GPS Flight Controller Suggestions?

[midnightdaylight]

Please only replay if you are a scratch/kit builder with experience.

Been flying my quad all over the place with the little flip 1.5 and I would rely like to take a baby step into the world of GPS.

A user friendly FC with return to launch and position hold is all I'm looking for. I'm thinking about the naza m light, but I'm not sure if there is something better around that price.
I was looking at the mutiwii pro mini, but reading the info on there page while not knowing anything about GPS setup was scary!

Preferable something in a case. my budget is about 200$

Thanks for your time guys

 

[Craftydan]

Multiwii can barely do it (you can even get a flip to do it, but it needs a LOT of extra hardware) but it's certianly not a babystep.

Pretty consistantly, you trade price for features and ease of setup.

Going more pricy you end up with the Naza, which the M-lite is bottom end in the $170 range, but not to be scoffed at.

A bit cheaper but still reasonable, you've got the APM boards -- full kits run in the $150 range, but you might be able to piece-part it cheaper with clone parts for a steeper learning curve.

Cheaper still are the many newer acro-focused boards, but most of them either support it weakly or not at all. There are improvements coming, but they lag seriously behind in sensor quality and control quality in the "Flying Robot" modes -- not a simple step.

 

[makattack]

I just saw this new product on HobbyKing which got me intrigued: a 250 class sized APM setup (complete with miniaturized telemetry radio and OSD!):

For 915MHz telemetry (US/NA, AUS, et al):
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...metry_Radio_PDB_BEC_Power_Sensor_915Mhz_.html

For 433MHz telemetry (EU, AUS, et al):
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...y_Radio_PDB_BEC_Power_Sensor_433Mhz_APM_.html

Details for which frequency is best for you: http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/co...d-px4/#Support_for_different_countriesregions

 

[Quad]

You might check out this thread:

http://forum.flitetest.com/showthre...-Controller-(Spider-Config)-Flip-1-5-or-other

 

[Raptortech]

I've had great success with the ReadyToFlyer 2.8. It's an APM clone from ReadyToFly Quads, but MUUUUCHHH cheaper. It's $39, but it has a ton of optional extras. Just getting the FC and a GPS will only come to $57. But if your budget is $200, you may as well spec it out with telemetry, OSD, etc.

 

[makattack]

Yep, I agree with RaptorTech, my Versa Wing is flying a RTFlyer 2.5 -- an older revision, but it works on both fixed wing and multirotors very well (as well as rovers, helis, and as an antenna tracker!)

It's very versatile. On my fixed wing, I have an airspeed sensor for better performance.

 

[midnightdaylight]

Thanks all of you guys! you all helped give me some more (not so scary) options ... makattack lol OMG what is all that stuff haha, looks super cool, but way over my head.

 

[helinor]

I started out with a KK board on my F450 quad. Eventually I did more and more AP/AV with a GoPro on and to get the stability i needed for that I got a Naza lite ( no GPS at first...). Then got the GPS and what a difference. The lite had a bit of drift but that was cured by upgrading it with V2 sw. It now holds position even in wind. And it is so easy to set up. I used about an hour changing from KK to Naza, and even rebuilt some things on that time. For GPS mounting it took five min to mount and connect, and then some minutes to set it up with the PC. The set up program is the easiest I have seen and works great.

 

[midnightdaylight]

Very nice set up helinor! and thanks for that info about the easy set up