New FCs and a bit of confusion - Armattan Tilt

[Kellarly]

Hi all,

I've been out of the hobby for about a year (kids and work took up way too much time), but I've started flying again. I've got a 180 and 210 size frame that I've been bombing around a bit again and a grounded Armattan Rev 2 Tilt that I'd like to get air worthy again.

It's got some great Tiger 900kv motors on it swinging 12 inch props, but no FC as yet and only the old Armattan 30 amp escs. I use an old (2014

I've done some digging into newer FCs, but I'm a little lost with all the advances since I really last did a look back in 2016.

Ideally, I'd like to upgrade the escs and put in a decent FC that still accepts PPM/PWM (I use an Aurora 9 and have a great Rx for it as is).

Budget is about £80-£100.

Thanks!

[Cheredanine]

What software do you want to run? (Appreciate you may not know current stuff but broad family would help

[Kellarly]

I've got 2 Naze rev 5's with cleanflight on them so I'm happy with using that.

I've not used anything else before (except ardupilot way way way back, but I was never very successful in getting that to work).

I'm more than happy to give new things a try though.

[mo_miah]

SPF3 takes pwm input and is pretty cheap
most newer FC use serial protocols to reduce latency and save space
what sort of flying do you do?

[Kellarly]

With the Armattan, it'll just be cruising about and having a bit of fun with a go pro. I mostly fly it (or flew it) because the sound of the Tiger motors and props is amazing and it's a smooth cruiser. It'll have a gopro on it, but it's not gonna be a massive acro quad or anything.

Future plans would be to get a gps installed on it and have a go at return to home pos-hold etc, but they're secondary requirements for now.

[mo_miah]

im not to familiar with the Aurora 9, but i think you can get sbus receivers for it, it will allow you to use F4 and F7 FC which do not support pwm
if you are using a hd cam then acro is good for getting smooth video as you can set your pitch and then just focus on turns using yaw and roll
the new FC and software also have better filtering for smoother flight, these a lot to choose from like betaflight, butterflight etc they are all similar but have their own advantages
have a youtube of different setups and see which features you would like in your build

[Cheredanine]

You are looking at baseflight family software I assume then.
If you are using gps then you need inav, otherwise cleanflight/betaflight.

Basic rules:
1 F1 (eg naze) won’t cut it, F3 are struggling, as Mo said, go with F4 or F7 is preferable
2. Aurora 9 lol we all used to buy their hall effect gimbals for our taranises, they were like rocking horse turds :), most F.C. and radio rx are using serial protocols nowerdays, having left PWM for PPM, then moved on again. Have you checked the latest rx for the aurora?
3. If you have no choice for PWM, I would dig around Dominic’s stuff, last time I looked he still had hardware that supported it:
http://seriouslypro.com/

[Kellarly]

Looks like sbus might be a go, but I'll have to wait on changing out the escs for a while as that'll dent the budget.

http://www.4-max.co.uk/hitec-optima-d-drone-receiver.html

Something like this as an FC then?

https://www.makeitbuildit.co.uk/bardwell-f4-aio-3-6s-flight-controller

Thanks for the help so far guys, seems this place is as helpful as ever!

[mo_miah]

the JBF4 FC is good for beginners as the manual that comes with it is very clear and beginner friendly, JB has also done a build video and explains how it all works

other ones to consider are the matek 405 range and PDBs

[Cheredanine]

If you can do sbus then then pretty much any f4 will do you, the one thing to be careful of is when they show sbus receivers attached to the F.C., they are generally talking about inverted sbus which frsky uses, suspect yours won’t be inverted.

F4 processors don’t have built in inversion so a uart is wired with a hardware inverter and this is the uart that it is usually shown connected to.

If your rx doesn’t do inverted sbus then you are going to have to use a different uart (which generally isn’t a problem) and I suspect won’t be able to use the uart that is designated for sbus (because the hardware inversions isn’t signal specific, it will invert any signal put through it)

As such I think I would suggest an f7 flight controller which has built in inversions which is software cintrolled if you are short on uarts (count them up)

Additionally if you want to use gps you are gonna want inav, not all F.C. are supported, here is the link to inav releases, there are a list of targets there, if it ain’t supported in ain’t gonna work:

https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav/releases

[Kellarly]

I went with the Bardwell board, as it can be used with inverted and non-inverted SBUS protocols. The manual also helps with this too, so it *should* be fine, one way or another.

[ched]

If you are thinking of GPS and RTH functions have a look at iNav software as that does what you need.

[Cheredanine]

If you are thinking of GPS and RTH functions have a look at iNav software as that does what you need.

And as per link I posted above, use an F.C. that is an inav target