Are you talking about the Rx8 pin on the connector? As I said before it’s a UART Rx pin, there is also a solder pad for it. It can be used for any purpose.
Any UART can be used for ESC Telemetry and using that connector pin may not be the most convenient. For some that have individual ESC’s with telemetry they may use another UART or the solder pad. What if was labeled “telemetry”, would you then believe that it can’t be accommodated elsewhere or that pin couldn’t be use3d for something else? It’s a general purpose UART like the rest of them.
But Dave, you are an expert on drones, FCss, and ESCs. You already know everything. Someone just starting to make a drone does not know the myriad of options that are available. If I bought a new Matek and a new ESC with telemetry, I would appreciate seeing a diagram showing where I should connect my ESC wires and if I looked at my ESC that had Vbat, Gnd, etc. on it I would like to know where I could connect the wires and know there would be no errors.
You will create that sketch, or whatever you want to call it, using available information from the manufacturers and the Ardupilot Docs. That’s how I and everyone else does it. It’s just the way the hobby works.
You could save some trouble by buying A Flight Controller and accessory components that come with cable sets that just plug in.
Cubes
Makeflyeasy
CUAV
Qiotek
Holybro Pixhawks
To name a few.
Don’t have the budget for those? Then you are making/soldering your own.
Actually, I did just this about 5 years ago. I bought a list of stuff from Hobby King connected them and used LibrePilot as opposed to Ardupilot. It flew the first time but I did not have a barometer or GPS at that time so things were a bit squirly trying to fly the drone. Obviously, I could not do missions like I can now with ArduPilot.
Anyway, after a few crashes, I put the drone on the shelf until about a month ago when I got re-interested in the subject.
I really like Ardupilot because there is a bigger learning experience than with LibrePilot it seems.
I am looking forward, once I get the thing flying to do lua scripts, or maybe just add a raspberry Pi as an onboard controller to make things more interesting. Learning about the Kalman filter is going to be another learning experience.
Anyway, things are going well now.
OK, that’s good. What size craft (props) is it and what battery power (3S, 4S)?
Just be sure to follow the Initial Tuning steps before making a Maiden flight and don’t skip Motor Test in Mission Planner. It’s rare that an Arducopter based Multirotor fly’s well on default parameters.
1045 plastic props 3S battery 900Kv motor
these are from my former drone