How good is the Walkera H500

[DennyR]

Walkera have been around making some good cheap stuff for a while now. When seeing how some of their stuff appears under a rebadged name one starts to ask the question of who is actually making stuff for DJI also. An interesting fact is that the H500 is reportedly using AMP 3.1.5 firmware. I guess they have made some tweaks themselves to that, but along with Knock-off cheap Pixhawks from a similar location. it would seem that this firmware has come of age. Anyone know if you can tune your H500 from the Mission Planner?

I have recently tested the Walkera G3D gimbal with the I-look camera. I would say that the camera needs a lens hood and a coated lens as it is very prone to lens flare. The gimbal was not as steady as the DJI Phantom2+ but that said, my example was in need of a lot of rebalancing.
I would say that the original 2 axis arms need a redesign to allow for balancing in the pan axis. It is out by miles and needs to be tidied up with loose wires blowing about in the wind. ....
Not sure why they needed to go hexa. to lift what is only a few grams above what the quad is lifting.
As things stand at the moment the DJI Phantom2+ gimbal/camera assy. has a definite edge over the walkera and for a lot less weight.

 

[SleepyC]

Perhaps motor redundancy?
ID it has the ability to land with a motor out, there's the safety feature the quad doesn't have.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Flying a hex with a motor out with Arducopter... might be possible, but hasn't been well proven.

I've read that they basically locked out a lot of stuff on the H500. It does not want to connect to MP naturally. You have to hack it, and even then, most of it is still locked out. So far it appears you can only use CLI which is very limited. In fact, CLI will be completely removed in 3.2 for APM. And the H500, I believe has APM-class controller, not Pixhawk.

 

[zneasthwk]

hexa for a reason

Perhaps motor redundancy?
ID it has the ability to land with a motor out, there's the safety feature the quad doesn't have.

my H500 did lose a motor last week.

At the time, I didn't realize a motor was out. I saw the copter wobbing in midair. I thought perhaps wind was the cause.

I managed to set the copter down. When I tried to take off again, the copter flipped over.

It is only then did I notice the motionless propeller.

Perhaps the GPS mode helped balanced the copter with only 5 motors while in midair. But on take-off, manual mode is required.
So 3 motors on one side overpower the two on the other side.

Redundancy is indeed a good thing, my intact copter is a proof to that.

But on the other hand, why does a welding point break so easily?

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Wow, so Arducopter flew it with a motor out? That's cool. I haven't seen other evidence that that would work on a hex with Arducopter.