AUAV is proud to announce our latest high quality PixHawk derivative - The XRacer V1. This project was developed in cooperation with Lorenz Meier, David Sidrane, Leonard Hall and many others. This board combines the latest IMU offerings from InvenSense and a large number of capabilities in a micro 36mmx36mm form factor.
Below are some pictures to peak your interest.
XRacer V1 specifications:
- MCU - STM32F427VIT6 rev.3
- FRAM - FM25V02-G
- Ultra low noise LDOs for sensors and FMU
- Sensors used - MPU9250, HMC5983 ( optional ), ICM20608 ( optional ), baro MS5611
- Connectors - GPS+I2C, RC-IN, PPM-IN, RSSI, SBus-IN, Spektrum-IN, USART3 ( TxD, RxD, CTS, RTS ), USART2 ( TxD, RxD, CTS, RTS ), FRSky-IN, FRSky-OUT, CAN, USART8 ( TxD, RxD ), ESP8266 ( full set ), SERVO1-SERVO6, USART7 ( TxD, RxD ), JTAG ( SWDIO, SWCLK ), POWER-BRICK ( VDD, Voltage, Current, GND ), BUZZER-LED_BUTTON
- MicroSD card reader
- RGB LED
- Micro USB
- ESP8266 802.11bgn ( optional )
- Dimensions - 36 x 36mm with 30.5 x 30.5mm hole grid with 3.2mm holes
- Molex Clik-Mate ( JST GH series ) connectors for easy peripheral connect.
- Full set of ready made cables for almost any peripheral module.
- Power supply - 5-5.5VDC from USB or PowerBrick connector. Soon the ACSP4 ( 36 x 36mm power distribution, current, voltage sensor with 5V/2.5A ultra low noise buck and 12V/2A ultra low noise buck ) companion will be announced.
The price and availability will be announced within a few weeks.
Thank you again for your support.
Phil and Nick
Comments
Hi Mark,
I don't agree with some of your points. This board isn't to compete with a clean flight board, this board enables a fully fledged autopilot capable of fitting in a 180 sized quad. The only weight penalty is that of the GPS. This board also represents the next step in Pixhawk sensors and form factor that is equally relevant for much larger aircraft.
So your first point of keeping all unnecessary sensors off the board. The only sensors that are not necessary are the redundant ones and the board can be made without them. Sensors like the baro are fundamental to running Arducopter and without them Arducopter becomes an Acro and Stabilize only controller. Why not just use Clean flight.
I think you are exaggerating the plastic plug issue. From a reliability perspective soldering wires is a serious cause of problems as the solder makes the wire inflexible and wires tend to break where the solder stops. I solder all high current connections but all light wires are crimped unless I can't avoid it.
Hi G crashes haven't caused any problems with my standard pixhawk so I don't expect to see problems here.
Faster chipset is better and loop times need to match the gyro frequency are very broad statements. The simple fact of the matter is that the chipset is more than fast enough and faster chipsets won't add significantly to the fpv market. Arducopter will run two independent EKF's on this board with plenty of room left for control. Control loops should be synced to the gyro reads and directly output to the esc's, however the frequency does not need to be the same.
I am personally really excited about this board and I am looking forward to putting this into a 1+ kW 180 sized quad :)
That is really tiny! Great to see this and Tridge's comment above about how we should be able to support it on the software side.
Great work Nick. A few general comments.
a) Pls keep it ultra simple. FPV racers are bare bone go carts. Keep all unnecessary sensors off the board, eg. baro. FPV racers need only the gyro and accel.
b) Some sort of wireless connectivity is useful as PID tuning is a big part of flying well. Some of the top flyers will go 30 batteries to tune their quad.
c) No plastic plugs, they are a nightmare. Most of our customers wont touch anything with a plastic plug. Everything is direct soldered except for ESCs. Even the escs are now starting to be direct soldered with the integration of one wire with blheli.
d) When you hit objects and the ground repeatedly at +100km/hr, the G's cause a lot of wear. How will you board stack up?
e) A nice to have is a small 5v output reg around 500mw
f) The faster the chipset the better. F3 is now the norm. Basically, your loop time needs to match the gyro frequency.
g) ppm sbus and serial inputs. Can be single port with software configuration.
h) Multiple serial ports, hardware or soft serial. 1 is essential, three is perfect.
Obviously the above is a for an fpv racer, I am sure there will be competing priorities....
Cheers
Mark
I should mention, we are making some minor design improvements to this board.
Our 80-90A 55volt(12S) PRO CAN ESC sold for $130.00 . We have no problem selling everyone we make.
http://www.auav.co/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=PIXHAWKESC16DEV
Brian, with our boards, You can expect to pay the same as you would for a quality ESC, such as Castle Creations. Nick and I have no interest in being the cheapest nor can we afford to be. There is a sustainability argument here. Our preference is to produce the best quality products we can. As soon as we release our design files, you can bet there will be cheaper clone boards to be had.
I understand that a CAN based ESC can support a whole lot more than existing ESCs, but I've seen so many "next-gen" ESC projects that go nowhere because they just can't compete with the $10-$20 generic ESCs that have actually gotten pretty good with the opensource firmware. How much do you estimate one of your ESCs will cost? For the hobbyist, when you start multiplying the cost difference by 4-8 it can add up pretty fast.
Thorsten, 6 is the number of PWM outputs, not IO ports.
Brian,
Nick and I helped produce the PX4ESC 1.6 PRO which is way too much for the average user. That said we learned a ton. Nick and I have a smaller 25-30A design that is production ready. Ben Dyer has a 35-40A ESC that is available. Also, CAN ESCs are far more capable than the PWM versions so there is a slight premium in price. CAN support is currently being finalized in both PX4 and ArduPilot code bases.
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