Newbie, New build, radio question

[doehme]

Hi All,

After years in other areas of RC I've decided to build a quad. I'm thinking a 525 size with room for expansion of capabilities as skills an interest develop.

As such I've been planning on a MultiWii PRO Flight Controller w/MTK GPS Module. A bit fiddly to setup apparently but I'm comfortable with similar concepts in my work and want to not limit future capabilities.

My question is this.... To allow future use of functions like auto height hovering and RTH plus others, do I need a radio with heaps of channels? I'd imaging I need a switch and therefore a channel for each of these functions. So with a view to "future proofing" what I'm hoping to one day being able to do with this thing, how many channel radio whould I buy?

EG: If I've got the flight basics (throttle, elevator, rudder and aileron equivelents) plus activate a camera, RTH, initiate HGT hold and a spare, it sounds like I need 8 or 9 channels. Is this correct?

I'm not after a high performance sky burner here. More a lifter and stable platform. I'm thinking 800kv motors and 11x4.7 or similar props - reasonably low revving with torque to burn and good for lifting. Is my research close or am I way off?

Thanks in advance.

Yours

Dene

 

[Bartman]

Moved to the beginners' lounge.

Maybe the area needs a less humbling name? Like Future Experts' Lounge?

But alas, we were all beginners at some point, and after years we're still just scratching the surface. <insert philosophical smiley/emoticon here>

 

[tstrike]

Dene, welcome to the mrf, you want a minimum of 6 channels and a maximum of whatever you can afford before the wife gives you that stinkeye look.
Basically you can never have enough channels.
I'm also flying a 525mm quad-
View attachment 12910I'm using an 8 channel radio (dx8) and all the aux holes are filled up, more would be nice.

 

[ProPilotWannaBe]

Dene, agree with tstrike. Just to provide a little rationale... Most Flight Controllers will require 6 or 7 minimum to get the bare essentials of flying going. Once you add a gimbal, then you need additional channels. Then as you start adding features (turning lights on/off, controlling the camera, turning on the afterburners (j/k)), then you need additional channels. I personally am biased toward the Futaba 8FG which gives you 14 channels.

As for your choice of motors and props... I'm not your guy. =D

 

[doehme]

No problem with moving it to this forum. My rationale was that this forum only had 1 thread at the time I posted whereas the other had thousands and therefore a bigger potential audience. Hopefully some of the many users on the other forum will look here now and answer my questions as well. All opinions are valued. Thanks for your help so far.

Dene

 

[Teamflail]

Dene, agree with tstrike. Just to provide a little rationale... Most Flight Controllers will require 6 or 7 minimum to get the bare essentials of flying going. Once you add a gimbal, then you need additional channels. Then as you start adding features (turning lights on/off, controlling the camera, turning on the afterburners (j/k)), then you need additional channels. I personally am biased toward the Futaba 8FG which gives you 14 channels.

As for your choice of motors and props... I'm not your guy. =D

I want this 'afterburner' thing you speak of!! Muhahaha. Oh yeah, and lasers. Many, many lasers..

 

[ProPilotWannaBe]

I was going to say missile launch, but thought that might be too violent of a joke.

 

[Electro 2]

My question is this.... To allow future use of functions like auto height hovering and RTH plus others, do I need a radio with heaps of channels?

Yes, yes, and yes. There is no such thing as too many. With the controller you mention, (I have one, BTW), if you want to seperate the automated flight functions totally, i.e. on totally seperate switches it would require 8 channels. Now throw in a pilot operated camera/gimbal, (the best set-up is to have another camera operator with a totally seperate radio), and you're up to about 11 channels. Throw in lighting, parachute pop, or other "out there" stuff, and bang you're into 14 or so. Ipso facto: big radios are waaaay cool.

 

[CryBaby]

Flight Controller discussion would be a great start for us newbies. The flight controller is the heart of your build. The best build on the planet will only be as good as the controller that directs it. I believe we all need to understand flight controllers and what it is we must have for our wants and needs. It could be in a budget order, $1 to $100, $100 - $500, and $500 to forever. Irregardless we all have to understand controllers.