Recent 3DR's move not to sell DIY components & parts anymore, pushes hobbyists and prosumers to diversify their supplier's sources. Like many others in the community, my issue is to find an "as good quality as 3DR" alternative for a Pixhawk board. I started looking around for possible 3DR Pixhawk replacement candidates, with a quality I can trust in my builds.
There exist myriads of different "Pixhawk" equivalent boards. Most of them are not direct drop-in replacements as they are equipped with different connectors and have different sizes and shapes. Furthermore, most of them do not share the same quantity and redundancy of sensors (i..e.: two gyro, two accel, compass, baro, etc). A direct drop-in replacement is essential for prosumers and professionals trying to standardize parts, connections and components to a maximum.
Then, I was kindly requested by Gearbest to review some of their new FPV racer quad; offer which I declined being a very poor racer pilot (wouldn't have made justice to their fpv quad), proposing them instead to review their Pixhawk board which looked to be an exact match for 3DR Pixhawk board on all aspects: schematics, size, shape, connectors, etc.
This is what this video is about : a test, review and comparison of Gearbest's Pixhawk (versus 3DR's Pixhawk).
Hope this will provide some useful info for who's looking for Pixhawk flight controllers.
Cheers,
Hugues
Comments
thanks chris
could you say us when exactly it will be available and how much ?does it possible to buy for europeens customers without pay expansive shipping cost than before?
@chris because we loved the Y6 and Iris and are not anymore in production ...
ok ,chris, i support your firm for improvment of pixhawk, i plan to buy one.
where can i get the new version one in UK?
@Tridge - I ordered one last week, happy for you to experiment with mine (it will likely have a short lifespan with me anyway!)
@Tridge, thx, I'd like to run your test firmware if you have time. Much appreciated.
We're not stopping selling Pixhawks! I have to say this every week here, so I'll do it again: We're replacing Pixhawk 1 with a new, improved version in a month or so. I'll say it again: We are improving Pixhawk, not halting it.
Why do people find this so hard to understand?
can anybody say when 3DR will stop selling the Pixhawk? killing a business unit that works looks like a very unwise decision
Pixhack seems to be quite popular. I have one, but it seems like I unplugged the main power connector and it shut down with backup power connected; haven't verified that.
@Hughes, just change the main loop on the IO chip to blink the blue LED with a delay controlled by up_udelay(). I'm pretty sure it will be right, but if you want to check it I could give you a test fw.
Also put a logic analyser on the IO pins and make sure you get the right PWM pulse widths and period.
Nice Job,
This is a great idea.
Now that 3DR has moved on, it does leave it to us to figure out what does work and what doesn't without any further real or imagined proprietary concerns.
Several of the Devs have already been working with various manufacturers boards such as the Pixracer both on firmware patches and with the makers themselves to permit compatible operation.
But the fact is that it would be very worthwhile to have simple independent verification of the functionality or lack thereof of the growing number of true Pixhawk clones that are now turning up.
In the past there was reluctance to do this because of a perceived violation of the heavily invested parties (3DR's and possibly ETH's) rights (and investment) being trampled on.
But as it stands now, we are really much more on our own and need to get on with it.
Best Regards,
Gary
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