PicoPilot NA bottom:
ALT3E top:
ALT3E bottom:
GPS module outside (this is just a standard Holux GPS module):
The Holux GPS module inside:
To give you an idea how basic these PCBs are, here's the PicoPilot bottom and the AttoPilot and ArduPilot bottoms side by side, ranked in increasing sophistication. Again, note the careful effort to maximize the ground planes (big light green areas) for noise reduction in ArduPilot and AttoPilot, and the minimal use in PicoPilot.
PicoPilot PCB bottom:
ArduPilot PCB bottom:
AttoPilot PCB bottom:
Comments
I must add that the Picopilot is what hooked me to hobby UAVs in the first place so I still have a few in my UAV museum :). They work fine if used with electric motor glider type airframes, for which I think they were intended.
Nowadays I prefer other systems like the Gluonpilot...
Wow, I hadn't thought about PicoPilot for awhile, and curious what's happening at UNAV these days.
Here is the link to their latest autopilot http://u-nav.com/3501-autopilot.aspx
...Still priced out of reality.
Perhaps @Michael hadn't noticed the date of the original thread.
But thanks for the post @Michael , interesting to hear others had issues as well.
Wow way to bring a historic post Michael! Most folks on here don't know they are born with multiple cheap autopilots to buy these days ;-)
Not necessarily true. You don't always knee-jerk fill open areas with ground planes around analog components. The ground plane copper fill is more important for digital portions of the PCB. So don't go hard on the PicoPilot for lack of copper fill. Dave had the good sense to add an OpAmp current amplifier between the AD gyro and the PIC ADC inputs.
Not too much, since this would be a test of PID tuning skills, not the autopilots.
Still, I think the Pico performs well - look at the attached GPS track of 8 consecutive laps of 1 kilometer. Would be fun to do a side-by.side with all available autopilots..."Let's make it clear: u-nav failed to deliver Microsoft-style marketing? No major breakthrough every 1 year? No number of waypoins doubling every 7 months? No price halving for out-of-stock product? No 70% price reduction for universities that buy over 300 licenses?"
That is a little over the top, however, this is a professional company selling these components and as such I would expect a little more care in the presentation and quality of their product. More functionality does not just refer to way points, but the system as a whole and being able to adapt the product to suit their clients needs. No one is expecting a 'major breakthrough every 1 year', yet, being able to customize or update the system to keep in touch with the technology would be a good option to have.
"No price halving for out-of-stock product? No 70% price reduction for universities that buy over 300 licenses" People are happy to pay for quality, I am not suggesting they offer what you have stated, however, the increases in technology, on the balance, make things cheaper not more expensive to the consumer.
A honeypot would be welcome, but an adjustable potentiometer for tuning... me be scareee... gyro offset? This offset is supposed to float around with temperature. Therefore fixed, manual analog tuning doesn't sound good.
Or maybe there is something in the pot that justifies it's presence. Manual noise filter tuning??? All this is nonsense in presence of SMD resistors. I don't understand why it is here. It SHOULD do something in such minimalist design.
Also, I see 2 pots, one on alti module and one on gyro module...
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