Hobbyists new to Arducopter, or Ardupilot in general, often make the mistake of starting out with sub-par hardware which in the best case causes frustration and in the worst case actually costs them more in the long run when expectations are not met and the hardware has to be replaced. So, the following is a suggested list of hardware to avoid. I realize cost is often a driving factor or limitation but this is not considering that, simply performance.
Flight Controllers:
The APM flight controller by any name. These have not been supported by Ardupilot since 2015.
Anything from Radiolink. They are bad actors with respect to abiding by Ardupilots GPLv3 license.
Honorable mention-The Pixhawk 2.4.8. While these are popular for their perceived low price point for something called a “Pixhawk” and it has an appeal being cased with connectors these are generic Flight Controllers in various forms from unknown manufacturers. There is no standard.
Frame:
Anything called an “F450”. Since the venerable DJI Flamewheel they are based on these have been cost reduced to overly compliant junk. There are offshoots of these that use the same plastic arms that are also to be avoided. Not much more need be said.
Motors:
Any motor that looks like this and/or has collet prop adapters. These generic motors are not suited for multirotor use and the collets can be a major source of vibration.
ESC’s:
Anything in a generic shrink wrap and/or called “SimonK”. That protocol is vintage 2011 and no longer relevant for multirotor use and hasn’t been for years. Your 1st choice should be units using BLHeli_32 firmware with the second choice being BLHeli_S. But, if using BLHeli_S plan on flashing them with Bluejay firmware if supported for clear advantages. For larger commercial type craft there will be other proprietary protocols that are outside of this discussion.
Yes, supported and I understand many may have this opinion. Fair enough, it’s why I gave it Honorable Mention. Comments in it’s favor will help new pilots make a decision.
They still have some advantages over generic f405, they can monitor their voltage rails, they have canbus and use some kind of standard on connectors. tridge bought a load of them and they were all slightly different but they all worked as expected.
Yes, but this can be an annoyance. Depending on the actual hardware it could use one of 3 firmware versions. fmuv3, Pixhawk1 or Pixhawk1-1M. I had never seen an example of the later with one labeled 2.4.8 until this week but it’s out there. Some have 2 IMU’s, some have one and some obviously have the old processor.
I defended Tridge’s exploration of those “Pixhawk” boards, but they really are garbage most of the time. Worse, they are often sold at price points at or greater than legitimate, well supported hardware.
Other hardware to avoid:
GPS modules based on the Neo-6M
Most GPS modules branded “Beitian”
GPS modules that are ambiguously branded and/or have vaguely stated specs like this one:
This may be controversial, but I’d give (dis)honorable mention to any F4-based autopilot, as well. So many users buy them because they can be had very cheaply, but they are quickly frustrated by the limited feature set. I know they can be used effectively, but they seem to frustrate folks more often than not.
I agree there are better quality controllers out there but pixhawks are still the only cheap controllers with any kind of wiring standard. Most ardupilot compatible hardware like telemetry radios, GPS modules and power modules come pre wired for pixhawks. Its probably the only one that can be used without soldering to the actual controller.
CubePilot, Drotek, Holybro, QioTek, CUAV, mRo, and probably a few others offer solutions that require zero soldering (and usually the same pinouts as the old Pixhawk stuff).
I was meaning to say cheap controller, as the cheapest one of those is around ÂŁ170 most are closer to ÂŁ250 for just the controller. Sure for commercial applications I would recommend one of those but its not something I would recommend building your first ever machine with.
I think this is why the APM still shows up a lot because a lot of people will have probably never soldered anything before so they are never going to buy a controller that they have to solder rows of pins.
Add the SK500 to this list, it’s another one that shows up a lot with issues. The original had carbon reinforced arms so were rigid, later clones never bothered with the carbon so have the rigidity of rubber.
Again, disagree. Why should a new user suffer with shite hardware?
If you can afford $69 on Ali Express today, only to face a 1-2 month delay for your garbage to arrive, perhaps spend those same months saving another $69 and purchasing decent hardware from a reputable supplier (or learn to solder!).
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with them, no one has actually shown any practical difference between a clone and an original, if you read the original thread there are people posting that the reason they got a pixhawk is it came with connectors.
@dkemxr as far as i know there hasn’t been a 1m pixhawk since 3dr was selling dud chips, for some reason some clones come flashed as 1m or fmuv3 but they can all be flashed to the standard pixhawk firmware.
That’s what I thought too. But just this week a user with 2.4.8 problems (he said it was labeled clearly as such) when directed to flash fmuv3 or Pixhawk1 from fmuv2 came back with the 1mb board error message. I told him to flash Pixhawk1-1M and all was well and he advanced. Perhaps someone bought a bunch of old boards and put them in new cases… Another mystery 2.4.8? There is also some variability with barometers. But, there is a parameter for that.
Perhaps more board level FC’s like the Kakute H743-Wing that can be ordered with pins soldered will be available. Nice option.
Yeas ago used Pixhawk with zero issues along with the included GPS. At the time it was the licenece fee that the was in quiestion so in kind I started to buy the same unit at mRo. The Cube was a little big for my designs. New users tend to buy the FC becouse of low income enviroments for that there should be no shame. I am a tester for mRo so naturaly I love the PRP.
I agree it’s inportaint to have plugins litke VTOLquick tune. However not a lot of tuning is needed with this FC.
