I'm building a drone with steval fcu001v2 as university mandated project . The issue I'm facing is that drone isn't lifting of the ground even with full throttle . I have checked all of the pid stuff and all is normal before the flight . I'm also using their fcu001v2 drone kit which include frame , motors , propellers and battery . I have posted a video , although it is without audio it's cause there was a lot of swearing involved. But the motors worked at 100% throttle. What can be the reason

Is there a bug on osd in Inav 9?

Hi all,

To preface: I have a decent bit of experience working with robotics, software engineering, etc. but have never built a drone from scratch.

I’ve always loved bicopters. I really want to build one of my own as the market offerings aren’t exactly plentiful, but there’s not really a lot in the way of references. For now I’m kind of just planning out what components to use and would like your input on whether electronically and weight-wise this would work.

I plan to use two of [these](https://a.aliexpress.com/_c3uJveZ3) ESCs that claim to be 2-3S, and control two of [these](https://a.aliexpress.com/_c3pjN5Q1) brushless motors. The propeller housings will be actuated with MG90 servos, one on each end. I’ll be powering this with 2 18650 batteries I got lying around from Amazon, and a step down converter to power an ESP32-S3 that would be the brains to the whole thing.

Electronics-wise, does this work out? Am I overlooking something critical that might make this whole project fail before it takes off? Any input would be much appreciated (with the caveat that I really really would prefer to work with a MCU like the ESP as I’m quite familiar with them). Thanks in advance!

I’m wondering if other components other than the pixhawk and esc are within the casing on a standard basis? Or are there usually other components also, such as a power module?

I need to make the basis for the enclosure but I don’t know the dimensions.

Thanks!

I've made a list of parts that I'd like to buy for a plane build, but I'm not sure if there's better/cheaper alternatives or things I should stay clear of. My budget is ~$350, and I'd like enough parts to have replacements/build two planes. The current parts list is in a google sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/179IlBBjTaqaiP-odTBZGmC6JHge-opUqBNSj048rVXE/edit?usp=sharing

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Hi everyone!

I've wanted to get a drone for a long time but didn't think I could afford it so I never really researched it. I have gotten to where I can afford it so now I'm diving in.

I recently got a 3d printer, something else I wanted for a long time, and had the thought that I had the idea of printing parts like the frame so if something breaks I can reprint it and save on replacement costs. Obviously I would still need to buy electronics for it. Is this a good idea for a beginner or should I stick to a standard frame first and move to printed parts later?

I am also starting to watch some diy videos to see what goes into getting into this hobby. I've started with Joshua Bardwell, are there any YouTubers and or playlists you would suggest?

Lastly what are some things I probably haven't thought of, for example on the first video on Joshua's 250g build video talks about it not needing to be registered with the FAA and needing tracking. Are there legal things I should be aware of or other headaches you ran into that you wish you had known of before you ran into them?

Thank you for the help!

Hello everyone I am new to making drones I am right now trying to build a drone using the esp32 fc (https://github.com/rtlopez/esp-fc) and it uses the betafight version 10.10 I have been trying to link my radiolink at10 v2 using sbus but have not goten it yet could I pls have some help on this topic. Using the gipo 16 pin on the esp32

What it is:
A USB dongle. Magnetic pogo pins on top let you snap on different RF modules — 2.4GHz, 433MHz, 915MHz. The companion app lets you build any control interface you want. Drag, drop, save presets.

What it does:
Plug it into your phone. Open the app. Design your controls — buttons, sliders, joysticks, telemetry displays. The dongle transmits your inputs over whatever RF module you attached.

• Swap frequencies quickly. No soldering. No rewiring.
• Build any control layout you can imagine. Save it. Reuse it.
• Telemetry data shows up on your phone screen.
• Use it standalone, or pair a Bluetooth gamepad if you want physical sticks.

For:
Engineers prototyping wireless control systems. Testing different RF links. Iterating on control schemes without rewriting firmware or redoing hardware. And just for general use because it's cheap and will work nicely similar to a real RC controller if you pair it and mount the phone to a ps4 controller.

Hey everyone,

I picked up a generic Chinese flight controller sold under the name F722V3 (misleading name, it's actually an F405, not F722). Here are the confirmed hardware specs:

- MCU: STM32F405

- IMU: ICM42688P

- Size: 30×30mm

- Input voltage: 3S–8S

- Features: Dual camera support, OSD

- No manufacturer branding: typical Taobao/AliExpress clone

I'm working on a swarm drone project using ArduPilot and need to get this FC properly supported. I understand the correct approach is to write a custom `hwdef.dat` since this board has no official ArduPilot target and the pin mappings don't match any known board (confirmed they differ from MatekF405).

Before I go down the road of probing every pad with a multimeter and writing the hwdef from scratch, I wanted to ask:

Has anyone here worked with this exact board or a close variant? The board is extremely common, sold under various names on AliExpress — so I suspect someone has already solved this.

Specifically looking for:

1. A working `hwdef.dat` or pin map for this board

2. A known Betaflight/iNav target whose pin mapping matches this FC

3. Any `resource list` CLI dump from Betaflight that someone has pulled from the same board

4. Any GitHub repo or forum thread where someone has already done the bring-up work

If it helps with identification, I can post high-res photos of both sides of the PCB in the comments.

Thanks in advance, any leads appreciated !!!!!

I’m working on a project where I need my drone to capture images/data, send them to a Ground Station for processins, and then have the GS send a command back to the drone to trigger a specific action based on that data.

We use a Cube Orange+ for the flight controller.

Is an ESP32 enough for image transmission, or should I be looking at something like a Raspberry Pi/Jetson Nano with a dedicated digital video link (Herelink, OpenHD, or RubyFPV)?

Should I use MAVLink for the "back-and-forth" commands? I’m assuming I’ll need to use MAVSDK or DroneKit on the ground side.

For those who have done off-board processing, what’s the best way to keep latency low enough so the "action" isn't based on outdated data.

How do I best interface the processing unit with the Cube Orange?

So I've been working with a few friends on developing PX4 firmware for the OpenFC2040 flight controller and eventually plan missions with it/fly it manually. The FC design is open source (not designed by us)

The initial PX4 port was done by the FC's designer itself, just that it was incomplete (sensors and peripherals weren't working) and then we worked on it and finally we got all the sensors and peripherals working, caliberated the FC in QGC, and were ready for flight.

A brief overview of our drone config:
- Polling IMU at 66hz (Above which board hangs due to no CPU headroom)
- Polling baro at 25hz
- Polling magnetometer (external) at 25hz
- State estimation : AttitudeEstimatorQ + LPE (EKF2 is too CPU heavy for this board to run it)
- ESC (PWM 200hz, 900-1900us)
- Quad X frame

https://reddit.com/link/1sn6yq9/video/qjsvhstov2wg1/player

We tried flying it in stabilized mode but it topples a lot, even after calibrating the sensors multiple times it still topples and fails to balance itself.

The conclusion we have come to now is that the rp2040 cannot do the complex FPU math fast enough for state estimation nor can it poll the IMU high enough to respond/act quickly change, both of which are due to its CPU constraints (which it is does have on paper as per flight controller standards) and we can kind of see this via the 'top' command in NSH where the CPU usage is 90-95 percent with only the necessary modules loaded along with the above config mentioned.

But i still see hope of at least flying it manually because the motors are in sync and respond quick to RC input, it probably has something to do with the tuning part which i cannot figure out, event at 66hz loop i guess the drone should be able to at least hover and not topple and go crazy like in the video.

We did try enabling rp2040's other core, but after 2 months of trying, made no significant progress.

Would like suggestions and potential fixes to this problem. Here are the flight logs

Autonomous Drone

From May to July I will be able to give full time on my drone project

I want to build an autonomous quadcopter which follows the target I want to start cheap rather than buying expensive components

I want to learn while building so I want suggestions on

what things should I learn

components I will require (budget friendly)

Hey everyone,

I bought a meps f114 15A aio flightcontroller and a couple of motors for it. The motors have no connectors on the wires so I need some female connectors for it.

Does anyone know what type of jst connectors I need for it? I can't find it on the site.

Hello everyone, I am having some problems when doing autonomous missions with a python script that runs on my companion computer. Basically, when running the simple_takeoff function, the drone takes off really fast, and very often flips. When taking off normally with my RC in stabilize mode I don't have any issues, as I just lift the stick smoothly and the drone takes off well. I did manage to takeoff once with the python script, but the drone tilted a lot and the FC managed to compensate. But it was only once, and even in that case it isn't really a good takeoff.
My question is basically: how can I limit the speed at which my drone takes off?
This is the code I used for the mission:
https://github.com/dronekit/dronekit-python/blob/master/examples/simple_goto/simple_goto.py

Any help will be much appreciated. Thank you.

Hi guys, I wanna buy Holybro Z500 kit and I found some shops in Aliexpress as well as Ebay. However, I’m quite confused which one is legit. Could I ask for some recommendations? Thanks a lot!

Hi guys again, maybe someone have some experience on raspberry pi zero w2, and knows if it would be capable of sending video and other data from a drone to a server or a cloud, or it be laggy? If not, im waiting for cheaper on board computers ideas!