APM 2.6 or 2.5, which to buy?

Hi,

I'm looking at buying an APM for a fixed-wing initially, but with the intention to use it on a quad at some point in the future.

From what I understand, the only difference between the two versions is the removal of the onboard magnetometer from the 2.6 board. I want to buy the most up to date and capable autopilot, not a legacy version.

I'm confused because the APM 2.5 appears to have a bridge point for disabling the onboard magnetometer, so why release a whole new board to achieve what is already achievable on the 2.5 with a bit of solder? If I bought a 2.5 and bridged-out the mag, can I still connect the 3DR GPS uBlox LEA-6 + Compass module?

Other than the stated reasons for having an off-board compass are there any other advantages to having the uBlox+compass over the mediaTek+onboard compass?

Cheers

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TheMightyThor October 22, 2013 at 1:42pm

How do you identify a 2.6 board from a 2.5 board? is there some marking on it, or is it as simple as a mark thru the old onboard compass? thanks in advance
Developer

Bill Bonney August 8, 2013 at 11:39am

Its been discovered that on Multi-rotors we cannot compensate for the magnetometer interference in software. This compensation has been more successful in ArduPlane.

The removal of the mag is the only difference, once the magnetometer is disabled you can connect an external one.

Not populating the mag onboard keeps costs down.

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APM 2.6 or 2.5, which to buy?

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