Skip to content
shendrones corgi review

Shendrones Corgi Quadcopter Review

Shendrones Corgi Quadcopter Review


From the master mind multicopter builder Andy Shen of Shendrones, I bring you the Corgi. Andy is responsible for creating some of the most creative, unique, odd and awesome quads such as the Tweaker, Krieger, Misuko. His latest creation as of this post, the Corgi is a 220mm semi-x pattern quadcopter. What makes the Corgi unique is that the frame is designed to carry a GoPro Session inside the frame.

Like all the other Shendrones, the cut and quality of carbon fiber is top notch. On par with quality quads like Lumenier’s QAV-R, QAV250 and QAV210. The tolerances on the frame are super tight, almost too tight, more on that later. The Corgi is comprised of 4mm carbon fiber arms and 1.60mm carbon fiber for the rest of the quad.

shendrones corgi reviewParts Used in the Corgi Build
The Corgi Build

This post is more a review post, not a build post like the QAV250 or QAV210.

I’ll say this right now, the Corgi is a difficult build. Definitely not a frame for a first time builder. What makes the Corgi so difficult to build is that the space for the PDB and flight controller is only 8mm as oppose to 35mm for most quads. What makes it tricky also is that the PDB and flight controllers are placed side by side not stacked on top of each other. That means no matter where you place the flight controller, it won’t be in the center of the quad. Boooo! No standoffs or header pins can be used. Everything is direct solder.

shendrones corgi review

No standoffs can be used so the PDB and Naze32 directly on the bottom plate using M3x8 screws with M3 nylon locknuts. To keep the board from touching the carbon fiber, there a small sheet of 2mm neoprene foam in between.

shendrones corgi review

The camera, VTX, buzzer, VBAT and 5v are directly soldered on the boards since there’s no room at all for header pins.

shendrones corgi review

I’m using the RedRotorRC PRO Mini PDB (review coming soon). This PDB has a built in LC filter that allows you to directly connect your FPV camera and VTX. It also features a basic OSD overlay that has battery voltage, current draw, flight timer and RSSI. But I haven’t been able to get the RSSI to work and I’m beginning to wonder if it works at all. The only ready I can get is 0 or 99%. More on this in the review coming up.

So to work around the RSSI issue, I’ll be running the FrSky XSR running SBUS and Telemetry via Smart Port setup like the FrSky Telemetry post. Notice the bridge on pins 5 and 6 for the Smart Port wire. The Taranis will have a logic switch to warn me if my RSSI drops too low and I’ll have voltage and flight timer in my OSD.

shendrones corgi review

As you can see it’s very difficult to build clean on this frame. There’s just no room to do any creative routing or wire wrapping. Everything is direct solder.

One minor flaw in the design is there isn’t enough tolerance in the horizontal carbon fiber plate for the front arms. I ripped open my finger trying to side it over the front arms with the arms and arm spacer bolted in. I had to remove the bolts, remove the spacer, slide the side plates on then shimmy the arm spacers in. Don’t try to put the arms on and then the side plates. It’s almost impossible. Hopefully Andy will add a few tenths of a millimeter in the side plates.

shendrones corgi review

The Corgi came with a carbon fiber plate that you’re suppose to superglue the FPV camera. Superglue to an OCD builder is like Kryptonite. So I designed a simple mount for the HS1177 FPV camera. It clips on the screw hole tabs. Shoot me a note if you want one.

shendrones corgi review

shendrones corgi review

shendrones corgi review

shendrones corgi review shendrones corgi review

The Shendrones Corgi weighs 619.5g with GoPro session and Tattu 4s 75c 1550mah battery. A little on the porky side but the EMAX RS2205 2300kv with tri-blades can easily handle the weight. These motors are monsters.

Pros and Cons of the Corgi

Pros

  • Designed to carry the GoPro session fully protected
  • All electronics are protected inside the frame
  • Good quality carbon fiber
  • Unique styling

Cons

  • Difficult to build
  • Everything must be direct soldered
  • Hard to do any kind of maintenance. 75% of the frame must be taken apart to get to the internals
  • FPV camera needs superglue to mount
  • Not much room for component placement
  • Antenna requires a right angle adapter.
  • Heavy

Corgi Review Conclusion

The video above was the very first few batteries of flying after the hover test. So to be fair the quad is completely untuned. The only thing done was increase the rates in PIDs.

The Corgi is a interesting and challenging frame to build. I love the creativity Andy puts in the designs of his frames. But I think this frame is too complicated. You pray that you build the quad correct the first time because if anything goes wrong you have to take the whole quad apart. The crash at the end of the video killed my VTX. I’m not sure if I’m even going to bother trying to fix it. I don’t want to take the quad apart. This has been a very expensive review. As much as I wanted to like this frame, I gotta say I wouldn’t recommend 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 especially this one! Some of the segments in the video I had to reshoot 3-4 times because CleanFlight was messing up my screen recording and making the separate audio tracks not sync up. The purchases make it possible for me to keep making them. Thanks in advance, I greatly appreciate it 🙂

Previous article BLHeli32 Firmware | Do you really need it?