Where To Buy Cheap Quadcopter Racing Flight Controllers

Building a drone tin exist very rewarding, only choosing a flying controller for your drone can be an overwhelming chore. There are seemingly limitless drone flying controller choices on the market today. While this is truthful, there is only a select amount of drone controllers that are right for your build. One time you lot have clarity of your drone build, the listing of potential autopilot boards decreases drastically, making your decision less daunting.

This post will show you seven of the best flight command boards on the market place today. You lot volition either detect the flight controller that is perfect for your build, or proceeds the noesis required to appropriately judge whether a lath is appropriate for the drone you're wanting to create.

If you've never built a drone before or would similar a refresher of the drone building procedure, checkout my complete guide on how to build your own drone. Want to get updates on cutting edge flying controllers and any mega deals the drone dojo offers? Make certain you never miss out and sign upwards below.

Autopilot Lath Selecting Criteria

We analyzed 7 of the height drone controllers on the market by gathering data for factors such as:

Affordability
Open Source Firmware
FPV Racing friendly
Autonomous functionality
Linux or microcontroller based environment
Typical frame size
Popularity (Higher popularity ways more online resources and assistance)
Processor

If you are struggling with deciding on which board to buy, explicitly defining what you are trying to build by filling out these 8 factors volition greatly help you in choosing a flying controller.

For case, if you are wanting to build a drone with a ton of online support and open up source firmware, then you lot need to focus in on factors two (open source firmware) and seven (popularity). Or maybe you want to make an affordable FPV quad? So you need to focus on factors one (affordability) and 3 (FPV racing friendly)

Checkout this post on the top open source drone software projects if you're looking for a quick overview.

Without farther ado, hither begins the comparison of the well-nigh pop flight controllers on the market. At the very end of the post, you volition find a big chart that summarizes the 7 boards along the 8 factors of analysis.

Best Flight Controller Boards

APM Flying Controller

JUST DON'T!

The APM flight controller uses a puny 8-scrap processor and is no longer being supported past the ArduPilot project.

It was revolutionary in its day, but that was a long time ago.

I know it can be tempting to be drawn towards a very inexpensive production with an 'Ardu' in its name, but it is cheap for a reason.

If you were looking into an APM flight controller, chances are you want to build a cool open source drone with the ArduPilot project. If that'due south the case, the original Pixhawk is what you are looking for.

Pixhawk

The Pixhawk was the padawan to the APM flying controller, and became much more powerful. The APM Flight controller has an 8-flake processor, and the original Pixhawk uses a 32-scrap processor.

This was a awe-inspiring bound for open source drone controllers, and for that reason it became very popular amid DIY drone builders.

The Pixhawk tin be used with both of the main open up source drone projects, ArduPilot and PX4, and too is completely open up source hardware.

This means that many independent manufacturers can build and sell the boards, merely the compages is the same.

There are plenty of IO ports on the pixhawk, making it like shooting fish in a barrel to communicate with an onboard computer, like a raspberry pi.

Information technology is an easy product to find and buy. Most pixhawk kits come with all the required supplementary hardware, like GPS, magnetometer, buzzer, Lipo power module etc. You tin notice a kit like this on Amazon for ~$120.

PROS:

One of the most popular boards for bigger drone builds
Supported past the big open source software projects
Able to interface with a companion reckoner
Very popular. Youtube is littered with tutorials relating to the pixhawk
Cheap relative to the functionality it offers

CONS:

It's an older flight command board.

Pixhawk Cube

Likewise referred to as the Pixhawk ii.one

The pixhawk open source hardware project has made many flying control boards afterward the original pixhawk, but the Pixhawk Cube is one of its newer designs. For this reason, open source projects like ArduPilot are more probable to cater new functionality and support to the Cube.

That being said, there are a lot of similarities betwixt the Cube and the original pixhawk.

From this, if y'all are more focused on the affordability and functionality factors, the original pixhawk may be your best bet, as the cube can price around $250.

If, on the other hand, yous are wanting to time to come proof your drone and have a lot of online support for your flight controller, then the Pixhawk Cube is probably the right choice.

PROS:

Highly supported past ArduPilot, merely works with PX4 equally well
All-time pixhawk option to futurity proof your drone
High amount of support for the Cube, significant more than youtube resources and forums to peruse for solutions to any problems you may encounter

CONS:

Like in architecture to the original pixhawk
Expensive

Navio2

Full disclosure: This is my personal favorite board!

As noted previously, the pixhawk can be continued to a raspberry pi to human action as a companion computer for things like estimator vision. This tin can crave some manual tinkering with wires and Linux config files, as you need to setup a UART bridge of communication.

With the Navio2, your flight controller is a raspberry pi! That's because the Navio2 is a shield that merely attaches to the top of a raspberry pi three.

The maker of the Navio2, Emlid, provides a gratuitous Debian Bone image that comes pre-installed with ArduPilot likewise. All you have to do is flash the image to an SD bill of fare and you're in business.

The Navio2 has another actually absurd characteristic: the Ardupilot firmware is used in a purely Linux environs!

With the revolutionary PREEMPT-RT patch that fabricated Linux a real time operating system, many roboticists accept migrated from microcontrollers to Linux.

Navio2 is 1 of the beginning boards to make open source drone software runnable from a Linux surroundings. Having a Linux drone opens up the doors for many cool features that aren't available on normal microcontroller-based boards, such as:

SSH into your drone while it's flight
Compile new firmware correct on the drone by
Treat the Ardupilot firmware equally any other process in Linux

I'm a big fan of Linux based drones, because I think it lowers the barrier of entry required to beginning flight. I think it'southward keen for collegiate studies and those wanting to focus more on high level innovation, like calculator vision based flight.

The Navio2 is supported on both ArduPilot and PX4.

Recently, I congenital a drone with a Navio2 brain. If y'all'd like to see my creation and parts listing, checkout my raspberry pi drone kit here.

PROS:

Linux based board
Saves a ton of time
Lowers the cognition barrier of entry to build a drone
Uses the advanced calculating power of a Raspberry Pi iii, with its iv CPU cores

CONS:

Relatively expensive ($205)
Requires a Raspberry Pi to function

BeagleBone Bluish

If yous're not familiar with BeagleBoard project, it is basically a lesser known version of an educational board like the Raspberry Pi: inexpensive compute ability intended to educate and enlighten.

Think all my gushing about Linux based drones in the Navio2 summary?

Well ArduPilot implemented in Linux started out on the BeagleBone platform. ArduPilot was first ported to Linux on the BeagleBone Black equally a proof of concept around 2014.

With the success of the ArduPilot Linux port on the BeagleBone Black, the BeagleBone Blueish was created.

Information technology is designed specifically for robotics, and has ii programmable PRUs for real-time demanding computations, making it a great choice for drones.

Information technology does have less compute power than the Navio2+Raspberry Pi combination, as information technology only has 1 CPU core, just over again the PRUs assistance to make up for this. Unlike the Navio2, the BeagleBone Blue doesn't require whatsoever supplemental boards.

The BeagleBone Blue is supported by both ArduPilot and PX4.

PROS:

The beagleboard community is highly supportive
Linux based lath
Saves a ton of fourth dimension
Cheap (~$90)

CONS:

Relatively less compute power compared with the Navio2+RPi
Only actually for smaller drone builds

Naza Flight Controller

Queue the Darth Vader theme, DJI is about to enter the building!

Distressing, I call up my bias is showing.

All kidding bated, the Naza Flight controller is a pretty popular flight command board supplied by the drone behemothic DJI.

A Naza-1000 V2 kit tin can be establish on amazon for around $200, and information technology comes with the basic components like GPS.

The flight control software hither is airtight source, which ways the community doesn't have access to the lawmaking. Then if you are wanting to build a drone yous can tinker effectually on, the Naza flight controller probably isn't for you.

If y'all're wanting a undecayed flying controller and aren't as concerned with tinkering, maybe the Naza is an option for you. You tin't argue that the DJI flight control firmware isn't pretty avant-garde, and considering it is airtight source, this is an impressive feat.

Since the product is DJI, you get the advantage of the software suite that DJI provides, and a lot of the firmware maintenance will be handled automatically without manual work required of you.

Another reason yous may want to build a drone with a Naza encephalon would be for the tech-savvy photographer. Having a plug-and-play flight controller that abstracts y'all away from having to think about firmware frees up your thought equity for things like photography.

PROS:

Plug and play type of flight controller
Supported by the largest drone company in the earth
Popularly used past DIY drone builders who don't want to worry about firmware

CONS:

Airtight source flight command software
Not an ideal choice for academy students

Naze32

The Naze32 model boards are extremely popular in the FPV quad racing world. They are lightweight and very affordable, costing around $30-40. Y'all volition find many manufacturers of the Naze32 boards, so make certain y'all select i that is an f3 or f4 flight controller.

The Naze32 works with open source firmware, and is popularly used with CleanFlight. Their 32 bit processors are relatively powerful, and at a full weight of ~5 grams, it is an ideal FPV quadcopter controller.

PROS:

Cheap
Lightweight
Very pop
Open source firmware

CONS:

Limited functionality
Easy to mistakenly buy an older version of the Naze32 (Once more, you desire to make sure it is f3 or f4)

CC3D Revolution

Just to provide some context: The CC3Ds originated with the OpenPilot projection that has since turned into the LibrePilot projection. The 'OpenPilot' keyword has stuck however, so you will see many CC3Ds being sold as 'OpenPilot CC3D', fifty-fifty though the project has dissolved.

The CC3D Revolution is much similar the Naze32 in many ways: it is also calorie-free, affordable, popular and used for FPV drones.

Also beware that there are many unlike models of the CC3D, and you want to brand sure you have an f3 or f4 flying controller to future proof your build. The CC3D Revolution is an f4 controller, and then you're practiced at that place.

While both the Naze32 and CC3D Revolution back up open up source firmware in CleanFlight, one of the key distinctions is that the CC3D Revo can be used with the very pop ArduPilot firmware. And then you take more options with firmware with the CC3D Revo.

PROS:

Cheap
Lightweight
Popular
Wide selection of supported open source firmware

CONS:

The CC3D name has become generic and is slapped on many boards, also making it difficult to choose a reputable board using f3 or f4.
Harder to find places to purchase the CC3D Revolution

Summary of Autopilot Boards

Board	Affordability ($)	Weight (grams)	Open Source	FPV Racing	Autonomous	Linux	Typical Frame Size (mm)	Popularity	Processor
Naze32	thirty	6	CleanFlight, BetaFlight	Yes	No	No	250	High	32 Bit
OpenPilot CC3D Revolution	50	9	CleanFlight, BetaFlight, ArduPilot	Yes	Yes	No	250	High	32 Scrap
Pixhawk	120	60	ArduPilot, PX4	No	Yes	No	350+	High	32 Scrap
Pixhawk Cube	200	150	ArduPilot, PX4	No	Yes	No	350+	High	32 Bit
Navio2	200	80	ArduPilot, PX4	No	Yes	Yes	350+	Medium	64 Bit
BeagleBone Blue	100	?	ArduPilot, PX4	No	Aye	Yeah	200+	Low	32 Bit
Naza-M2	200	?	CLOSED SOURCE	No	Yes	No	250+	Medium	?

An Alternative Drone Brain

Some of you may exist interested in the coding of the actual flight control algorithm from scratch. If this is the case, I would actually advise that you build an Arduino drone instead. Hither is my guide on how to build an arduino drone.