pixhawks DEAD don't buy

After thousands of lost dollars and fly away copters I'm done with the Pixhawk flight controllers tottal wast of money more time fixing it then flying

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • @Thomas Butler - now THAT is an awesome development! I will definitely be keeping my eye on this, thanks for the great teaser.

    Is the OP still watching this thread? Maybe he will start over with your new controller. ;-)

    Jed

  • Haha! Guess you missed the winking smiley face there...but thanks for adding in your caveats. I'm sure you could tell I was just teasing. You do bring up a good point, because it is still in production, and I did fly a small (maybe 550-ish size) quad with it about a week ago just to test some parts. So if someone only wants to R/C a drone around like we used to with planes, and not do autonomous flight, or have features like RTL etc, and they actually know how to fly something (i.e. can't just push this button and the craft hovers like magic for them), then it does still work.

    Just so you don't get the wrong idea through my kidding around though (since the Internet has a strange way of making people misinterpret stuff) I agree with you - it's not like I'm using the Parallax flight controller for my daily driver or anything these days! ;-)

    I'm honestly looking forward to building a rig with this new Navio2 setup that just arrived in the mail yesterday. Enjoy your Pixhawks! I know we do. Our good friend built a matching drone of one of ours and loves his as well, so that's at least four "nearly perfect" working Pixhawk units that I have had first hand experience with. Back to the OP and his apparent problems - we can be pretty sure it's not the fault of the Pixhawk. There are a lot of other links in the chain to take a good look at and point the blame at as well if his rigs are "flying away".

  • I just couldn't resist. ;-) Only one is both designed and manufactured in the U.S.A. that I know of: Parallax ELEV-8 Flight Controller. Although admittedly pretty long in the tooth compared to more recent FCs, and I don't even use mine anymore. It's only got altitude hold off the barometer, and no hope of GPS, etc. But they did write all the software interface, still make it in house, and I've been to their facility in Rocklin, California. Really nice people there.

    Our UAVs now have Pixhawk and Pix-mini, and working up a new one with the Navio2 on an RPi to see if I can learn some more.

    Have a great year flying!


    Thomas Butler said:

    ...How many drone controllers are designed and manufactured in the US? None.

    Happy flying!

    ELEV-8 Flight Controller | 80204 | Parallax Inc
  • Interesting claim. 

    I have been flying last year for more than 100 h (in air time) and mapped more than 1.500 ha with diy copters bulid from cheap china stuff as well as mRo autopilots and I have never experienced a single flyaway. I had some problems which where almost all user introduced. I'm very happy that I don't have to deal with DJI hardware and I'm totally happy with my mRo x2.1 and even with my China Pixhawk clone autopilot.

    So I think the thing one really should say is thank you very much for your time and ideas, dear developers! 

  • I strongly suggest you pay a professional to build and setup your pixhawk drone if your not able to do it your self successfully! there is a learning curve involved not so much with DJI products your not even controlling the drone directly so you do not learn how to relay fly!  use the latest versions of Pixhawk PX4 hardware & software not the old stuff as well as proper reliable hardware from trusted sources not eBay! cheep boards corners are always cut with substandard chips substandard GPS modules latest version is 2.1 !  

  • DJI and PIX hawk are very different your comparing apples to oranges one is a closed consumer product the other is opensource DIY product ! one requiters knowledge and expertise to get the best result DJI you only need money to buy ! 

    Thomas Butler said:

    On the positive side, the money you spent and the money I spent helped to pay for evolution of the market and development of current technology. Same thing happen to early buyers of the automobile. I too have spent LOTS of money on electronics that were not quite there, but I learned a lot about electronics and software. In the 1980's I spent LOTS of money on Radio-Shack TR(A)S(H)-80; that computer took an angry fast tumble down the basement stairs, but I persevered, and became an electronics and software engineer!

    Pixhawk never had the corporate development dollars DJI products have had. Note the difference. It is always fun to see tear-downs that expose some of the QUESTIONABLE but functional techniques used in electronics packaging and how it has evolved. Like many technological innovations (and most products) there is a predictable path for product evolution (Business101). Look at PCs. The Radio-Shack TRS-80 had relatively little corporate investment as did Apple whereas IBM came on the scene and made a WORKING and RELIABLE Personal Computer (IBM's greed caused them to fail[and sell out to Lenovo]).

    However, note the web site you are posting on; Do-It-Yourself-Drones. As an experimenter's tool, Pixhawk and other open-source products are great electronics/software learning tool. In addition they aid learning in other fields; aerodynamics, etc.. How many products are there where a person can get access to the hardware schematics, circuit board layout, AND the software source. A great aid to learning about electronics and software. The fact that the earlier multi-rotor products had dubious quality is another issue for another day...

    Pixhawk and other devices that have design documentation are in reality NOT for end-users who just want to take pictures/videos. They are in fact, although the designers probably won't admit it, learning/R&D tools. Would you drive a car with the cruise control that came from a third party and in a KIT!

    Compare the early 3DR quad-copter to a DJI Mavic Pro 2. At the time, the 3DR was an acceptable product. The difference is a perfect example of product evolution (I realize they were made by different companies). It's the technological evolution that is and was predictable; and amazing. DJI no doubt put an order of magnitude of money into development compared to 3DR.

    Happy flying!

    pixhawks DEAD don't buy
    After thousands of lost dollars and fly away copters I'm done with the Pixhawk flight controllers tottal wast of money more time fixing it then flying
  • Experience Is bold & stupid ? With Experience comes knowledge! In my Experience this is the cause you can either learn form it or add something of substance not call people names ! if you need professional help as for it ? 

    Andre K. said:

    What a bold, but stupid claim.

    I bet thousands of professional users would like to know some, or all of the mistakes you made, but will never know because you did not post any logs.

    pixhawks DEAD don't buy
    After thousands of lost dollars and fly away copters I'm done with the Pixhawk flight controllers tottal wast of money more time fixing it then flying
  • What a bold, but stupid claim.

    I bet thousands of professional users would like to know some, or all of the mistakes you made, but will never know because you did not post any logs.

  • this is usually caused by user error ! GPS signal interference RC radio interference & EMF interference form the environment all other craft will have similar behavior!    

This reply was deleted.

Activity