Drone build: 144g £230: Request for comments

Hardware Multirotors
1

Hi

I am new to this forum and Ardupilot. I am a software engineer with experience in building RC planes and cars (although I have not had an RC toy for about 20 years) and generally quite good at DYI. I am looking to get into Ardupilot and autonomous missions. To start out and do some playing around, I am thinking of putting together the build below.

I would be really glad for comments on the parts that I have chosen and especially on whether you see any problems regarding compatibility.

The goal is to keep the complete weight for the drone below 250g, which makes flying over and around people in the UK legally easier (as far as I understood).

There are also parts for the basestation, for which I am thinking of using a laptop (for mission planner / telemetry) and an an android tablet for the FPV video feed.

Again, I am completely new to this and have only spent a few days researching - so this configuration might not actually work.

Thank you so much for your help!

Best,
Lorenz

edit: as the forum only allows 5 links I tried splitting the post into multiple posts, but then I got tagged as a spammer… soooo, the list is without any links to the actual hardware. Apologies for this!

On Ground / Radio

  • radio transmitter: Radio Master TX 12
  • FPV receiver for android

Drone 144g £230

  • 2g £14 - receiver: Radiomaster R81 Nano Receiver
  • 10g £14 - gps and compass: Beitian BN-880
  • 10g? £24 - telemetry: 3DR Radio Telemetry (433Mhz for the UK)
  • 10g £30 - flight controller - Mateksys F405-STD
  • 8g £40 ESC 4in1 Skystars KM40 40A 4in1 ESC
  • 1.8g £17 camera: TBS Tiny Camera
  • 1g £29 video transmitter: TBS Unify Pro32 Nano VTX
  • 54g £10 - battery: GNB 550mAh 3S 80C LiPo Battery (XT30)
  • 19g £9 - frame: TBS Source Micro v0.2 Frame
  • 21.2g £30 - motors: T-Motor F1103 8000KV Motor
  • 7g £13 props: Gemfan D63 5 Blade Cinewhoop Props (1.5mm)
5

A 36x36 FC is too large for that tiny build.

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7

Thank you so much @dkemxr! very much appreciate this!

8

Look at the Matek H743 Mini or the Kakute H7 Mini.
This is the latest stack:

9

Thank you for the hint @Alberto_Ds! I had a look at these components and will probably use some of these!

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10

The Kakute H7 is a bit expensive and I can’t find Kakute F7 v2 in the UK. v3 seems to be incompatible with ardupilot according to the Hardware Options List

The Matek H743 Mini is also a bit pricey…

Is there anything wrong with the OmnibusNanoV6? I can get that for £23…

11

Many things wrong IMO and I have had 3 of those. One is still flying a Plane. Airbot is terrible with documentation, there are several version of those each requiring a bit different configuration so a hassle. They are F4’s with 1Mb flash with less than desired UARTS for some applications. The only good thing you can say about them is they are cheap.

Another option would be the Flywoo GN745 but you have to make sure you get the 1Mb flash version. There are 512k Flash versions around that won’t work.
https://flywoo.net/products/goku-gn745-40a-aio-bl_32-mpu6000-25-5-x-25-5

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12

Surely the omnibus nano V6.x is not the best choice. But if you look at the thread I linked, you will see that it is possible to build a copter that works well and weighs less than 250gr

13

Matek’s MatekF405-MINITE looks interesting for a small F4 board.

14

Hi Dave, look this!

15

Yes, very interesting Alberto! This will be a great addition to Ardupilot.

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