I’m planing to build a hexacopter that should be able to lift either a GoPro on a 3-axis-gimbal or a thermal camera (~1000 grams) from a friend and a selfbuild parachute. The system should be a hex, because the thermal camera is quite expensive. I’d like to get some advice on my choice of parts and if I should change something. I’d like to pay 700€ at max. I already have a Taranis QX7 TX, a x8r RX, a FPV-System for positioning, a GoPro with gimbal and 4 Makerfire 35A ESCs.
Looks ok to me, but you could probably get away with using some slightly cheaper motors like the emax 3510 which are almost as efficient but half the price. Also to get longer flight times you could probably get away with a 20-25C battery to save some weight too.
Lastly for the ESC and pixhawk… I have had bad experience with makerfire products but never used those ESC, also for pixhawk I would recommend you buy a genuine one (like the one we sell) as there are alot of cheaper ones on the market, but they have some of the redundant parts of pixhawk removed to lower cost. Considering you plan to use an expensive camera, it would be a shame to crash because you decided to save abit of money on cheaper FC. But that is entirely your decision
Thanks for the comment.
I don’t think the emax 3510 would work because they have a higher kv rating and eClac shows, that they are drawing more power than their max power limits. The battery is actually a 20-30C rated battery. I used the makerfire ESCs before in a smaller quad and I didn’t really encounter many problems with them. I’d also like to use the Pixhawk because I want a good redundancy.
Cool, my point about pixhawk is just make sure is not one of the lightweight versions. Some clone pixhawk look the same, but when you open them up you see some components have been changed to make it cheaper… particularly some of the internal filtering parts are often taken out.
@unmannedtech: Nice pitch, but its low and outside. I use 3 “generic” Pixhawks and they have been flawless.
@C1701D: For the ESCs there is no real benefit from using BLHeli ESCs with a Pixhawk. Support for BLHeli was added to the ArduPilot firmware to support folks using PixRacers in (wait for it…) racing aircraft. I use Hobbywing X-Rotor 40A OPTOs. No programming is required, just do the normal throttle calibration and you’re good to go.
For those motors go 6S. Running 4S, the motors will not be running at their optimal RPM. The aircraft will be sluggish and difficult to control… BTDT.
