Best alternative to Naza? Arducopter?

[Totality]

I was looking at using the Naza with a QAV500 but keep seeing stories of it not working due to the frame wobbling at higher speeds. Just wondering what flight controller is similar to Naza? With the QAV500 people seem to use CC3D but this is never in stock.

How do the Arducopter autopilots stack up? The videos on YouTube seem like the GPS lock is not as solid to me, but it may just be the guys who programmed them. The craft seems to drift a lot compared to the Naza.

I fly mainly in Atti or GPS so not after a pure manual solution as still learning the ropes. Manual will come, but having Atti is nice for now!

 

[Bowley]

I use an APM2, its hard to give a fair appraisal of it without a very good working knowledge of it, my initial view is that its alt and pos'n hold is not as locked in as naza, I think Naza GPS lock is awesome. Ive had it locked in solid in 30kt winds. I just think Naza is a bit wobbly though, fine for AP but questionable for AV in all but zero wind.
I've just scratched the surface with Ardupilot and its going to be a long ongoing project to get it tuned. Naza is simple whereas APM2 has a hell of a lot more user interface which can be a little overwhelming but the tools are there and its up to the user to make it work. At the moment I am finding the APM atti to be a little to tight for my liking despite being slack in Pos and Alt holds, but if I reduce the Proportionals any more it becomes uncontrollable, I just need to get my head around the Integrals and Differentials.

 

[kloner]

I think we want to wait for the new open pilot stuff. That's what i'm gonna try to do,,, i want the new one think it's "revolution", it's more like a naza gps, has a sattelite, nav, rth, stuff like that

 

[R_Lefebvre]

If you haven't seen videos of the latest from Arducopter using the Ublox GPS, you should. The GPS positioning is pretty solid. 1-2m error, which is about as good as you can get with GPS. We believe that Naza and Wookong are actually using inertial dead reckoning, with GPS just as a drift-correction, which is why their "GPS" hold seems to be better. (not knocking, it, just explaining the technology). Same deal with the Alt Hold. We are pure barometer, they are probably using inertia.

Other than this slight error, I find Arducopter to be very solid.

 

[kloner]

how much is it? the whole thing

 

[Bowley]

how much is it? the whole thing

About £180...roughly $300 I guess.

 

[Totality]

Thanks, so for a pure FPV copter and not smooth aerial photos with a gimbal, it sounds like the arducopter would be OK as you would rarely be using GPS hold. Plus the ArduCopter has waypoints which could be fun!

 

[kloner]

rob, you know any fpv quad guys using it? got any vids can show us of it in fff or whatever?

 

[R_Lefebvre]

how much is it? the whole thing

It depends what you mean by "whole thing" as there are lots of options.

-APM 2.5 $199
-Ublox GPS upgrade (recommended) $50
-3DR Radio Telemetry Modem $75
-MinimOSD $65
-Sonar $45 (I wouldn't bother)

Then you can go nuts with Ardustation, antenna trackers that interface with Mission Planner, etc.

The nice thing about it is one completely integrated system. The OSD plugs into the APM, bingo, all your data on your video feed. Ground control station gives you all your data too, and also runs a tracker. It can also drive a camera gimbal natively. Heck, you can even plug in a LED lights that and set it up to give you some visual feedback (this is native onboard as well). It's awesome.

I don't know of any FPV videos yet, but I'm hoping to shoot one soon. I've been waiting for weather and timing to line up. It gets dark early here now and I just spend an hour tonight futzing around with the latest Beta, and it was dark by the time I went out. I still did go out and did some "Guided" mode flying, which means "click and fly" on a map. Worked great!

 

[xtrmtrk]

I don't want to be super negative in a public forum, but if anyone wants to know about some less than stellar experiences with APM, please PM me.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

No need to be secretive about it. Air your issues. Let's find out if these are things that have already been dealt with, or not. Because there were problems in the past, I don't deny that. But things are working well now.

 

[xtrmtrk]

No need to be secretive about it. Air your issues. Let's find out if these are things that have already been dealt with, or not. Because there were problems in the past, I don't deny that. But things are working well now.

Thank you for the offer/request/suggestion, but I'll stick with my original offer. Much less stress, much less drama.

 

[Totality]

As the person who started this thread, you would think I would be keen to email, but I feel I would be getting a one sided view. I agree with the other guy as if you simply posted a brief description of what was wrong it could be that it is now fixed or there is a fix for it. I won't be emailing you a PM to hear about something that I have no idea about! You could put me off the product for no valid reason. Sorry.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

There's no drama here. I strive to only be open, fair and honest. I posted a video of my helicopter a few days ago at HeliFreak, and some people got interested in it, but here is my response:

Now, just to be clear to everyone, I don't think this system should be considered fully mature for helicopters. A lot of people (including myself) have had a lot of trouble with it in the past, particularly with regards to vibration. I can't say if it's better or worse than any other stabilization system out there as I haven't used them. But one user couldn't get it working, then bolted on a DJI Ace One, and right off the bat it worked perfectly.

What I have found is that it is very sensitive to a ball bearing failing. If you've got a really bad bearing, it will *actively* crash the helicopter on you. What we are missing is any kind of warning that there is a problem until it is too late. If you are flying manually in stabilize, you can feel it start to go and land it before disaster, but if you were on a long automatic flight, you might not notice until it's too late.

Use of this system on helicopters is still a bit of a science experiment at this point.

http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=456700

 

[R_Lefebvre]

rob, you know any fpv quad guys using it? got any vids can show us of it in fff or whatever?

Kloner, not truly FPV, but I did a "click and fly" mission last night with my Contour mounted.

http://youtu.be/rV6ZBVSgAOs

I think the PID tuning for the speed regulation in auto mode needs tuning as it seemed to keep stopping and starting. I haven't touched those settings from whatever the defaults are yet.

It was pretty cool though. It was way out there, couldn't hardly see it. Just basically trusting in the software to get the job done, and it did.

 

[kloner]

i was expecting it to be single rotor

does this thing support 400hz speed controllers? is that 400hz esc's

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I fly both aircraft. Different horses for different courses. I try to avoid flying my big heli in the neighborhood as much as possible. Hopefully I'll get to do some FPV on the helicopter soon, but it will be over farmers fields. I also am a bit wary of doing this without a tracker. It wouldn't take the 600 very long to fly 250m which is starting to push the range of my existing radio link! I also try new things on the quad first, since it's cheaper if it crashes.

Yes, it updates the ESC's at 400Hz, I forget the exact number, but it's up there. Still, there isn't much reason to go that fast since we are only running the stabilization code at 50Hz. Also, these are non-flashed ESC's, just stock firmware. That's the only reason to use the high update rate. It pushes the signal through the low-pass-filter in the ESC faster, since the ESC is getting 8 samples for every update.

 

[Paul881]

I am a newbie and trying to come to terms and plan with balancing learning to fly, investment for the future with the gear I buy, living in the M.East with the difficulties of obtaining stuff etc so I was just thinking of a Flamewheel F550 + Naza+ GPS. Then I started to learn about the APM 2.5 which got me thinking........would the ARP be suitable for a beginner? I am fairly good with computers and software and pretty good with DIY too. But I still thing the F550 would be the way to go for me.

Rob, I also saw and read your whole thread (several times over) on the DwarfStar which also got me thinking.......but maybe that is a step to far for me at this stage! I'd welcome any thoughts and insights.

Ultimately, I aspire to FPV.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

If you are good with computers and software, then I think the APM is worth a try. It is harder to use, but offers way more advanced features than... well anything else on the market really. You have to be prepared for a bit of an adventure, but you'll probably learn a lot along the way.

As for the frame, don't think of starting out with mine. It's too powerful and won't handle crashing very well.

 

[Paul881]

If you are good with computers and software, then I think the APM is worth a try. It is harder to use, but offers way more advanced features than... well anything else on the market really. You have to be prepared for a bit of an adventure, but you'll probably learn a lot along the way.

As for the frame, don't think of starting out with mine. It's too powerful and won't handle crashing very well.

Rob, if I was back home in the UK I would be tempted to try your frame but out here with limited tools and spares its a no-go. Just seeing your bent motor mounts would mean an expensive UPS and Duty tax - plus a few weeks wait wondering if the replacement parts would ever arrive!

So I'm fairly comfortable with the F550 and APM. How do you compare it's stability against the Naza+GPS?