I have been acquiring parts to build a development drone with the goal to learn integrating a platform to bring in quality aerial video, a companion computer such as a Raspberry Pi. So far I have the X500 ARF Kit, a Tarot GOPRO 3DIII for the GoPro Hero3/4, a GoPro Hero4 Silver. My choices for flight controller are a Holybro Pixhawk 4 Mini or a Mateksys H7A3-WING. I have both of these FC on the shelf. I have a Radiomaster TX16S Hall TX and an OrangeRX receiver. I still need to decide on the correct companion computer. There are some very powerful mico computers out there. but they but the tradeoff is power consumption. I need to understand how much companion computer computational power is needed and which FC to use. Right now I’m leaning to the Mateksys. The companion computer is wide open. This will have a 900mHz MavLink to a Linux based Ground Station. Any comments would be helpful.
I need advice with theses decisions. My main goal is integration and learn Ardupilot, Python and Mission Planner. This would be applied to the next build.
X500 is a good frame. The motors and ESCs that come with ARF are okay. They’ll get the job done.
For a flight controller, get a Matek H743, not the 7a3. Or a TBS H7 Wing. If you’re goal is coding then something with an H7 processor will give you more options and power down the road for on-board lua scripting and better i/o.
For radio, the TX16S is a good choice, but go with ELRS over DSM. If your TX16S has the 4-in-1 then just get a module, and I would suggest the Radiomaster Nomad module with an XR4 receiver. On ELRS 4 this will give you the ability to run Mavlink over ELRS and you won’t need additional telemetry radios.
I would 2nd the TBS H7 boards. I have been really impressed with them. I have a lot of Matek boards and like them but the H7A3 was a cost reduction product. Put the Pixhawk 4 Mini in a Rover…
Thanks for the tips. I will be staying with MATEK H7A3 for now. On your advice I did look at the H743 and it looks newer/better, but I already own the 7A3. Same goes for the DSM, at least for now. ELRS is in the future and on my list of things to explore. I saw this post and it has me a little spooked over the ELRS 4.0 protocol: Holybro X500 Crash . The ELRS team is working on it and have a 4.0.1 release planned. Use case for this drone is learning systems integration and I have ideas to go into precision GPS mapping for construction and aerial photography. THX JimP
I understand using what you already have, but I also wanted to say that despite the issues I had in that post I can definitely speak positively of the ELRS project/control link in general. I’ve used it for a least a couple years now consistently on multiple aircraft/aircraft types and not had any issues until this most recent one, for what it’s worth. Good luck on your learning project - there’s lots to be explored.
I just looked at that ELRS thread again and the PR with the fix suggests that it is tied to the 1280 chips, and switch arming. The hardware I recommended uses the LR1121 chips, and if your still worried you can use rudder-arming. Either way, it’s still worth looking at over DSM.
Getting the system running and operational would be a great achievement. Flying would be another achievement. I retired from Boeing after 43 years with the 14 years as an engineering manager in flight test (787, 747-8, MAX and 777X) Unfortunately, like most of us I operate on a budget. I’m trying to be progressive and deliberate about the copter. The DSM should be good to get the system running and ground testing. There is a heck of a lot of system work ahead. I get it about the ELRS and I know it will be worked out. I can’t remember if there were two or three crashes in your post. But it takes me back to what we went through in the MAX crashes. Thanks for the work you do with your students and sharing your experiences. JimP
Switch arming makes the issue worse (guaranteed unrecoverable drop), but unless we take our time before we consider throttle to be zero it still can cause disarm in manual throttle modes (failsafe at zero throttle disarm).
