Best flight controller for drone : How to choose it

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best flight controller-for-a-drone?-2

What is a flight controller?

Simply the electronic chips in it doing, sens orientation changes, receiving data from the pilot, calculate data and use those data to fly the drone.

In this post, I’ll cover up all the facts you need to know before choosing the best flight controller for your drone or multi-copter.

There a few main steps you should follow when choosing the best flight controller for your drone and they are –

What are your purpose and budget?

budget

Before choosing FC you must have to figure out what exactly you are trying to accomplish.

Build your very first quadcopter/multirotor.

Drone racing.

Make a drone for aerial photography and videography drone.

Build an autonomously flying rescue drone.

Of course, depending on your purpose, the price will change. An entry-level flight controller like the KK2.X for a first drone or a cc3d (which is very popular on racing drones), would be way cheaper than a flight controller capable of autonomous flying or super stable videography drone.

Performance and Capabilities.

 

drone performance

Every flight controllers not equal in performance and capabilities. Some flight controllers are better than others at capabilities and balancing. The APM 2.X model’s handling capabilities, for example, are far inferior to the DJI NAZA M.By the way APM performs well in autonomous flying.

When we talking about capabilities and performances, FC sensors doing such a big part. Let’s discuss some sensors and features that you must check when choosing the best flight controller for your drone, depending on your needs:

  • GPS :how-to-choose-a-best-flight-controller-for-a-drone?-gps :Useful for hold the current position or stable the flight and autonomous flying.
  • Micro-controller bit size (ex:8bit) : Flight performs well when increase this bit value.
  • Gyroscope and accelerometers how-to-choose-a-best-flight-controller-for-a-drone?-gyroscope: Use to stable the flight, lot of flight controllers have this.
  • Barometer : Holding altitudes (A requirement for most cinematography based multi-copters)
  • Supporting the kind of craft you want to build: (quadcopter, hexacopter, tri-copter, octa-copter)
  • Magnetometer and Lights : Useful for detecting direction (head holding)

When you choosing the best flight controller to check the items above, it needs your requirements.

Best beginner or entry level flight controllers

KK2.X

how-to-choose-a-best-flight-controller-for-a-drone?-kk2

The KK2 board is so much popular with beginners. The main reason for popular that much is because It is cheap, easy to set up and the support for almost all flight configurations (including tricopter, quadcopter, hexacopter, octocopter, wing, etc).The on-board screen makes it much easier to tune configure the drone.

Advantages of KK2.x

  • Cheap
  • Supports almost all flight configurations
  • Onboard LCD Screen
  • Easy to setup
  • Good for basic quadcopter

Disadvantages of KK2.x

  • Slow system
  • poor handling
  • No GPS
  •  No barometer meter

CC3D

how-to-choose-a-best-flight-controller-for-a-drone?-cc3d

The cc3d board is similar to the kk2 with features and performance. Board almost comes with a 32bit microcontroller because it can be used for a racing drone.

Advantages of CC3D

  • Cheap 
  • Supports almost all flight configurations 
  • Can use GPS 
  • Easy to setup 
  • Advanced micro-controller
  • Have a protective case

Disadvantages of CC3D

  • Difficult to tune
  • poor handling
  • No LCD Screen
  • No barometer

Best Racing flight controllers

Naze 32

how-to-choose-a-best-flight-controller-for-a-drone?-naze32

This board is comparable to the CC3D since it is very similar. If you are into drone racing, this is the best flight controller you can get.

Advantages of Naze32

  • Cheap
  • Supports almost all flight configurations
  • Can use GPS
  • Have barometer and magnetometer
  • Easy to setup

Disadvantages of Naze32

  •  No protective case
  •  No LCD Screen

Best flight controllers for Autonomous flight, Videography and Rescue missions.

ArduPilot APM

how-to-choose-a-best-flight-controller-for-a-drone?-apm2

The ArduPilot APM is a great entry-level flight controller that has a ton of features. Very famous with autonomous drones.

Advantages of APM

  • Has autonomous features
  • Has protective case
  • Supports almost all flight configurations
  • Can use GPS
  • Has barometer and magnetometer
  • Easy to setup

Disadvantages of APM

  •  8-bit microcontroller
  •  Flight performance was poor than Naza M
  • Bit difficult when tuning

3DR Pixhawk

how-to-choose-a-best-flight-controller-for-a-drone?-pixhawk

The 3DR Pixhawk is probably one of the best flight controllers for autonomous flight and the number of features and also this is much more powerful than APM.

Advantages of 3DR Pixhawk

  • 32-bit microcontroller
  • A lot of autonomous features
  • Backup system
  • Built well
  • Easy to setup

Disadvantages of 3DR Pixhawk

  •  Pricey
  • Only support non-S.BUS receiver like Futaba
  •  Flight performance was poor than Naza

Best flight controller for cinematography and super stable objectives

DJI Naza M

naza m and m lite

DJI Naza M series have two flight controllers, they are Naza M Lite and M V2.

This flight controller is very popular because of DJI company use this FC for their flagship drone named “Phantom”.

Naza M has an incredible GPS capability. Much easier to set up but the downside is the Naza isn’t open source as Pixhawk, M-V2 type FC has many more add-ons than M-lite.If you want to build a craft capable of cinematography With super stable, the Naza is the way to go.

Definitely the best flight controller for Arial photography or videography.

Advantages of Naza M

  • 32-bit microcontroller
  • A lot of tutorials to learn online
  • Super stable
  • Supports all kinds of sensors and has telemetry capabilities
  • Excellent support
  • Excellent software, easy to setup

Disadvantages of Naza M

  •  Pricey

Conclusion

The first thing you should do is determine your purpose before choosing a flight controller for your drone because there are various types of Flight controllers on the market and each one of them has some unique features.

That’s all folks! I hope this article on how to choose the best flight controller helps you in selecting the better flight controller for your build. If you have any questions please comment below and I’ll be sure to answer and love you for it!

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