For starters, I’m new to this pixhawk/ardupilot stuff.
About half a year ago I ordered a pixhawk 4 mini w/gps, from holybro. Mostly because of the physical size and still having all connections that I thought I needed. I also thought it was relatively modern.
Now when trying to set it up I started to study this ardupilot/arducopter stuff a little closer. Then I read that everyone here seems to recommend another unit, pixhack v3x (iirc?). After searching a bit I can’t see anyone saying they are using the px4 mini on a heli.
I had no idea there could be other differences than just the IMU version and external connections. It’s not very clear to a newcomer.
So, is the pixhawk 4 mini unsuitable? What is the difference compared to the recommended units?
Did I make a big mistake? will this project fail miserably or could I make it work?
Apparently it will work, but you are limited by the lack of I/O 's.
if you are not aiming at adding double telemetry and other peripherals than it’s OK.
Keep us informed on your project
I know of some people using the PH4 mini on helicopters and it seems to work fine. I don’t see any reason why you can’t use it. The CUAV V3x is recommended by many folks because it has been thoroughly tested on helicopters over thousands of hours of operation and has been proven to be reliable and relatively immune to vibration issues. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only one that works.
After reading about all unexpected problems and glitches people seem to have, I’m starting to think this overall was a bad choice. I just can’t put anything on there that I can’t be able to trust to 100%.
To add to that, it looks like I can’t mount it normally either. (Why design it that way?) https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-vibration-damping.html
There isn’t any space for building a multi floor building on there, I need something that mounts directly to the surface.
Is there any other flight controller that is stable and trustworthy?
Before this, I had a DJI Naza that worked flawlessly for more than 4 years, without any need for messing with settings and parameters. I could just get another one of these, but they are so old. I wanted some improvement in gps flight stability.
