RUNNER 250 - Walkera goes racing

Maybe the fastest growing RC sport right now is FPV RACING.. common we all wanna race.  the bread-n-butter of racing have become virtually indestructible 250 size FPV quads.  simple, powerful, and equipped with a FPV camera & transmitter.

Now Walkera have gotten onboard with their first 250 size racer. fully specked with OSD and the works.  This could be big, because until now racers have been made by niche companies.  Click through and see how this stacks up.

NEWS.. Walkera release the RUNNER 320,  and promptly rename it Furious 320

Doing the mini-quad FPV racer limbo...  How cheap can you go?    
Walkera decided to offer a entry lever racer option with a $150 DYI kit, containing EVERYTHING required to build a budget racer.  Thats what most some of us pay for the ESC's & motors for a racer. 

$150 is the cheapest RUNNER 250 kit.  that is a price thats going to make the hair stand up on the back of some niche quad makers.  With this price point Walkera could very easy become a name in mini-quad racing.  For comparison, the famous BlackOut mini-H quad cost $150 for just the frame, without motors or anything else.. a DJI kit with motors and ESC's cost about $450.  by that Walkera charging $150 for the same amount of completion.. is downright cheap.

Lets be clear,  the budget Walkera racer do not contain SunnySky or T-motors.  its not flying a NAZA32.. and its not designed by a rock-star racing pilot.. Im sure there are better faster and more powerful mini-quads out there.    its not like you get ripped off buying a BlackOut Mini-H, its just that Walkeras RUNNER is so much cheaper as a entry quad for folks wanting to get into racing, the Walkera RUNNER 250 is definitely resetting the "RTF FPV racing quad" entry point for a lot of people.

***  GOOD GRIEF WALKERA..   The OSD is useless. the manual clear say that the OSD will show distance home, altitude, speed and direction home.... turns out that after making the manual, Walkera have discharged the GPS for the OSD, and the OSD now ONLY show battery voltage, flight time, and system voltage (who cares?)   Here is the bottom line, get the BASIC-2 save the money and get a Lipo Alarm for $3 and stick it under the belly of the RUNNER. (buy some extra props instead)

***  One more update,  join us on the RUNNER 250 Facebook group  

*** Im still updating / editing this post,  please post questions and I will try to get them answered in the body of the post.

The in depth unbox and review of one of the very first pre-production units.   This have all the markings of a VERY cool product.

The new RUNNER 250 kit come with a hard-closed-cell foam insert, this is a real insert that you can use as is in the cardboard box, or dump it into a small case, like one of the HUSKY cases or similar.  There is enough room that you could drop in a Walkera F7 / F4 or DEVO 6 / Devo 8s in the same radio space.  Personally I wish the kit was a little longer and had a space for my FatSharks to the right of the radio.. but hey.. This is already better than what I had expected.

Notice the standard FlightCamera, the camera can be tilted upward as much as 45+ degrees for high-speed flying  the empty plug to the right is where the OSD plugs in, no soldering.
BTW. make sure to tighten the screws on the flight camera, its really hard to fly when they come loose.

3mm CF arms,  very nicely cot, notice the cut is kinda rounded on the edges.  


I think this is a first for mini-quads,  self-tightening props,  a bag with a pair of props is $4 according to the parts list.   You can naturally also get some reverse threaded nuts and use your remaining GemFan props.  But why.?  The stock props are inexpensive enough. I love the idea of quick twist on props without needing tools.
BTW. I measured the motor shafts to be right about 4.5mm diameter.  the props are 140mm which is 5.5 inches.

Whats interesting about the RUNNER 250, is that Walkera already have distribution channels,  they are a stock item on the shelves of thousands of hobby stores.  unlike Joe down the street, when Walkera announce a new product,  if every one of their distributors bought just ONE unit, Walkera would have sold thousands just in samples..  Get it..? By end of summer 2015, we can expect there to be tens of thousands of RUNNER 250 in the hands of FPV pilots around the world. Get it now?

And that number is even if the quad were to be a failure there would be that many flying.. that number alone is more than probably anyone of the small niche quad-racer companies have made from ALL their designs ever. 
THAT is my point. but that actually could be a good thing, and its going to push the interest in mini-quad racing.

Right now when I hang out with friends and race quads.. we are racing a mixed bag of mini-quads, lumiere, blackout, QVA, Vortex etc.    thats a bit like racing a mixed set of cars.. Ford focus hybrid vs souped up Audi quadro's etc.     thats why the car and boat racing world have "class" races where everybody race fairly stock identical cars. to determine who is the best driver, based on identical equipment.     Having a readily available, inexpensive, 250 racer, may just be the ticket for great fun, because its cheap enough that we all can get one and we can all race on the same terms.

** PS... I have flown about 20 batteries with the RUNNER 250, and feel pretty sure this is going to be a popular little quad.

SPECIFICATIONS
Size 250mm diagonal motor shaft to motor shaft

For you gear-heads out there.. CARBON-FIBER PROPS

BATTERY compartment opening 29x42mm

RUNNER 250 FPV - Facebook support group  

RUNNER 250 parts are currently available from Walkeras website 

RUNNER 250 is still new in the market, however here are some of the distributors I have found.
Preorder the RUNNER 250 from iUASinc.com  

CarolinaDronz.com East coast drone store renown for great service.
Walkera Denmark
WALKERA Australia  buy directly in Australia you save on shipping and customs.

**** Alternative prop-nuts for using GemFan props on the RUNNER 250  - Click here  -

 

MOBIUS Lens Saver - available on ShapeWays.com

 

Comments

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Jesus, the Walkera Goggle4 are surprisingly good value and works perfect with the 250 quad. now if you are new to quads in general, i would probably pick up a Rodeo 110 BNF instead of a 250, but thats just me.

[jesus]

i am going to buy a runner 250 basic from a friend. I was looking at goggles, and ended up ordering a pair of Goggle 4 online. It says it works with the runner 250 gps option, but what do you think?. Will/should they work properly, and should i just get something else..

[CGO89]

GearBest is moving it's US warehouse so there are a lot of stocked products that are going on the sale from that location.Walkera Upgraded Runner 250 FPV Quadcopter is now at a flash sale on US warehouse: http://www.gearbest.com/rc-quadcopters/pp_227356.html

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Kristopher, don't worry about the motors, just go easy on them, Ive been removing stop props for over half a year now without any problems ;-)

[Kristopher Bunch]

Get rid of the stock thread-less props as fast as you can! I ran into an issue, when, not IF you break props and are only left with the center plastic piece you will have to use two sets of pliers to get it off. You have to brace the motor with one pair and use the other to spin the center plastic piece of the prop to get it off. I worry about damaging the motors when I do that.

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Mike, I have to say I have not flown the 250 since I got the F210, I don't recall the settings, however it is described in the manual ;-)

[Mike B]

Thanks for the videos. Very few Runner 250, Devo 7 videos on youtube. FMD in 0 is normal stable mode. 2 is ACRO no stabilize mode. Correct? what is the center position? Also, you said have mix in the center. What are the 3 different mix modes? This is my 3rd quad and by far has the least information anywhere. Thanks again.

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Alex,
Take the quad down to your local hardware store metric section, and find a set of nuts, remember two of them need to turn left hand to work.

[alex]

hey! I brought some gemfan blades and some EMAX MT2204 MT2206 Nuts but the nuts don't fit?!?!? I have the 250 advance any ideas? are the motors different on the advance? just waiting for my goggles 4 to arrive so I can have a proper FPV flight :)

Thanks!!!

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Josh, upgrading the VTX on the 250 is incredible hard if you want to maintain the OSD, my solution which is not perfect is using a 3 turn helical antenna on my goggles instead as that gets me plenty of reach without BOOSTING the VTX.

[Josh Webb]

Hey FPV Guy!

First off...great site and info!!! I had a question about my Walkera runner 250 and I was wondering if u could be any help or had any input on the matter. I was looking to upgrade the 200mw video transmitter to a 600mw video transmitter and still be able to keep on screen display info. After taking the drone apart it appears all these "modules" plug directly into the frame almost like a motherboard fits sticks of RAM. It looks to be almost impossible to take these modules apart and upgrade parts. Do you know of any way to upgrade the video transmitter without bypassing the OSD?

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Victoriano, the F4 won't do the trick you need a Devo F7, however honestly, get goggles. :-)

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Jeff,
Yes you can swap the camera, but frankly its not that good, you are better off buying a super-fast lens for the RUNNER camera. ;-)

[Alexander ramos]

I'm using fatshark dominator v3 goggles on my runner 250 advance. I'm not able to get video on my goggles but I get osd. Why am I not able to get video? I have the cap off, all the wires are connected in their approximate location. Any idea what's wrong. And I'm using a nexwave 32 channel receiver in the goggles and stock vtx on the runner advance. Need help with this.

[Pedro Costeira]

Hi. I just bought the walkera runner 250 basic with the 800tvl default camera. Now i need to buy the goggles. Which ones do you recommend? I dont have the possibility to do any soldering or advanced modding btw.

[Victoriano Saldana]

Hello, great website and videos... I have Walkera runner 250 and don't have monitor or goggles yet. After looking on the web I see that the Devo 4 transmitter/video reciever is only going for less than $60 us. My question is will that controller work with the Devo 710 Rx that came with the quad? With the Devo 4 only having 4 channels will the quad be able to bind and fly?

[Jeff - FPV Newbie]

Bo,

Can you swap out the FPV camera on the Runner 250 basic 3 package with the F210 FPV camera so you can have night vision?

[Shane Wymore]

Bo,

What is the highest mah 11.1v 3S battery that can be used with the runner?

[Michael Robertson]

Thanks, maybe if I order again from a different website I will get the cable.

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Michael, normally there is a camera cable with the camera.
you will need to purchase a antenna as well, and a second antenna for your goggles, make sure they are matching.

[Michael Robertson]

I built the DIY version of this quad some time back. I am looking to add the camera and fpv transmitter. Can anyone tell me if the camera cable comes with the camera? I ordered one on Amazon and it did not, but it was shown in the picture. Does the cable come with the transmitter, do I need to order the antenna separately?

[Bo Lorentzen]

Sera, I use my FatShark goggles directly with the RUNNER< no need to modify with different VTX.

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Sera, sorry for the slow reply.
OK im guessing you also put your own camera, because the Walkera camera need 12v.

[Sera]

Hi Bo, I just purchased the Runner 250 Advance, wich seems to have a slightly different camera. The fact is that i'm not able to use my FatShark Attitude V2 goggles and the Immersion 600mW on the quad, they just won't work. I replaced the Walkera transmitter and soldered a power wire from the battery directly to the VTX (12V) and it's giving the 5V output which my camera needs. I've tried connecting them with and without the OSD and everything seems to work (the leds are all on). But I don't get any signal on my goggles.
My connections set-up so far is this one: Camera>Quad Board>OSD>VTX>Power(12V)
Without OSD: Camera>VTX>Power(12V)
Any idea on why it could not be working?
Any reply would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance and keep up the good work! :)

[Bo Lorentzen]

:-) Giboulot, you will have fun flying with the FatSharks, I spend more than a hour flying goggles yesterday.
BTW check out my crash-test of the new Walkera F210 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uFmEcho2so