So I'm building a Pixhawk 4 Mini drone

JBinFla

New member
I ordered a Holybro QAV250 Pixhawk 4 Mini kit, the complete one with the FPV gear. It came Sunday, started an inventory and built the frame and mounted motors. I think I could have bought a mavic mini for about the price I'm into this thing for and had better performance but I really want to tinker, so this is just what the doctor ordered. One of the things I like is the 915mhz telemetry, give me a reason to take my laptop flying with me plus return to home when signal is lost. I'm a sucker for gadgets and readouts and such. I noticed the Holybro website shows this kit with one full size (for my laptop) and one mini radio. This came with two full size radios. I emailed and was told this is an "upgrade" and that they are replacing all mini's because of poor range. That's all good but the full size one doesn't have anywhere to fit in the frame so I need to do some thinking before I continue. I've kind of test fit everything and there's not a lot of room so I'm scratching my head.

This kit is designed for "no soldering", PDB already wired with wires and ESC's, and bullet connectors to connect everything. The downside to that is the wires are much longer than necessary, from the PDB to the ESC, and ESC to the motor, along with the ESC servo wires. I really wish there was a 4-in-1 ESC on here to clean wires up further! I'm thinking of cutting into it and shortening everything to minimum distances. Given I'm an absolute noob at soldering I'm wondering if this is a good idea, but it would clear up some space (and make it look like less of a birds nest). Anyone care to talk me into or out of it?

Anyway, I'll post more as my build progresses. I'll probably not resume until this weekend since my weekdays are pretty busy. Anyway, Hello all, looking forward to a hopefully successful maiden flight in a week or two. I plan on using PX4 (the pre-installed configured software) and QGroundControl but may try Ardupilot and another GCS after I get "proof of concept" and some successful flights on the PX4.

- Joe
 
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LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
I got one of the Holybro PixFalcon combos a while ago and they had swapped one of the all in one boards for individual components for similar reasoning. I ended up not using the 900mhz radios as I use full telemetry to my FrSky radio instead.