Flight Controllers

Flight Controller

For the flight controller I first started out with an Emax Skyline32.  I purchased the Skyline32 because it came with cables and connectors so all you have to do is plug your receiver and ESC’s directly into the connectors, no soldering required.  However the problem with doing this is you get a very messy installation because the cables are so long.  After flying several times and slicing one of the wires with a blade during a crash I decided to shorten all the cables and just solder them together, this gave me the clean installation that I was originally looking for.  So the time and effort I wanted to save by purchasing this board backfired on me.  

I want to also talk about documentation.  For the most part documentation for flight controllers is seriously lacking in information. YouTube is your best resource for all flight controller information. The 14 page manual for this board gives you directions to go to three different websites to download some software in order to update the firmware.  After several hours of following the instructions to the letter, it did not work.  I finally found a youtube video by 2dogrc that shows him just flashing it with the latest Naze32 firmware.  I followed the video and it finally worked, I was able to get into cleanflight and get busy prepping my quad for flight.  My first flight with cleanflight was bad, the Quad flew like a cinderblock.  I discovered Betaflight and from the first flight it was magical.

Lesson learned: Go with an FC board that requires you to solder pins to it, having all the wires and connectors from the skyline32 makes for a messier installation, there was so much excess wire hidden away on my quad it wasn't funny.  Instead of having the servo connectors connected directly to the FC I installed all the header pins on my next flight controller a Naze32, everything is now plugged into the header pins. I still had excess wires to take care of so I wrapped them in heat shrink and tucked them away.  

I am now on my 3rd brand of flight controller, the Omnibus F3. I love this board, it comes with an SD card slot for built in black box logging. Built in OSD which allows you to access your important settings such as your PIDs and rates, I haven't been flying long enough to really notice a difference in performance but it is also only $25, no reason to pay more.

For a 250 quad you do not need a barometer, no reason to pay for the more expensive FC.  Betaflight is the way to go for firm ware.  From the first day I flew with it my quad flew really well, highly recommended.