Will Pixhawk2.1 be ever available on the market?

Hey Hugues buddy.

I don’t quite get what is missing in the reasons why it has been delayed until now. But anyways.

Do you have any ideas how we can fix the PXH2 production delays so we can get them earlier?

I do not know Sam, this is out of my control obviously. I am here the customer, not the provider. If I were the provider, I would ramp up production (and find the means for it) and would not announce a board is available to the whole planet when it is in fact not. That creates distrust and, in the end, indirectly damage to both the provider’s credibility and secondarily to Ardupilot’s credibility. Before some snowflakes start crying and screaming I’m a being mean and unfair and blabalbla, let me explain concretely why I say that: I decided to serve my own customers, a few years back, on the basis of Ardupilot since the beginning of my business because this is the best there is. On that everyone agrees and everyone praises the excellent job done by the developers. About my business, when you serve customers you have to commit to budget and delays. You just can’t say to a customer : please wait for a pre-order. For my own hobby use, this would be fine, I can wait, even for an undefined period of time. But in a real business environment you just can’t, not in European’s customer focus culture (which does not seem to be the same everywhere looking at the reactions from certain people here ). So if I want to provide my customer with the best hardware there is to run Ardupilot, it should be a pixhawk2.1, right ? I think everyone agrees on that too (although I still have some criticism on some design choices they made on it, but that is another debate). The issue is thus I just can’t base my business on an unstable sourcing of the autopilot boards. That is my rant. It is not against anyone, nor against Ardupilot (I’m probably the best defender and promotional lobbyist for Ardupilot and its developers - just look at my blogs and contribution to the wiki), nor against Philip from proficnc (who however thinks I attack him or his competencies, which is incorrect).

The summary of all of this takes the form of a very simple question (which is by the way the title of the post): when will Pixhawk2.1 be widely available with stocks in shops ?
If this question is felt by some as an aggression or a personal attack on them, then they should maybe take an appointment with their shrink.

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Hi Hugues

I can understand where you are coming from, although I’m Aussie born I’m of German heritage having spent half my life living there etc. The culture is different, but I think Australia has a fairly high standard in comparison to many European nations, and generally have a more positive attitude towards others and their future. This is despite the fact we seem to be very remote and detached from the rest of the “manufacturing world”, and any innovations we attempt are not supported by government nor investors or financiers. The whole bunch of them would rather go and dig a hole and sell our country from under our feet through global corporations with Cayman accounts. The previous and current governments have pretty much stuffed up small enterprise and the outlook isn’t any better. Ironically 70% of GDP is from services, but less than 7% from manufacturing. Such is the world we live in.

But back to the availability of the PXH2.1, I have a few questions still. Is there something particular that you need for your APM based work where a normal Pixhawk won’t suffice and only a PXH2.1 can do the job? My approach to using newly developed, not commonly adopted (even if because of stock!) devices is that from a business perspective I typically prefer to go with the ones that have worked without issue until the very last minute where it needs to adopt new functionality. Maybe you can keep using the PXH1 for the next month or so until stock arrives?

Yes Sam, that is what I’m doing right now : PXH1 until I can get a hold of the PXH2. However the current European régulations and increasing Customer education on UAVs in general and increasing requirements push toward more security, more redundancy. PXH2.1 in that sense is expected. In parallel to that, to find a good PXH1 board, I mean reliable in terms of compliance to the original schematics and in terms of overall quality, is very hard nowadays (for professional use, not for hobby use). I have tested (cf my YouTube channel) many of them from different manufacturers. I thought I found a good one at mrobotics.io but the overall build quality is quite low due to their metallic film which, for some reason, does not adhere very well to the PCB and gets ripped off quite easily when you simlply unplug connectors. I hope Jordi will correct this quality problem, I’m sure. But you’re right PXH1 remains the board to be used (the ones with ARM F3 or F4 with 2Mb flash) for quite a while until PXH2.1 takes over.

@Hugues
A few points that you continue to miss…

We are a community project… everything we do if open for the public to comment on… that’s how it is…

You are a community member just like me… you somehow, you see me as a manufacturer from some big company… that’s not how it is…

So, your ability to help in this is the same as mine… rather than negatively attacking Francisco, who happens to be within the top 10 critical people to this project, you could be actually helping…

But you haven’t even ordered one!

Please do me a favour, and end this thread.

Oh, and BTW, when it arrives… if you ever order it (in stock at many distributors NOW) remember to be polite when you need help…

@Proficnc, I do accept I’m a community member (so what ?). I understand your difficulties and efforts to produce the PHX2.1.
As said and in good faith, I do not Attack you nor Francisco, nor PXH2.1, even though you both react as if it were the case.

That being said, I do not accept a reversal of reality, cf written posts above that can’t be argued on, I’m certainly not the one who has not been polite or aggressive.

I do not accept censorship (by asking me to stop replying on this thread) because you order so. As you said I’m a community member with the same rights to express an opinion as you are.

To try to close this positively and nicely, if it can help, with my meager ressources, I’d gladly pre-order from you a few PXH2.1.

cheers

Here’s my criticism. Ordered two months ago. Profic says Distributors have stock and still I have no pixhawk. Do I have permission to yell about it yet? Last email said something about early April. Still no confirmed reports of anyone actually receiving one from jesterdrones or any other distributor. Still only old school beta testers who have any kind of activity here in the community.

:grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning:I want my pixhawks!!!

Dunno… I ordered in December myself and still haven’t received but am hopeful it will come soon enough… Maybe I will contact uavsolutions tomorrow if I get a chance and see where they are at? I totally get the anticipation… I literally have 4 frames of various types sitting on the bench awaiting units. I have so far resisted the urge to go with the old school Pixhawk just to get started but really that would be pointless save for learning the method as all settings would likely be very different between units & frames.
It’ll be here before long i’m sure and then i’ll go from the problem of not having one, to god knows how many other problems with installation and implementation. Then i’ll be wishing not having one was my only problem… lol
Tim

CUAV PixHack V3 -> http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-CUAV-Pixhack-V3-Flight-Controller-w-LED-TF-Card-I2C-for-FPV-Drone-Pixhawk-/252671275787

I am still a bit confused by this topic… there are distributors with stock on shelves…

go get them!

http://www.proficnc.com/stores

you need to ask your distributors. I know for a fact that Jesters drones has shipped heaps out of batch 2. there are thousands of them out there already. if you were in the march batch, as apposed to the Feb batch, yours will be showing up any day now. April will follow soon.

It is what it is. If the market was large and lucrative the capitol would follow and supply would be better. AUAV have not even launched their new X2 replacement. It is slim pickings for pro-grade open source FCs.

Just pre-order and pre-pay. That is probably the most helpful thing you can do.

Can you offer a link to one of your distributors that has stock for people that are looking? before I raise the wattage on my lidar and start firing beams indiscriminately. Vague comments not helping.

I considered ordering a second pixhawk unit but still no stock yet anywhere. Picked up a NAVIO2 instead as backup plan.

There is a mini carrier board with plans of being manufactured? There is a joule version being made for some of the outback challenge participants? That something you plan to release? do you have a blog or a website you post updates to?

I was “expecting” my pixhawk 2.1 Edison to ship this week (was technically supposed to ship end of February). but damned if I know; this whole thing is strange.

I hope I don’t end up in some industry drama that makes the front pages of suasnews.

Profic you need a community manager, a publicist, or to be put under investigation. I’m not sure which yet :slight_smile:

Just received notice from profic that a shipping label was generated! threat of Lidar laser attack has worked!

I will give updates and do a full unboxing and review soon hopefully!!!

:slight_smile:

Lucky you! Ive been trying all week to get ahold of “uavsolutions” with no luck. Phone, messages doesent matter. Needless to say im quite unhappy at this point. Clearly i picked the wrong distributor. I very much would like to use this system but its hard to do business with someone when they ignore you? :confused:
Tim

Edit: I just received a call from UAV Solutions and they informed me they have not received them yet but according to the manufacturer they’ve been shipped and should be on the way very soon so I’ll keep my fingers crossed. :confused:
In reality it is my own fault for choosing a system that is just starting production but in lieu of that I like the model that pixhawk offers so in the end it is worth the wait I guess it’s just hard having frames sitting needing only a flight controller to move forward.
They also informed me they have rtk GPS in stock so at least there will be no waiting for that! :slight_smile:
Tim

Here in Seville Spain are now available.
We must understand that it is a project of the community and that has little time since its launch.
In short we will have pixhawk 2.1 to spare.
I am already flying an exacopter 800mm with 3.5 rc3 and I am very happy with its operation.
Sorry for my bad English.
Greetings to the community

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I would love to respond with something useful here, but the trolling above is just frustrating.
and I can guarantee Jonathan W, that if I had intervened, it would have only slowed things down.

we are delivering… that’s all. resume normal programming.

Oh, and Jonathan, if you are volunteering to pay for said community manager, that’s great!

I am not sure some of you get the math here… there is ZERO margin on the manufacturing to the sale to distributor price, zero. so not sure where this cash is supposedly coming from.

I was hoping my threat of lidar obliteration sped things up.

Maybe one day profic when I become pixhawk guru; I can volunteer for community manager.

I think as consumers we are used to a different tact when ordering products. The pixhawk resellers are tiny companies in comparison to normal. They seem to be off doing other things besides offering customer service, writing delivery updates, or answering emails. The atmosphere here to an outsider is unique. We are walking into a community where most of you have probably known each other for decades.

We are in the age of shady kickstarters, global depression, and buying 90% of our goods from mega corporations.

We have developed instant gratification syndrome thanks to Amazon, and we have built in protection walls in our brains in how we purchase goods.

Now to say something that you probably won’t agree with, the UAV/Drone industry is full of what I consider questionable characters. Charging tens of thousands of dollars for strapping together 1000$ in COTS equipment, installing Ardupilot, putting it in a pelican case, and reskinning Mission planner with their company logo. Some with not a whole lot of nuance. A lot of commercial “hustle” is taking place I have noticed.

I first came here to DIY myself a drone, but along the way I started to look at what these companies were offering because I wanted to buy something cool if the price was right, and well I am back to DIY.

No one has of yet made all the cool things consumers want, without asking for prices only government’s would pay.

This is not a consumer friendly environment. This place gives the vibe of business’s selling to business’s and government’s. Aka the commercial drone people. That is reflected in how they answer posts here, with extreme backlash and political correctness for when anyone raises their hand to ask a question none of the old timers would, mostly because they know better.

Don’t take it personal, sympathize, smile, and THEN call them wankers . :slight_smile:

We don’t know if you aren’t on a sailboat in Thailand, under an alias, making off with our cash. We don’t know if there are manufacturing issues. We don’t know if the companies you have as resellers are caught up with their mortgage payments.

I’ve wired you 350$ that would be very hard for me to get back if you decided to run off with it. People are going to be on edge and inquire. The date I pressed the “buy” button the shipping date was within two weeks. It has been two months. A lot of people have been waiting even longer.

Lets hope everyone has their pixhawk’s soon.