Which affordable and reliable flight controller do you suggest to build a quadcopter other than pixhawk?
I would prefer an AIO board including at least 30A escs for 2316 motors.
Including GPS, Barometer, Elrs receiver, FPV, pwm ports for 2 servos…
Thank you!
No boards have all of that. Start here and review the capabilities.
Supported Boards
The iFlight, Flywoo, Holybro Kakute and Matek boards would be closest.
Thanks for the reply!
I would like to try 4in1 Escs. Does Matek support this feature well for 2316 motors?
I never tried any board other than Pixhawks and I am not familiar with any, but I heard from you guys that they work better as they have new technologies.
Thanks a lot!
Rgds,
Andre
You can use a 4in1 with any Flight Controller and any motor. They are simply 4 discreet ESC’s on 1 board.
2 Likes
Is there a particular reason you want to use a 4 in 1 board? I think the 4 in 1 board’s biggest feature is the boards can make a build tidier. It’s also possible a 4 in 1 board costs less than four individual ESCs.
The downside to 4 in 1 is if you burn out one ESC on the board you either need a whole new 4 in 1 or you need to figure out how to repair your damaged 4 in 1. Fixing one burned out ESC with individual boards is a lot easier and usually less expensive than repairing/replacing a 4 in 1 ESC.
I think the Matek H743-WING V3 looks like a full featured flight controller. It includes a CAN-Bus which I think an up and coming communication protocol in hobby UAVs (though CAN-Bus has been around a long time in other applications).
I’m still relatively new to all this myself so make sure to get your information from additional sources.
1 Like
I agree the that the Matek H743 boards (there are 3 form factors) are a good choice. The 2 I have, Mini and Slim, perform great. I would choose the Wing version also if there is space on the craft for it.
3 Likes
From personal experience a burned out ESC, be it 4-in-1 or individual, usually end up with the same pile of parts on the ground. Unless you’re building a hex or octal with redundancy for such failures, then I say use whatever good ESC you want for the build in the first place and don’t worry about the repair.
3 Likes
Thanks for your comments!
I build several quads and hexas for fishing. I used Pixhawks and Minipix. They work fine. But the build is heavy and they take a lot of space and wiring. Pixhawks lately got too expensive and I don’t they are worth for the price.
I also built 2, 3 and 4 inches FPV drones, with betaflight and they all use small, cheap and relatively good FC and Esc. Unfortunately I did not see ports for servos and GPS works really bad with Beta Flight.
I liked the idea of boards such as MAMBA F405 MK2 Betaflight Flight Controller w/ F40 40A 3-6S DSHOT600 ESC, but I am not sure it will work with Ardupilot, including GPS and the servos I need.
What do you think?
Thanks!
Sounds like a good reason to use a 4 in 1 ESC.
I think you’re wise to ask here. Unfortunately, I’m still too new to ArduPilot to be of much help.
I have a couple Matek H743 boards and these include extra pins for servos. I think there are likely a lot of options would work well but my experience is pretty limited.
Not that I have used it personally, but I believe iNav has good GPS support. I think ArduPilot beats iNav with the number of features it has but based on YouTube videos I’ve watched, I think iNav is a bit easier to use than ArduPilot.
1 Like
Aren’t you usually able to salvage ESCs and most motors? I haven’t crashed multirotors hard enough end up with a “pile of parts” but I’ve sure turned a few airplanes and helicopters in to piles of parts. I usually can salvage the electronics from my crashed aircraft. Isn’t it the same with quads?
1 Like
Thanks for your comments!
1 Like
Follow the link I posted and click on that board. It will show 4 outputs. Not enough for added servos.
1 Like
which 30/40A 4in1 Esc work better with Matek? Maybe they have a ready cable to connect both…
Thanks for your help!
I used a T-Motor F55A Pro II on one and a AIKON AK32PIN 35A on another. The FC and the ESC come with cables/connectors you will simply have to re-pin them. Standard practice. I wouldn’t get hung up on which 4in1 to use. Any BLHeli_32 with the current capacity you need will work. Those are both good, beat the hell out of them.
1 Like
Thanks for the tips! They are most appreciated and useful. Will shop for FC and ESC and hopefully will get it flying soon.
Thanks again!
Well all of the inputs you got from others are very apt and to the point.
But if it is the Name of Flight Controllers that you want ( as you mentioned in heading), there are many.
A worthy suggestion would be F745, F765 and if you’re okay, F405 too, since you think PixHawks are getting expensive lately.
Some good F405 are KakuteF4 , Matek f405-WING and Mambaf405 Mk2 and I’ve had good luck with Omnibus F4 as well.
They all offer some great value and are just enough reliable for small planes.
1 Like
Thanks for your tips. Will look them all over!
1 Like
I been using a full fledge FC like pixhawk. Lately I wonder maybe the chip size matek would do the work. I asked holybro, about the kurute. They says in terms of sensors and build, pixhawk is more for professional application. What do you think? Is it worth the money also how is the performance.
Pixhawk isn’t a brand, it’s a hardware standard. Some of the autopilots that comply are very expensive and definitely worthy of the comment from Holybro that they are for professional applications. Others are geared toward hobby use, and some (cheap clones) just rip off the name without actually applying the standard. You can’t just lump them all into one broad generalization.
It’s hard to say whether a Kakute or Matek bare PCB style autopilot will work well for you without knowing the application. In general, they are great value, and they perform fairly well so long as internal damping, heating, and barometer shielding are not required.
1 Like
There are several flight controllers available. Most of them will do the job.
You have to decide exactly what you want to do, how important it is and what is your budget.
I now use only Matek FCs and they work fine for what I want. The cloned MRO pixhawks are easy to build, but they are too slow and outdated.
If I need GPS controlled drones, I use ardupilot. If I want FPV, betaflight is better.
1 Like