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  • Marco Fan July 21, 2015 at 6:17am

    Hi people...someone managed to install APM inside?

  • gervais April 26, 2015 at 5:42am

    True Rob, 10 pennies for a vib log and a close look @ the solder job of one item shipped.

  • Rob_Lefebvre April 26, 2015 at 5:15am

    That's a good point Gary.  Because many/most of these clones actually DO break the OS license.

    Gervais, I'm also a supporter of the Pixhack.  (I do wish they had used a decent name) Another hardware from China which adds value to the ecosystem by coming up with a fresh new design. That Pixraptor looks really interesting too.  

    Wish I had enough money to try all of these.  I'm curious about how well the vibration damping works.  This is something that is not so easy to get right,  and most of us are painfully aware that many Chinese companies are all too happy to dump half-baked junk that doesn't work on us.

  • gervais April 25, 2015 at 11:08pm

    CUAV PIXHACK (PIXHAWK derivate with internally damped IMU) is finally ready as its sales stated @ RCgroups.So there is no need to return to APM for box lovers. Even a second (boxed) version with internal damping on the market, called PIXRAPTOR, introduced here, sold here. Both of them don´t seem to supply diagrams. But hopefully the 3DR PIX 2 is coming up soon. Meanwhile my AUAV-X2 does a great job as small "diy boxed" PX replacement :-)

  • Gary McCray April 25, 2015 at 5:26pm

    This "debate" goes on over every new copy of APM / Pixhawk.

    The reality is that what we really need to concern ourselves with is whether they are meeting the terms of open source or open hardware licensing.

    Basically publishing their board and hardware layout, schematic and firmware highlighting any changes made from the original and giving appropriate recognition to the creators.

    From what I see here there has been no attempt at all to do that so they are in violation of the real legal conditions.

    Trying to keep the Chinese from copying open source and hardware stuff is a completely futile gesture and their giant plants in Shenzen are not running at full capacity so they love free stuff.

    The quality of much of the hardware coming from China is first rate (a lot of garbage too), but even the flight controllers (as Chris identifies here) are getting better and a lot of people are going to buy them and they will also start coming standard in Chinese RTF "drones" that will sell in the tens of thousands.

    Here at DIYDrones, the ACME of this world we really, as Hugues said, are more interested in the Pixhawk V2 than "yet another APM clone".

    So if you want to stick one of these on your little 250 FPV racer go ahead, I'm sure it will be a lot of fun, in any case, this thread is just a time waster, because we already know all of this, lets get on with the neat stuff.

    Best regards,

    Gary

  • Rob_Lefebvre April 25, 2015 at 4:42pm

    Al, I really don't know what you're going on about.  I actually pay handsomely for my web browser, by way of providing the vendor reams of data about myself, which they in turn sell to 3rd party advertisers.  That is the deal that was agreed upon by both parties.

    And even if that were not the case, you're really not making any kind of point at all.  I've never said anybody is stealing anything by taking advantage of an open source license.  So of course I won't even attempt to defend that point.

    FWIW, you might be interested to know I just bought an AUAV-X2 which is a pin-compatible Pixhawk alternative from Nick Arsov.  Very nice little board that adds value to the ecosystem by offering an alternative design with several important differences.

  • Al Billings April 25, 2015 at 9:24am

    Thanks, Rob. I'm still waiting for your responses about licenses that I asked you. Feel free to reply.

  • Rob_Lefebvre April 25, 2015 at 4:16am

    Al, if you or anybody else think that something was intentionally added to the code to prevent cheap Chinese clones from working, I invite you to find it, and remove it.  That is in the spirit of open source, after all.

  • Gustavo Togeiro de Alckmin April 24, 2015 at 7:47pm

    Great discussion and great points were brought by Al. I also do not feel comfortable by reading the word "clone" referring to a open source project.

  • Al Billings April 24, 2015 at 5:09pm

    Thanks.

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