More budget friendly cube orange alternative?

Hardware Pixhawk family
1

Hello,

I see the cube orange suggested here a lot. Unfortunately here in Germany it costs something like 500-600€, which I find a lot “just” for the FC.

Is there any suggested alternative with a similar feature set (redundant/heated IMUs, build quality…)

Thanks
Daniel

2

Nope, the CUAV-X7 is even more expensive.

3

Unfortunately, the chip shortage has direct impact on these high end OEM chips.

4

Perhaps the QioTek Zealot might be a good option?

5

The H743 version of that board looks very interesting. It’s unfortunate that they make it so difficult to obtain one.

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6

Redundant heated IMUs are not that common.

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8

Any specific suggestions?

9

You are not going to find heated IMU for any cheap price whatsoever especially in the current chip shortage. I recently purchased a skynode from auterion and they added a 25% fee to the total order due to chip shortage!!! I have had great luck with the mro pixracer and may of the matek boards. Maybe you could snag a cube black for cheaper used but there is not comparable with heated IMU in the price range you are looking for.

10

Raspberry Pi 3 + Navio2 = Nearly 250€

11

The Qiotek Zealot H743 is a great board and at a lower price point. It even comes with an ESP8286 which is nice.

I think it is the lowest cost H743 board with a heated IMU at $175 USD.

Of course I have no clue on your import duties/tax…

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12

they have a standard and an industrial edition.
Difference is only Gyro/Accelerometer:
Standard Edition Sensors: ICM42688P, ICM40605, ICM20689

Industrial Edition Sensors: IIM42652(Invensense Industrial level sensor)，ICM42688P, ICM20689

price difference is +31USD. Is there a difference for me?

thanks
Daniel

13

Unfortunately, this product no more available… —> https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003572962865.html

14

The Qiotek H743 (and F427 for cheaper) are available direct from Qiotek: https://www.qio-tek.com/zealot_h743

It looks like the “industry” one has higher-quality IMUs…as an example the IIM42652 is rated for -40-105 degrees, while the ICM42688P is rated for 0-70. Not sure what’s going on with the “industry application edition” to make it so much more expensive.

To the OP: I realize it’s not quite what you asked for, but if you can live with just redundant IMUs and not the heat or the built-in vibration isolation, Matek’s H743-wing might be an option. You might want to do the IMU temperature calibration though.

15

They are also available from this authorized reseller in Canada: https://smartfleet.systems/

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16

I just purchased one from Tim. He is great glad someone within North America is a reseller. Highly suggest using https://smartfleet.systems/. He is quick to respond!

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17

Just grabbed one myself from above link - TU tip!

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18

Hi
Im wondering to purchase that FC but what do you mean by this temperature calibration ? and how to do this

19

By reading the Wiki of course.
IMU Temp Comp

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20

I will note that while I personally love the cables that come with it (they are developer oriented with individual Dupont leads) if you didn’t have lots of JST GH cables (CAN, I2C, etc) from other kits you will likely need to make some.

Perhaps they just sent those to me though?

Disclosure: Jason at Qiotek sent me the controller for free with my purchase of 2 F9P GPSs. (should have said that earlier)

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21

Tim shows an unboxing video where he’s got the GH-DuPont cables as well.

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