Quadcopter Flight controller: different kinds of knowledge

There are massive amount of quadcopter flight controllers in the market, which one you used now and is that your best? Today, here will tell you different kinds of FC knowledge.

Flight controller boards

QWinOut APM, RMRC, KISS, RJX SP, Crazepony F3, CC3D, NAZE32, Hobbypower MWC MultiWii SE, Readytosky, DJI Naza-M Lite, Vector, 3DR Pixhawk, QwinOut, Openpilot, HobbyEagle etc. All of them are always mentioned by pilots.

Flight controller For Sport Flying

The KISS flight controller: Tt is mostly used in small sized drones. It does not have many features but you can be able to navigate through the user interface without causing a lot of confusion. It offers basic configuration settings and monitoring tools.

The Lux flight controller: It is flexible because it runs the firmware known as CleanFlight. The Lux flight controller has a lot of hardware features that are needed to take advantage of CleanFlight, Betaflight and Raceflight.

The Naze32: It has a barometer system and is among the most popular in the market.

Flight controller For Cinema Flying

The DJI NAZA-M V2: It is best to use if you want to do an aerial photography. The flight characteristics are smooth and easy to fly with. It best for cinematographers and good for beginners for you does not have to worry about flying perfectly in order to get the best shot.

The ArduPilot AMP: It supports GPS and autonomous flight and has more important sensors than in any ordinary flight controllers making it more expensive. It supports all kinds of sensors and has telemetry and flight logging capabilities.

Vector Flight Controller: If you are bold enough, you can also try Vector on your drone. Integrating an Eagle Tree system, you will definitely love its excellent performance. Ideal for professional and beginners alike, it also boasts an ETR00150 which gives it that unique performance and reliability. Its weight and size make it really convenient for aerial photography while the easy-to-use design adds to its awesome features.

Flight controller For Autonomous flying

The 3DR Pixhawk: It is one of the best flight controllers in the market. It is best to use in autonomous flights. It has backup system supports all kinds of sensors and other different flight considerations.
The MultiWii Pro: It is cheap and is readily available worldwide. It is capable of stabilizing remote control style plane, helicopter or a multicopter. It has a barometer, magnetometer, and GPS.

Which factors need to consider?

There are things to consider when choosing for the ultimate flight controller for your drone. Remember that drone flight controller systems are many and varied and can be a bit overwhelming especially for beginners.

In order to know what is the best flight controller for your drone, first figure out your needs. Are you an apprentice and just trying to build one just for a hobby? Do you want a fast and racing style drone? Or are you into photography or videography? You must also consider your budget because prices of flight controllers vary.
For example, a Flyduino KISS flight controller which is used for racing and freestyle drones may cost around $45- $50 while the DJI A3 which is best in Pro Aerial Photography costs around $900.

Tip: Some information is from Jack's blog http://www.rcdronegood.com/, Thank you!

How to choose flight controller?

Flight controller is the brain of the drone. It is a circuit board that accumulates sensors data and user commands, and makes adjustments to the motor speed to keep the drone in the air.

Today there are many popular flight controllers on market, Sush as KK2 board, ArduPilot APM, 3DR Pixhawk, Naze32, MultiWii Pro, KISS,Lux flight controller, DJI NAZA-M V2 etc. Which is the right one for your drone? Before this, I had post a article about How to choose best flight controller for quadcopter,May be of use to you!

Which factors need to consider?

There are things to consider when choosing for the ultimate flight controller for your drone. Remember that drone flight controller systems are many and varied and can be a bit overwhelming especially for beginners.

In order to know what is the best flight controller for your drone, first figure out your needs. Are you an apprentice and just trying to build one just for a hobby? Do you want a fast and racing style drone? Or are you into photography or videography? You must also consider your budget because prices of flight controllers vary.
For example, a Flyduino KISS flight controller which is used for racing and freestyle drones may cost around $45- $50 while the DJI A3 which is best in Pro Aerial Photography costs around $900.

The ability to setup easily and the firmware are also a thing to consider. Look for boards that are compatible with the configurator software packages.

The handling and balancing capabilities of a flight controller must be looked at carefully because not all drones fly the same. Remember that some flight controllers are better than the others. Always look for what kind of sensors the flight controller supports. GPS is very useful for autonomous flights and also for videography and photography. A Magnetometer is also useful for detecting direction. A Barometer is used to hold altitude which is a requirement for cinematography.

Which flight controller?

The KK2 board is easy to setup and supports most flight configurations that is why it is popular among beginners. The CC3D flight controller is best for racing drone because it is compatible with OpenPilot software.

The ArduPilot APM supports GPS and autonomous flight and has more important sensors than in any ordinary flight controllers making it more expensive. It supports all kinds of sensors and has telemetry and flight logging capabilities.

The 3DR Pixhawk is one of the best flight controllers in the market. It is best to use in autonomous flights. It has backup system supports all kinds of sensors and other different flight considerations.

The Naze32 has a barometer system and is among the most popular in the market.
The MultiWii Pro is cheap and is readily available worldwide. It is capable of stabilizing remote control style plane, helicopter or a multicopter. It has a barometer, magnetometer, and GPS.

The KISS flight controller is mostly used in small sized drones. It does not have many features but you can be able to navigate through the user interface without causing a lot of confusion. It offers basic configuration settings and monitoring tools.
The Lux flight controller is flexible because it runs the firmware known as CleanFlight. The Lux flight controller has a lot of hardware features that are needed to take advantage of CleanFlight, Betaflight and Raceflight.

The DJI NAZA-M V2 is best to use if you want to do an aerial photography. The flight characteristics are smooth and easy to fly with. It best for cinematographers and good for beginners for you does not have to worry about flying perfectly in order to get the best shot.

Want to know more about these flight controllers? I wrote about the comparison table of these flight controllers. Read more: Flight controller board comparison

Make a conclusion

With uncertainty you desire/covet to select the finest flight controller for quad copter but still confused which one to opt for.It must possess properties like Gyro stabilization (a standard feature), self-leveling characteristic (capability to let go the arena and troll rod transmitter), orientation mode, altitude hold, position hold, return home, waypoint navigation, GPS feature (ability to note down the documentation). These are the attributes that one can finally look for positive and assured quality.

Choose Smart lipo battery packs for your quadcopter

The multirotor is more and more popular nowadays thanks for the high-technology and affordable price with an easy control system. The most common multirotor is quadcopter, and a vital sparepart for your quadcopter is the battery, which support the quadcopter to work.We have showed you how to choose battery for your quadcopter, and this time, we are going to share a new higher-technology batteries for your quadcopter-Smart batteries.
What is a smart battery? A smart battery is a rechargeable battery pack equipped with with a built-in battery management system. The smart battery can internally measure voltage and current, and deduce charge level and SoH (State of Health) parameters, indicating the state of the cells, calculated and predicted information to its SMBus Host under software control.
The new hexacopter M600 released by DJI is equipped with 6 smart batteries to support the big heavy device to work for more professional and high-end aerial photography and vedio making. And more earlily, the DJI M100 quadcopter has adopted smart batteries. Why smart battery is more and more widely used now? What are the benefits of these quadcopter battery compared to the ordinary batteries?

The quadcopter smart batteries have the following advantages:

• Provides the user with accurate state of charge information along with an accurate prediction of the remaining operating time;
• Auto-balance inside when the voltage is different between the cells;
• Provides state-of-charge and full charge capacity;
• Reflects capacity estimations; records battery history; including cycle count, usage pattern, maintenance requirements, max error, etc;
• Auto discharge in high temperature, under static or storage stateand;
• Auto alarm fuction;
• Configures charger to the correct algorithm;
• Reminds user of periodic service;
• Protects battery from unauthorized use;
• Prevent accidental system cut-off;

This is why smart battery is more and more popular and widely used. And whether you need to choose smart batteries or not depends on yourself. If you want your quadcopter to make professional and quality photos and vedios, it's advisable for you to choose them. But if you just treat them as entertainment, then you can choose ordinaly battery.
But there is no doubt that the smart battery is the new trend and era of battery area, not only for the quadcopter, or UAV, but also for other electronic area.

Buy or Diy your frist own autonomous quadcopter at home

Are you looking for Diy autonomous quadcopter at home but do not know Buy or Diy your frist own quadcopter? which can suitable to your needs such as flight plan autonomously via GPS or need to record HD video while it is flying or take more high-res aerial shots. Here you are come to right place, They need some suggestions on the best way to go about their project.

Buy or Diy autonomous quadcopter?

Yes, you have to make a decisions after research your requirements. On today market, There are many brand's quadcopters such as DJI,Gropo,Yuneec,ZMR250,Cinestar,Droidworx etc. ALL of them have different features and funtions. DJI quadcopter Phantom series are professional to shoot photographs outdoors, ZMR250 FPV quadcopter attends all kinds of competitions FPV racing around the world, Droidworx Aeronavics are Industrial Aerial Robotics. If these quadcopters are best suited your requirements and have enough of budget to buy it, Just shop it. Otherwise diy autonomous quadcopter.

Quadcopter Diy parts and example of diy autonomous quadcopter

What's size do you want to diy? If you plan to Diy quadcopter FPV250 or FPV180 etc. WWW.RCDRONEGOOD.COM There are some articles about Show popular FPV build list that helps to build your own fpv at home which list various FPV build parts, guide you to choose and make it quickly.
At last if you choose all the parts and then where to buy all components for quacopter? You can go here Best quadcopter stores .There are convenience, speed shipping and free shipping, and best price, feel free to buy!

Conclusion for diy autonomous quadcopter

Quadcopter become more and more common as ever-growing of technological development and people's interests and hobbies. People with stronger practical ability who love diy autonomous quadcopter. This is exactly what our wants, The best kind of learning is learning by doing and enjoy it.

What are the best Flight controller for beginners?

If you want to choose best flight controller for quadcopter but don’t know which one is or suit to beginner,then you’ve come to the right place,here to tell you that which oneis the best flight controller.

Flight controller is the most important part of quadcopter

As we known, A quadcopter can fly in the sky must need all parts such as Flight frame,ESCS,Motors,Flight Controller,Lipo Battery,Transmitter and receiver,Propellers .etc. Flight controller is the most important one ,I regard the flight controller as a brain which will stop flying when its components fail. what does flight controller can do? it may control all of the following aspects of flight – possibly more.

• Gyro Stabilization – the ability to easily keep the quadcopter stable and level under the pilot’s control. This is a standard feature of all Flight controller.
• Self Leveling – the ability to let go of the pitch and roll stick on the transmitter and have the quadcopter stay level.
• Orientation mode- The pilot can control the orientation of the quadcopter.
• Altitude Hold – the ability to hover a certain distance from the ground without having to manually adjust the throttle.
• Position Hold – the ability to hover at a specific location.
• Return Home – the ability to automatically return to the point where the quadcopter initially took off.
• Waypoint Navigation – the ability to set specific points on a map that quadcopter will follow as part of a flight plan.
• GPS – the ability to record the data of flying,it will shorten  search time for next time.

Flight controller Comparison Table

These are some of the popular Flight controller listing as below（some of them have been outdated）,all of them are Open Source boards which also have Gyro Stabilization, Self Leveling ability.You can find out the differences of them.

Board	Care Free	Altitude Hold	Position Hold	Return Home	Waypoint  Navigation	Price
AeroQuad 32		Yes	Add-on	Add-on	Add-on	$149
ArduCopter (APM 2.5)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	$180
AutoQuad v6.6	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	$19
Crius All In One PRO	Yes	Yes	Add-on	Add-on	Add-on	$25
Crius MultiWii Lite						$13
Crius MultiWii Lite	Yes	Yes				$39
Hobbyking KK2						$22
MultiWii PRO / MTK GPS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	$430
MultiWii PRO 2.0 / MTK GPS	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	$542
OpenPilot CC3D						$14
Paris MultiwiiCopter	Yes	Yes	Add-on	Add-on	Add-on	$95
Quadrino ZoomFlight	Yes	Yes
UAVP/UAVX	Yes	Yes	Yes	Add-on	Add-on	$75

How to choose best flight controller for quadcopter

If you want to build quadcopter by yourself,the first thing is choose best flight controller for quadcopter.there are three things to considering when you buying it.

The flight controller board must be open source board

Open source is quite popular,flight controller is not exception.It is a very flexible method and you can always modify any of it to suit your own needs .So if want to diy my own quadcopter i will choose the filght controller board which is open source.

The price of flight controller

Before you think about purchasing flight controller, you should really compare the quality and cost of the two platforms.  For the beginners the cheaper the better Unless  you are rich,but you must be sure the quality of the filght controller is good. Of course which one is determined by your needs.

What are the best Flight controller for beginners?

For the beginnner,need some quadcopter build guide,I suggest you to choose open source flight controller board above list,and the price is less than $100 even $50, many beginners choose OpenPilot CC3D or kk2.The OpenPilot CC3D is a very established board and it’s very cheap , More importantly the CC3D is very easy to configure and tune, it has excellent community support. KK2 it’s also cheap, Functionality wise, it’s pretty simple too. The kk2 as a great starter board. There’s lots of documentation for it. Someone always keep a kk2 around just for testing.

This post is from diy quadcopter website:http://www.rcdronegood.com/how-to-choose-best-flight-controller-for-quadcopter/

Quadcopter battery calculator formula for you

How to calcular quadcopter flight time for you? if you do not know,please read ahead,this post will tell you the formula about quadcopter battery calculator.

Quadcopter battery calculator formula

Quadcopter flight times =(Battery Capacity * Battery Discharge /Average Amp Draw)*60

Introduction calculator formula

For calculate your quadcopter flight time,you have to get three factors:Battery Capacity ,Battery Discharge and Average Amp Draw.

Battery Capacity:

As we know,Choose the best lipo battery for quadcoper is very important. Bigger lipo battery can be powered more energy.In fact As the battery gets larger, the increase in flight time becomes ineffective,because of the weight of battery.But today we are not to discuss the matter. For calculator you have to take the battery’s capacity in amp hours,To convert from mAh to Ah, battery capacity divide by 1000.For instance,1800mAh/1000=1.8Ah.

Battery Discharge:

From lipo battery warnig will let you know that be too dangerous and be permanently damaged when voltage levels become lower then 20% and fully discharged..In respect of this, it’s common practice to not discharge your LiPo batteries below 20% mAh during flight; In other words.the effective capacity is only 80% that can be used during flight time.For instance, 1.8Ah*0.8=1.44A (effective capacity).
By the way,quadcopter flight times calculator base on the true battery Capacity or the non-oversized in capacity.

How to work out Average Amp Draw?

Before quadcopter battery calculator you work out the average amp draw,you have to know two things, one is about your carrying weight of your quadcopter which include battery weight.An other thing is the parameters of quadcopter motor,Read your motor instructions,you have to know how many amps one motor will be draw to produce 100g of thrust?This is the key points in the calculation of Average Amp Draw.For example,
If you know each motor draws 1amps to produce 100g of thrust. if your quadcopter take 2000g to flight,each motor will have to produce 500g (500g = 2000g / 4motors) of thrust in order to hover. Then your quadcopter Average Amp Draw is 20AMPS ( 20AMPS =4motors * 500g/100g per 1amps);
An other way to work out the average amp draw,buy a smart lipo battery which will record lipo Amp Draw when quadcopter move on or steady hover in the sky.This calculator much more accurate than the frist one.

Make a conclusion for quadcopter flight times

For instance, i have a lipo battery 3s 3300mAh, I calculated the average amp draw of quadcopter to be around 20 amps,and iI am making an assumption that 80% of battery capacity will is used,then the quadcopter flight time is 7,92 minutes.
Quadcopter flight times = (3300/1000mAh) * 80% / 20 amps *60 minutes = 7.92  minutes
Obviously this quadcopter battery calculator is a very simplistic calculator base on steady hover.For aerial photography work or FPV flying which the motors will have to spin faster, and thus pull more current. This higher current draw will reduce flight time and your flight times will degrade dramatically with about 75% or up to50% of the calculated quadcopter flight time.
Post source:http://www.rcdronegood.com/quadcopter-battery-calculator-flight-times/

How to let quadcopter flight more times for aerial phpotography

Every one who have a quadcopter for aerial phpotography want to flight more times,but in fact,all quadcopter flight times less than 30minutes even more lower.How to let your quadcopters flight times more longer?Yes,you are come the right place,here will explore this question with you,pls read ahead.

Choose the best flight controller for your quadcopter

Today,quadcopter have a vast use,it contains?aerial photography, Surverying, Thermography, Logistics and Transport, Security, search and rescue, Agriculture etc. According to official data,aerial photography for at least 60 percent of quadcopter application area.If you make a quadcopter by youself,you should check out what's the flight controllers for your quadcopter? KK2 OR DJI or AMP? you should know most flight controllers are only really good at one specific style(Flying Styles,Cinema Flying and Autonomous Flying). When choosing a flight controller, you should make sure what kind of flying? you're going to be doing?Today we just talk about quadcopter for aerial phpotography which is cinema flying.from this profressional article best flight controller for aerial photography, we find that APM 2.8,DJI Naza-M Lite and Hoverfly? Pro flight controlls are good at aerial phpotography.if you build a quadcopter for Aerial photography,when you choose flight controller which must be Stabileze and Altitude hold flight modes,they will keep your quadcopter in current altitude,so you should choose one of them for your quadcopter.

Choose the best battery for your quadcopter

Lipo battery is a power which is important for quadcopter,you have to choose the best lipo battery.first,you should know How to calculate quadcopter flight times? quadcopter battery calculator is not too difficult,here can be explained with a formula about Quadcopter battery calculator which is a resultant experience of several factors like the lipo battery capacity,the wind speed,flight load,average amperage draw,weather conditions,etc.

Quadcopter flight times =(Battery Capacity * Battery Discharge /Average Amp Draw)*60

For instance, i have a lipo battery 3s 3300mAh,I calculated the average amp draw of quadcopter to be around 20 amps,and iI am making an assumption that 80% of battery capacity will is used,then the quadcopter flight time is 7,92 minutes.Want to flight more times,you have to calculate it and choose the max one.
There are a lot of factors that effect flight tiems,some of the factors is an objective reality can not beavoided,the right way is that choose the best and appropriate parts for your quadcopter.