they have changed a lot since then.

RaceFlight RevoltOSD Highlights

• F405 MPU
• Invensense 20602 Gyro
• Built in dampening grommets
• RaceFlight OSD
• Can be powered directly off the battery up to 6s

See the full specs on the RaceFlight RevoltOSD page

Parts Used in this Build

• PROton Skeleton 5″ Race
• RaceFlight RevoltOSD
• RaceFlight Bolt32
• TBS Unify Race
• Foxeer Arrow Micro
• FrSky R-XSR
• Tmotor F40 PROv2
• HQ Props 5x4x3 Vs1
• PROton GoPro Mount
• Acehe 1500mAh 4s 75c

Installing the RaceFlight RevoltOSD

Paired with the Bolt32, the RevoltOSD was a breeze to install. Just invert TX1, SBUS to TX1, SmartPort wire to RX3, SmartAudio on TX3, the battery cable, motor wires and plug in the wire harness from the Bolt32 to the RevoltOSD, done. Normally I don’t like wire harnesses but in this case the fc and 4in1 ESC are designed to work together. Using the wire harness eliminates the need to power the fc, wire the 4 ESC signal wires, vbat and such. It’s almost plug and play. Makes for a super clean build.

RaceFlight One Configurator

The basic setup was easy. I flashed the board with a beta firmware v562 using RaceFlight One configurator v560. You just run the wizard and it’ll set up the basic settings like board orientation, where the esc signal wires are installed, rx setup, radio setup, ESC calibration and motor direction. The headache was when I tried to setup the SmartAudio for the LUA script. I messed with this board for like 8 hours before reaching out to Preston Garrison I and III, the creators of RaceFlight. We couldn’t figure out why the RevoltOSD wasn’t seeing the VTX. I got tired of messing with it so I went for a flight. An angry tree branch smacked me out of the air and killed the RevoltOSD. Good thing that happened because after I swapped it out for a new board the LUA started working. Turns out the first board I had was bad. Oh well, it happens. Sometimes my stubbornness isn’t a good thing, ha.

There are a lot of good things about the RaceFlight One configurator. The wizards take the need out of figuring out how your board is oriented or which esc signal is connected where. The wizard figures all that stuff out. It’s a good software for beginners but for someone who has built a few quads, I prefer the setup in BetaFlight. In BetaFlight I can set up a quad in 5 min or less including flashing the ESCs and changing motor directions. I feel like RaceFlight takes three times as long because there is a lot of waiting around for the software to do it’s settings.

I did find a lot of bugs in the configurator. Just to be fair I was using a beta version of Raceflight One. Several times while I was setting up the board, I would hit save and would wipe out all the settings I just put in. Also, there was an issue with reversing one of the motors. I did the motor wizard several times but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get one of the motors to reverse. I even tried to do it in the console but still no dice. I eventually had to do it the old school way and physically flipped two motor wires.

Testing

This initial build will be with 2400kv or 2522kv motors because that’s what I normally fly. I wanted to use something I’m use to so I can get a feel for the board. The Bolt32 ESC is capable of 6s. After this review I’ll swap the motors out for some secret low KV Tmotor prototype motors I just got for some 6s madness.

So, does RaceFlight live up to it’s hype? As much as I don’t want to admit…hell yes! Damn this PROton with this RaceFlight setup flies soooo good. It’s hard to describe. There is zero slop and the quad does exactly what your sticks tells it to do. It feels like you are actually flying the quad instead of fighting it. Even just flying it with one of the presets with zero tuning and carrying a heavy GoPro the quad was super easy to control. Everything felt so crisp and clean!

Worth the Hype

A RaceFlight setup with the RevoltOSD and Bolt32 ESC is like having a super hot high maintenance girlfriend. If you can deal with the quirks and bugs in the firmware, the ride is worth all the trouble. Does this mean I’ll be switching all my quads over to RaceFlight? Umm…maybe. The RevoltOSD with the Bolt32 ESC costs about $110 which isn’t cheap. BetaFlight just released 3.3 with the Kalman filters. From what I hear that’s the secret sauce that makes RaceFlight so good. Also I wont know for sure until I test out the KISS v2 fc with the Aikon AK32 next week. But yes, I get it now, the RaceFlight RevoltOSD with the Bolt32 ESC lives up to the hype. It’s as good as everyone saids it is. Go give it a shot, I think you’ll like it!

If you found this post helpful, it would be super cool if you purchased the components from my store or purchase items from my Amazon links. These posts are expensive and take a loooong time to make so the purchases make it possible for me to keep making them. Thanks in advance, I greatly appreciate it 🙂