So I’m new at this, however I noticed that there is a huge price difference between these two products. Of course there are also a difference in the quality.
My plan is to make a good fpv fixed wing platform and my concern is if the radiolink version is going to be reliable enough compared to the HolyBro version? Both of them got issues and that is just a part of the experimentation, so my question is really, is the HolyBro worth the extra $150?
What is it worth to have a normal mini with normal Ardupilot/Mission Planner support vs a product that must use a proprietary version of Mission Planner and Arducopter?
good point, however was it not supported by the official version?
the radiolink minipix runs non-branded default ardupilot fw without issues. you can use any mavlink compatible GCS for setup / handling as well, including non-branded default MissionPlanner.
the radiolink minipix hardware is a budget F4 board with a basic sensor- and hardware lineup. the set comes with a M8N-type GPS / mag combo and a PDB-type power module / curr sens.
the holybro pixhawk4 mini is based on fmuv5 design standard with quite a lot more hardware features like F765 mcu, dual sensors, IOMCU, CAN support etc.
imho it‘s a matter of personal preferences if you want those additional features on a hobby-type setup for recreational fixed wing FPV.
in case you‘re rather looking for a budget ardupilot FC that suits hobby-type FPV applications, you might want to look at aio-type boards like omnibusf4pro or matekf405-wing too. they offer an onboard OSD chipset and onboard current sensor. they basically just need a GPS, a cam and a transmitter added to get flying.
Thank you, good information, I believe I have a use for both as one is more suitable for expensive photo rigs, and the budget one can be used on small cheaper airplane platforms.
As I understand from the information, the FW is different and it use the mission planner, so it will more or less be the same, hence there is not a need to learn different types of software. Don’t know if anyone has tested both flying the same route and see if there is a difference in behavior?
radiolink‘s minipix ships with a radiolink-branded firmware and requires a branded MP version for initial setup and firmware handling. however, default ardupilot firmware and MP fully supports this board for quite a while now, so once you‘re running default ardupilot firmware on that board, there‘ll be no difference to any other ardupilot compatible hardware.
development has moved on at fast pace since radiolink released the minipix (2017 ?), chibios and ardupilot onboard OSD allowed to add support for a large variety of budget-type FPV-oriented boards.
looking at the requirements of a typical hobby-type FPV setup, imho the main drawback of both the radiolink and the holybro board is the lack of an onboard OSD chipset and the requirement to use an external power supply / battery monitor board.
as for now, afaik there is no FC hardware option that offers both alignment with FMUvX design standard (redundant sensors, IOMCU, CAN etc.) as well as onboard OSD / batt mon integration at the same time. so imho you‘ll have to weigh up the pros and cons of each board type with your individual requirements - and your budget 
on a personal sidenote, i do have two radiolink minipixes in use and they‘ve performed flawlessly in terms of autopilot functions, but i’ve recently replaced them with aio-type boards (MatekF405-Wing and OmnibusF4Pro) for the above mentioned reasons. the FPV setup with these boards is just so much more convenient and straight-forward. that‘s just my 2 cents though.
MatekF405-Wing looks interesting, and you can run arduplane on it?
yes, here‘s a list of supported boards:
http://ardupilot.org/plane/docs/common-autopilots.html#common-autopilots
Thanks, I was checking the board, however I can’t see the supported GPS, is that the same as the PX4 GPS? (noob question I know)
A few comments I wanted to add…
The radiolink for $50 does not include a GPS.
The holybro pixhawk4 mini set for $200 includes the GPS (with a genuine U-blox NEO-M8N) and the power management board.
Holybro decided to offer the new mini with a milled aluminum case, without a plastic option. This increases the price by about $40, based on the full pixhawk4 price difference between the two case materials.
The holybro pixhawk4 gps integrates the gps/compass, safety switch, status LED, and the speaker/buzzer.
The Radiolink is $54 and includes GPS and power management board.
I ordered one of those and the HolyBro PX4 mini with the aluminium case.
I will check out both as I got projects for both, however i don’t see a GPS solution for the wing FC.
ardupilot supports most types of serial type GPS receivers on that board, including those that come with other vendors’ sets like the ones linked above. afaik matek has some ublox M8 types in their portfolio too, plus there‘s budget types like the beitian bn-880 that do a fairly good job for the price too.
The radiolink product is a dangerous, poorly designed, failure prone product. There is a reason it is so cheap. If you want junk and want surrounding people and property at risk, buy radiolink. But do everyone a favor and don’t install ArduPilot firmware on it.
There are also other boards that are in the same price range, so would they also be considered as “unsafe” I’m asking because i really don’t know and would like to know. Some say they are ok, others don’t. I can see from a quality point of view that you would not install one in a larger model, but in a smaller fixed wing model, to test different stuff, I don’t see the problem?
I would say both the radiolink and holybro products are priced appropriately.
The radiolink is a really good value for new users and new projects.
Maybe but you’d have to research the actual performance of them. I can tell you that again there is a reason they’re so cheap. Research, testing, and quality control are costly things. Quality parts are costly too.
The RadioLink board has a history of extremely unsafe failure in flight that. And the company has a history of falsely advertised knockoff products. So you can choose if that’s who you want to trust to fly an aircraft, and how much the money is worth to you. I would never.
@Pedals2Paddles having a couple of radiolink minipixes in use myself, i wasn‘t aware of any accumulation of actual hardware failures. do you have links to respective reports?
