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Bit of advice needed!

Posted by Nick Thomson on November 3, 2013 at 1:22pm

Hey there.


I've just started getting interested in UAV's and the inner geek in me has the urge to go out and buy a RC plane, and get to work.


However, earlier today I saw for sale locally a guy who had an assembled APM original version for $20.


Considering the prices of what they go for now,  should I buy it? I don't know anything about the early versions so I was wanting to get the wisdom of the group.

Thanks.

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Replies

  • Kris Clarke March 29, 2015 at 2:29am

    Have a look at some UAV websites for more information- http://www.suas-global.com/

  • Admin
    Thomas J Coyle III November 3, 2013 at 2:30pm

    @Nick,

    If it is an APM1.1 then it probably only has an Atmel 1280 mcu which has a limited amount of memory compared to the APM1.4 which had an Atmel 2560 mcu with more memory.

    I do not know how much program memory the Arduplane firmware requires, but the Atmel 1280 mcu may not have enough to be able to load all of the code.

    Regards,

    TCIII ArduRover2 Developer

  • Gerard Toonstra November 3, 2013 at 1:43pm

    My opinion is that it depends on the investment of the rest. If you're shelling out $300-400 to get a frame+motors, than the $20 older controller isn't going to make you very happy in the long run and is going to risk losing your investment. If you want to make a frame out of wood however and have some motors around or know to get them really cheap <$100, then $20 is a great way to get started to learn the controls. It won't be really precise, but it'll be quite fun flying it in spacious fields. Without a GPS you can still fly manual and not having a magnetometer requires you as operator to control any yaw issues.

    When people started with multirotors they just used a bunch of gyro's for control. Yaw, pitch and roll control was basically up to the operator and there wasn't any "stabilized" control like the new versions offer. So lots of learning there and getting the craft 'in your fingers'.

    Those are the differences, basically.

  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer November 3, 2013 at 1:25pm

    Does that include a GPS? Is it a 1 ???

    Probably best to buy the latest version to get started because not many folks are playing with the early boards now and are therefore current for support. You also don't know if has been crashed several times.

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