maxwelltub
Member
That's the million dollar question. I'm switching to super X for their data logging.
Humbled...
- Thread starter SchrodingersCar
- Start date
stevemaller
Heavy Lifter
IMHO, that's a complicated question. These FC systems are all prone to failures as they're essentially consumer-level and not designed and built to industrial or military standards. Most (if not all) of them lack any true redundancy in any part of their design, so they can all fail in spectacular and catastrophic ways. My strong recommendation is to choose a system based on the availability of support, the transparency of engineering, and the frequency of updates. And, most importantly, you need to spend the serious amount of time actually flying the system to get a good feel for it and to anticipate situations in which it could behave badly or fail altogether.
My personal choice for a couple of years was Mikrokopter. It isn't necessarily the best from a feature standpoint, but I was very appreciative of the level of support I personally got from the company, and that gave me confidence. I also had intimate familiarity with the system's performance "sweet spot" and was careful not to stray outside of those limits.
I have since decided to change to the new ALTA from Freefly because I'm optimistic that their fully-integrated and proprietary design will provide the best platform for aerial photo and video work. Time will tell, of course.
maxwelltub
Member
I want to switch to the alta, but I am going to wait for the octo version. Even then I hate to not have control over what hardware I use.
Because this is a new world so I would think the best way to go is to hire someone with a Computer Science degree and use one of those FC with open source firmware and keep them close to you on the job site at all time.
Bill
stevemaller
Heavy Lifter
Sounds perfect. Like the presidential motorcades that have a fully kitted out paramedic squad just in case. Or test pilots who wear parachutes and have ballistic ejection seats. You can't be too careful.
But seriously, we kind of have to move away from requiring Chuck Yeager (or Chuck Norris) to fly a multirotor and get a decent shot.
I think you missed the point.
I wasn't taking about hiring someone to pilot your MR but creating a FC firmware to specifically for your needs. Just like hiring someone to do website for your business because not every website is the same but designed specifically for your business needs. Or you can go with GoDaddy and use their general templates/codes but your website is going to look pretty similar to 100,000 other business out there,
There many different brand of FC out there but every developers try code the firmware for more general uses to cover everything from racing drone to AP mulitirotors to appeal the mass market so they can generate more money from the sales.
If you hunt around you probably will find several coders willing to work during their off hours from their regular jobs with you for a reasonable cost to code your firmware to suit your needs.
If Aerial Photography is what your needing then find a FC with open source and find someone that will work with you to make modification to the firmware to give it more slower stable flight that operate better with low motor and bigger propeller. They would probably go out and do with a couple of flights with you to fine tune it then you probably never see them again unless you want more modification add to it.
Reason I said computer science degree because I believe FC firmware require lots of logic and discrete math knowledge and someone with computer information or simple programming degree wouldn't fit that bill.
Bill
SchrodingersCar
Member
I kinda see the point, but I'd think "doesn't randomly flip the **** out and crash" would be a basic requirement of all multirotor applications.
stevemaller
Heavy Lifter
With all due respect, I'll stick with the professional software devs at Freefly and their closed system. I developed software for 20 years at Apple, Microsoft and other companies. I am well aware of what it takes. And there's no way in hell I'm trusting my $10,000 copter and $10,000 camera and gimbal to a guy who's writing code in his spare time. Sure, maybe for a 250 tree racer. That'd be exciting. But for paying customers? No f'ing way.
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Motopreserve
Drone Enthusiast
It seems to me, at least for the time being, that redundancy is the best we could hope for to achieve "professional" peace of mind.
I'm not sure that some of the better FCs out there are not using the best components available (within reason), but it's still a technology in its infancy, and we are probably a ways off from believing that this technology will be fool-proof.
Military grade components and testing would obviously push prices beyond our means (most of us anyway), and more importantly require time to test, test, and test some more.
I'm not sure that some of the better FCs out there are not using the best components available (within reason), but it's still a technology in its infancy, and we are probably a ways off from believing that this technology will be fool-proof.
Military grade components and testing would obviously push prices beyond our means (most of us anyway), and more importantly require time to test, test, and test some more.
fltundra
Member
Logging has become a necessity with me at this point. You get spoiled real quick.
300+ flights with the SuperX, I haven't found anything that compare's so far. Doesn't flip, amazing GPS hold and doesn't fly away.
Anyone, feel free to PM me if your in the Fl Key's, I'll show you what the SuperX can do. Always looking for a reason to go fly.
maxwelltub
Member
Ya I was getting a tutorial on super x from some friends yesterday, the software for super x seems simple... too simple actually, but the data logging by far makes up for it. To be fair I've been flying too WKMs since 2012 with no issues. Scratch that, minimal issues. Couple years ago I had one do some random spinning on me on two different, scratch that, three different locations.
Old Man
Active Member
There's a company (not multirotor specific) in Oregon that pretty much did just that, They had a bunch of mysterious crashes so they dissected the code in the most popular line of FC's. They dumped them shortly after that and changed everything they were doing over to Pixhawk and have a PhD working full time writing specialized code for the things they do.
SchrodingersCar
Member
So I'm assuming the logging from Super X is better (or at least easier to interpret) than what I got from the iOSD mkII?
fltundra
Member
From what i have seen others post, it's light years ahead. Never owned a dji fc.
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With all due respect, I'll stick with the professional software devs at Freefly and their closed system. I developed software for 20 years at Apple, Microsoft and other companies. I am well aware of what it takes. And there's no way in hell I'm trusting my $10,000 copter and $10,000 camera and gimbal to a guy who's writing code in his spare time. Sure, maybe for a 250 tree racer. That'd be exciting. But for paying customers? No f'ing way.
If you are flying at $10,000 copter with a $10,000 camera on it then surely you can afford to contract out to someone with a master or PhD in Computer Science to create a custom firmware specifically for your needs.
I am not talking about them 20-45 years old geeks that work at Taco Bell and plays on XBox/World of Warcraft all day and does some coding / fixes computers / websites on the side.
Those folks I am talking about are either working at NASA/Boeing/SkunkWork or a TechSci department professor at some university.
My TechSci professor does lots of contract jobs on the side and make good money doing it but not MR or drone related but I am sure there some professors out there with MR / UAV experience that would contract themselves out for extra vacation money.
Bill
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Motopreserve
Drone Enthusiast
I think the reality is that to create a custom firmware, even if forked from a pre-existing code, would take many months (at least) of coding - and that's not factoring in the R&D that would need to accompany the development between revisions.
Bottom line, you are talking 10's of thousands of dollars to develop such an FC, and if the folks who have been dedicated to designing these things full-time haven't nailed it yet, I find it unlikely that the prof working for vacation money will be able to combat the complexities in a part-time manner.
Bottom line, you are talking 10's of thousands of dollars to develop such an FC, and if the folks who have been dedicated to designing these things full-time haven't nailed it yet, I find it unlikely that the prof working for vacation money will be able to combat the complexities in a part-time manner.
I believe all the big MR manufacturers contract out coders for their FC too. It allow the products out quicker for mass market. R&D is too costly to establish and eat up time and profits for hobby needs since their primary sales and profits is from hobby uses not commercial uses.
There no laws or federal guideline forcing them to follow something like the automobile manufacturers have so they are not forced to spend more money for research and safety etc to meet the laws and standard guidelines.
Profits are more important to them than quality now days. Heck if a crash or flyaway occur, it always the "pilot error"
Bill
Old Man
Active Member
The term "light years ahead" was mentioned earlier, and it was an understatement. With Super X, Pixhawk, and Vector one can easily see everything that was going on and determine what happened and why. With anything DJI a large portion of the data collected is hidden from the user and has to be sent to and "interpreted" by DJI techs. Kind of like the fox guarding the hen house. If there was nothing to hide, why keep hiding it?
MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
A couple of years ago I was involved to a small degree with Intuitive Aerial when the Aerigon was still known as the Black Armored Drone and the subject of the Flight Control was raised. Specifically, the choice of the DJI A2 for such an expensive piece of kit ... built specifically to carry other expensive kit!
IA was not wildly enthusiastic about using the A2 but they needed a ready-made solution whilst they developed their own. Part of their quandary was how to protect their good name by avoiding bad publicity from crashes. Their solution was to lock down most of the adjustable parameters so that end users could not fiddle with important parameter settings, but that is another issue.
The trouble is the ready-made Flight Control options mentioned earlier, i.e. DJI, MK, Super-X, Hoverpro etc., are all just hobby systems. Micro Pilot can sell you a very nice Triple Redundant Flight Control. But you will pay more for that FC than you would normally expect to fork out for the whole aircraft. Procerus would have sold you an equally professional system for an even sillier amount - before Lockheed Martin swallowed them.
Personally I have experience only of MK and DJI WKM/A2. Of those two the MK is far and away the most reliable and predictable in flight. DJI gear is universally consumer crap. But it does work - for the most part - and the price is right. It is just that phrase "for the most part" that is the problem. And that is why I had an issue with IA using the DJI A2 on the Black Armored Drone.
IA was not wildly enthusiastic about using the A2 but they needed a ready-made solution whilst they developed their own. Part of their quandary was how to protect their good name by avoiding bad publicity from crashes. Their solution was to lock down most of the adjustable parameters so that end users could not fiddle with important parameter settings, but that is another issue.
The trouble is the ready-made Flight Control options mentioned earlier, i.e. DJI, MK, Super-X, Hoverpro etc., are all just hobby systems. Micro Pilot can sell you a very nice Triple Redundant Flight Control. But you will pay more for that FC than you would normally expect to fork out for the whole aircraft. Procerus would have sold you an equally professional system for an even sillier amount - before Lockheed Martin swallowed them.
Personally I have experience only of MK and DJI WKM/A2. Of those two the MK is far and away the most reliable and predictable in flight. DJI gear is universally consumer crap. But it does work - for the most part - and the price is right. It is just that phrase "for the most part" that is the problem. And that is why I had an issue with IA using the DJI A2 on the Black Armored Drone.