I want to do autonomius flying on one of my 4 channel airplanes. I want to use Mission Planner as the control and set up app.
What FC should I use?
There’s a ton of variables to the question but here’s a few things to narrow it down:
Matek, mRo, Holybro, and Cube all make good flight controllers. Matek makes some less expensive boards but they work just fine. Cube are great but they are big and expensive. mRo makes a DIY kit for the Pixracer R15 with much of the parts you’ll need. It’s geared towards quads but it will work just fine in a plane. Holybro has a similar DIY kit.
See what vendors are in your part of the world, and see what they have in stock. These days that might be a big part of your decision making.
Stay away from old APM or Pixkhawk 2.4.8 boards. They are often out of date, usually cheap clones and will cause you nothing but grief.
Alister, thx for the quick reply. I’ve looked at most of these manufactures, my problem is I don’t know how to determine if the FC’s work on a plane (most seem to be for quads), and also I don’t know how to determine if that FC is supported by Mission Planner.
I wish someone would publish a chart that covers all this. Painless360 has one for quads only.
Thx…
If it works with Ardupilot (plane or copter) it will work with mission planner. Many board that may be intended for quads will work for planes. The processors are the same, just the physical layout is made more convenient for quads. Like I mentioned, the Pixracer R15 is intended for quads, but can easily be used in a plane.
The Matek F405 series has some models like the CTR, STD, and SE that are set up for quads, or the WSE is set up for a plane. but many use the same basic firmware (or slight variations) and you can load plane or copter on any of them.
Here’s the chart you’re looking for:
https://ardupilot.org/plane/docs/common-autopilots.html
And Painless has done a bunch of stuff with Arduplane, but some of it’s a couple years old now. I would argue what he’s done is still valid.
Again thanks for your help. I’ve used the PixRacer R15 on a couple of quads. But I decided to use the Matek F405 Wing given that its made for a plane and is supported by Mission Planner.
You may as well spring for the H743 variety. It’s quite a bit more powerful for a minor cost penalty.