I'm considering purchasing a Droidworx copter to do aerial photography. I love my 3DR quad and hex but I think it's time to move up to something purpose built for photography.
So now I have to make a decision about flight controllers and the only experience I have is with the 3DR APM. I realize that it may not be a fair comparison but what I'm interested in is how the APM stacks up to commercial controllers like the Wookong and Nazi? APM seems to have all the features that a $1400 Wookong offers. I'd love to stick with open source but I also need the copter to be stable and reliable given the expensive gear it will be flying.
If anyone who has experience with both types of controllers would care to share I would really appreciate hearing about the differences good and bad.
Replies
Yes! Very keen to hear from people who have actually *used* both systems, preferably in a professional capacity.
I'm moving into commercial operations and while I love the flexibility of being able to get in and code for the APM I'm also nervous about really basic functionality (e.g. camera control, battery monitoring) being sketchy at best, as well as the frequent horror stories of uncommanded behavior, which needless to say is a Very Bad Thing when you have a few thousand dollars worth of equipment in the air.
I still plan to get started using the APM, but once money is rolling in if a commercial option offers additional functionality, ease of use or higher reliability then there's an obvious financial upside to spending that money. I'm hoping the ArduCopter code matures sufficiently along with the more sophisticated PX4 hardware to make it a clearer decision by that point in time. Chris has recently said during an interview that he feels that the APM is now on par with if not exceeding the DJI offerings.