I’m new to drones but have a background in making and programming with Arduino, Raspberry, and ESP-32. I’m decent at soldering and have a good printer. My design criteria is a 5" or 7" quad for experimenting with telemetry and autonomous flight. I think the best approach for me would be to pick a flight controller and ESC first and learn to program those on the workbench. After that, build or buy a frame, choose motors, props and peripherals, and test fly. After reading here and elsewhere for awhile, I’m considering the Matek H473 Mini V3 for the FC and would like to ask for opinions. Will this FC work with a Pi Zero as companion computer and is it well fitted for Mission Planner? Which ESC would be recommended? I live at 8500 feet above sea level so need to plan for somewhat heavy lifters. All guidance is welcome; thanks.
That’s a good choice, or the Slim if you have the space, a bit easier to work with. No problem using a companion computer.
The ESC depends on the rest of the components.
There are build Blogs here for 5” and 7” with a series of videos to go with them.
7”
5”
Note that TBS now has a very similar equivalent that is worth considering
Thanks for the links. Those will be helpful. After studying some more, I decided that a FC/ESC stack might avoid potential problems, and such is not available for the Matek. I eventually settled on a Kakute H7, version 1.3, with its 65 amp ESC. That ESC should be powerful enough for my needs. I had to order it from Holybro directly as it was out of stock at all the resellers I tried.
If you are open to it, there are some basic kits that are a great way to get started with ArduPilot and drones:
Usually come with pretty much all you need (you can select w/ or w/o autopilot) - just need to bring your own battery and RC receiver/transmitter.
Nice looking board supported in Beta I see.