Product Review***XAircraft SuperX FC System***

[Kilby]

Background

Earlier this year I noticed something interesting. XAircraft had a new US distributor and was releasing new products. If you were just bitten by the multirotor bug during the last year or so, the name XAircraft might be a new one to you, but they have been around for a number of years. Their newest round of products marks the third generation of aircraft that I am familiar with. It started with the first generation of the X650 quad before releasing the X650 V4 & V8. The latest release shows us the updated frame called the X650 pro. Each generation of craft have been available with their own flight controller, the newest being called the Super X.

I was an early adopter of the X650 V8, and still own it to this day. The aircraft actually saw two different versions of flight controller, the FC1212-S & FC1212-P. The airframe is one of the most versatile I’ve ever owned. It folds up for easy transport and I’ve configured it for sport FPV and AP alike. The original electronics that came with my 650, however, didn’t stick around for very long. The FC1212-S never got a working GPS as was promised when it was first released and was soon replaced with the FC1212-P. I know several people who eventually got the second generation flight controller working well with GPS hold, but it seemed that by that time several of the early adopters, like myself, weren’t ready to pay for a replacement of a product that never worked as advertised to begin with. Most replaced it with the newly released DJI Wookong, or jumped ship entirely. Soon after this time the then US distributor closed its doors and XAircraft seemed to slowly lose market share to the point that you rarely heard about them any longer. This explains why some new comers may have never heard of the brand before.

Given my background with the product, I was very curious about their new US distributor and latest line of products. The new distributor, XAircraft America (not to be confused with the former XAircraft USA), seem to be a pleasant and helpful company. I notice active participation on this forum and their own site while supporting their customers, which is always a great sign. They also appear to be very confident in their newest product line and as such have arranged independent third party reviews, such as this one. In my eyes, that is a true way to show what you are made of, and I thank Drew and XAircraft America team for being so open and transparent.

This review is for the Super-X flight controller. I’ll be breaking this up across a few posts and installing the FC on at least two different frames, the X650 value and a quad of my own making that I call Cygnus. The first post will cover my experience with installation and set up while the second post will cover the flight characteristics, GPS accuracy and autonomous (RTH) ability.

View attachment 15015View attachment 15016

 

[Kilby]

Review Post #1

The Super-X arrived in a nice package. Padded compartments for the IMU & I/O Box sit on the bottom of a compact layered box while the GPS and everything else each had their own inner boxes. The whole thing isn’t much larger than a few inches cubed, but neatly holds everything you need.

View attachment 15011View attachment 15012View attachment 15013

The first thing that struck me about the Super-X upon opening the package was how solid the IMU felt. It is an all aluminum casing and has a nice bit of mass to it. This is a vast improvement over the IMU that came with the FC1212 series and would stand up against anything else I see on the market today.

The overall footprint of the controller is very similar to the DJI Wookong or A2. It has a separate IMU, an I/O box, LED and the GPS. There is no external PMU as it appears to have been built into the I/O box. Everything plugs in straight out of the box and there is no soldering required. As with the A2, the latest generation of the GPS unit is a little bit larger than what we have seen in the past. It’s made of a white plastic with a satiny finish.

View attachment 15014View attachment 15017View attachment 15018

All in all, the quality of manufacturing is pretty impressive with the Super-X. The machining of the metal IMU casing is top notch and XAircraft have found some nice plastics for other components.

Once the FC was installed, it was time for set up. The Super-X offered a nice surprise here; the software is actually integrated into the unit itself. There is no need to install anything on your computer, simply plug the USB into the IMU and it mounts as an external drive. From there, you can launch the built in assistant software. This is the first time I have seen this approach, and it’s actually very convenient since you can use what ever computer you have access to at that time.

The software itself is very simple and user friendly. In fact, XAircraft simplified things so much that I was sure that something was missing at first. For those of you that have become used to jumping through lots of hoops during initial setup, the Super-X offers a nice break from that. The safe mode (RTH) and flight mode switches worked out of the box and didn’t require any complex mixing in my radio. The sticks required no tweaking on my end as the Super-X learns how it is set up through a simple calibration process, and then adjusts itself to how your radio is already set up. It couldn’t be easier.

From what I have seen up to this point, it’s pretty obvious that XAircraft has really put a lot of time and effort into refining their latest flight controller. While it may not have the extra bells and whistles that some of the others on the market have today, that is not necessarily a bad thing, at least in my eyes. I’m of the opinion that it’s best to have a good user experience and deliver the best possible core functionality than to cause problems while adding additional features that aren’t required to take care of the job at hand.

On my next post, I’ll review the actual flight characteristics of the controller and compare it to a few other popular ones. I planned to have that portion of the review done already, but between wind, snow and a faulty new motor (long story), it will have to wait for another day. Stay tuned for more to come soon.

 

[Kilby]

Review Post #2

Coming soon...

 

[DucktileMedia]

I'm sure it's in the manual but does the fact it acts as an external drive mean it will work on a mac as well? Also, is that other board in front of the IO the gimbal controller, it looks very Hoverfly-ish? Nice write up so far. I look forward to what you have to say as well as some other "pros" on the forum. Also, I really like your homebuilt quad.

 

[ghaynes]

While it is a 'drive' the files and the software are .exe Windows applications. Works fine on VMWare Fusion. The log files that are created and viewed in the online BlackBox can be used direct on the Mac (download and then upload to the XAircraft BlackBox).

 

[Kilby]

Exactly. I haven't tried to mount it to a Mac yet, but even if it was successful, the software is still written for a PC.

 

[Bartman]

Thanks for getting the review done Terry! I've actually been in touch with Drew from XAircraftAmerica about buying a SuperX for my next build so I'll paying attention to what you have to say about your flight performance. I too bought into the XAircraft product early on with an X650 but had an unsatisfactory experience. Here's to hoping things are on a long term positive track for XA!

Nicely done!
Bart

 

[XAircraft America]

The drive will read on a Mac for pulling things such as log files off of the controller for upload to the XA web server for the Black Box, but the software is not Mac compatible. I run Parallels on my computer and it works just fine with it and windows so there are options.

Thank you Kilby for the review and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

[Kilby]

Thanks, guys. We are getting hit with more snow again today, so I'll get the next post up as soon as things settle down. On a side note, the Super-X did make an appearance with us on Maryland Public Television last week. They had us on for an interview and to talk about the Amazon announcement. I'll post a link as soon as it's online.

 

[Droider]

Any updates Kilby?

Dave

 

[Motopreserve]

Is this review kaput? Great detail in the beginning - would love to read the rest.

 

[Kilby]

Sorry guys. I had a few things pop up in my personal life as well as some bad equipment that have prevented me from finishing this just yet, but the next part is coming very soon. Hold tight, it's on the way!

 

[Motopreserve]

Hope everything turns out OK (both personal and gear!), and look forward to the review.

Scott

 

[Kilby]

Thanks!

 

[questech]

Review Post #1
The software itself is very simple and user friendly. In fact, XAircraft simplified things so much that I was sure that something was missing at first.

That is for sure. I am use to, and like, the highly configurable FCs.

I am still getting use to the SuperX and my comfort zone is to be able to tweak a lot of settings... but there are really only 4 adjustments besides the RTH, Gimbal and OSD, which have their own tabs withing the applications GUI and have their own configuration settings.

You get Pitch, Roll, Yaw, and Height... and that's it.

It's too cold and snowbound for me to do any testing outside now, so my test are limited to a 4.5' X 5' indoor space and there's too much turbulence within that area for any kind of consistent testing, and of course no satellite reception.

Regardless of the small space, you can still test the gains and that's where I'm having a slight glitch. Although there's only the 4 gain settings that I mentioned, the theory is the same as for most FCs. Turn the gain up to a point where the MR oscillates rapidly, and back it off until it stops the high speed oscillation.

The extreme range of the gain settings exhibit some extreme results, just like most other FCs... too high of a gain setting, high speed oscillation, which can lead to loss of control or airframe damage, too low of a setting, and the self leveling stops working and it's like flying in manual mode.

My problem right now is that when I tune the gains down far enough to stop the oscillation, the self leveling isn't adequate, so I still have some tweaking to experiment with.

The system looks like it's built well, and the support guys seem to care about your satisfaction, so I'm looking forward to getting this baby in the air once the weather breaks so that I can give it a fair assessment.

I'll get use to the simplicity eventually

Anthony

 

[Droider]

Anyone flying this commercially?

Dave

 

[jfro]

Anyone flying this commercially?

Dave

Check with Kloner, he may have added the xAircraft to his fleet.

 

[DucktileMedia]

I might ordinarily say that a simple interface is bad news for fine tuning a craft but seeing how my Hoverfly Pro's did so well with just 1 gain, it is clearly possible to make perfection with such basic options. I know Kloner is flying his on his hexacrafter with amazing results. Admittedly most of the amazement is in the gimbal but still. Maybe he will be so kind to bless us with his presence and a link?




During this review it would be nice if we could establish a list of compatible and non-compatible ESC's. There is always a preference when the controller manufacturers design these things.

 

[DucktileMedia]

Not too long ago there was mention that the SuperX didnt work well with Bart's XY8 configuration. After seeing this video from XA I am thinking they addressed this. They mention they added the Xscope config, which is essentially an asymmetrical X8 much like the XY8.