Seeking Flight Controller upgrade advice.

Jubbinaut

Member
Hi guys, I currently fly a Droidworx AD6 with a DJI Naza Flight Controller and im now in the market to purchase a new Flight controller... The purpose of this thread is to hear your expert opinions on which is best and why. Pros and cons of each so we can together conclude the best option. My main options at this stage would be. DJI Wookong, AMP Arduino, YS-X6, multi wii etc. please feel free to add to this...
 

Stacky

Member
Firstly, what are you looking for with respect to the FC and the end use. Are you flying for fun or using the AD6 for work?.
 

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Jubbi

What are you hoping to do with the new system that you can't do now? What are your long term goals/objectives for the newly outfitted rig?

Bart
 


Jubbinaut

Member
Thanks guys, Im doing aerial Photography and video. Im not really trying to do anything I cant already achieve I really just want a rock solid setup.... This is my second Naza as the first was returned on warranty.....lets just say the naza makes me a bit nervous with 5-6K flying around
 

Efliernz

Pete
The NAZA is not a rock-steady solution... but you also need to assess the weather conditions and weight that you fly at. Even the "pro's" will not get rock-steady footage with a 3.5Kg machine in 10Km or higher winds.

The Hoverfly Pro board gives me almost rock-steady flight with my VM-6 - but once the wind/turbulence goes over 5-10km, you will struggle to get "rock-steady" video with a 5Kg machine. That is where the pro's have great pc software stabilization.

Pete
 

The PMU and the GPS on the WKM are superior..... e.g., the PMU on the Naza will not recognize battery voltage levels correctly below a -10 deg C such that your MR LEDs and behaviour will be incorrect.... The GPS module on the WKM is more accurate and faster I believe.....
There are numerous advanced capabilities with the WKM including custom configuration options for any shape of MR such as H frame etc.
Also there are advanced parameter options beyond Basic and Attitude tuning to accomodate more complex PID loop tuning and apparently to stabilize the airframe in gusty conditions.
I have both and I really like the WKM a lot...... NAZA not so much.
 

Jubbinaut

Member
Thanks for the response guys.... some really good insite. Looks like im in for an upgrade. I try to avoid flying in any wind Pete but unfortunately they dont call it the City of Sails up here for nothing...haha Fortunately I have access to After Effects and various other software stabilizers so that wont be an issue however I'd really like to get the machine as smooth as possible first. Life's so much easier with good raw footage.

Thoughts on the open source options?
 



RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
I own or have flown the majority of flight controllers currently available. The best for overall stability I would say are Wookong-M, Mikrokopter, APM 2.5, and YS-X6 though not necessarily in that order. MK used to be the gold standard and is still the system of choice for a lot of pros, the Wookong has displaced a lot of MK with pilots that just want to fly with a minimum of interaction with the electronic bits. Bottom line is none of them are going to give you perfect stability in windy conditions, living 10 miles inland from the Atlantic ocean I deal with varying degrees of wind constantly, it's a rare day here when there is no wind at all.

That said, I've found the best solution to getting video that needs a minimum of post processing is not so much which flight controller I'm using, but more a case of what the camera is sitting on. I've tried so many different gimbals I'd have to stop and think for a bit to put a number to them, I've also tried a number of different ways to stabilize them. Recently I acquired two brushless gimbals, one a GoPro size and the other large enough to carry a Nex 5n under my Cinestar 6, I have to say there is no other single thing I have done or tried that has made as big a difference in the quality of the video recorded in flight. While not absolute perfection they are far closer than anything I have ever done with a standard servo driven gimbal, if you want perfection you're looking at spending well into the 5 figure range for just the gimbal but the good news is the technology exists and the price is reasonable for hobby level systems that work nearly as well as what the big boys ave access to.

My take on the whole thing now is this, the flight controller doesn't matter all that much any more, use what you're comfortable with and works best for you. The biggest piece of the puzzle is use a gimbal that has standalone stabilization and has been proven to work without hours and hours of tweaking and tuning, and right now that means the new wave of brushless gimbals that are just starting to hit the market. The first time out in the field with the Cinestar and brushless gimbal I was able to get a lot of useable video in wind that was gusting to over 20 mph, previously with the Photohigher AV130 and Skyline RSGS I wouldn't even have considered taking the Cinestar off the bench in those conditions knowing full well 99% of the video would be unusable and even the little bit that was would require a LOT of post process tweaking to be acceptable.

Ken
 

R_Lefebvre

Arducopter Developer
You are probably talking about the Ardrino as used in the Arducopter etc. It's an Italian designed,developed eeprom and processor series and there is a multitude of "shields" etc. available for free which competes agressively but indirectly with all the commercial/proprietary MR offerings so as to help drive the commercial prices down eventually. But at the end of the day an energy efficient 32 bit processor is so much better for an unlimited future migration path relative to the 1960's 8 and 16 bit processors.
If you are already spending too much time working inside doing video/photo post editing, who has time to program! But then again, it would be quite a thrill to learn so much about the control systems including PID loop control etc. Also you could develop swarm technology programs and this etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvRTALJp8DM

This is all kind of... I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Arducopter does not use Arduino hardware. It doesn't use shields, or anything like that either. We also don't really use the Arduino programming IDE anymore either. I mean we do, but it's in name only. We have completely hacked it so that it can compile for any microcontroller. The only real similarity anymore is we use the same processor they do, it's just a very common industrial processor. And we program in C++, Arduino is heavily based on C++ too. Everything else is different.

Yes, it's true that the APM2.5 uses an 8bit processor. It's not really fair to call it 1960's technology, because the chip was actually created in 1996. It just happens to be 8 bit. It's like saying a 2013 Corvette is old because it has a V8 and V8's were invented in 1920. But yes, the chip is not as fast as most 32 bit processors available now. However, at the end of the day, what really matters is what does the thing DO. And Arducopter does more than most other systems with the faster processors. The question really is not why is APM using a slow processor, but rather why the other guys need so much processing power to do so little. ;) I think I calculated that the Hoverfly board has 20 times the processing power of the APM. But what can it do that Arducopter can't?

You're also insinuating that you have to spend a lot of time programming it. You don't. Nobody has to know anything about programming to use it. It has a pretty decent GUI. And lots of people are flying it with fully default settings. At most you'll have to tune a couple gains to get the same functionality as the simpler systems. The only time it gets complex is if you want to use the more advanced functions.

Yes, if you buy an APM now, you might feel like upgrading in the near future. We actually have a 32bit system that has been out for a little while, but is just becoming usable by regular people now. Another month or so to finish the wiki and we should be good. But, at $150 for an APM2.5, and $200 for a PX4, you could buy several of each for the cost of a single system of the closed source guys.

Choice is yours. Just wanted to get that straight.
 
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