 What's up guys welcome to Rotor Riot and welcome back to learn to FPV Today's gonna be all about flight controller So I'll run down the different types of specs that you're gonna find on flight controllers And just try to help you figure out which one's gonna be the right one that you need Okay So the first main spec of a flight controller is whether or not it's all in one And as I've said before earlier in the series all in one isn't really the best word because it doesn't do everything It really just does two things and all in one flight controller is a flight controller And it's also your power distribution board. So take this one for example Not only is it controlling the way that my quadcopter flies It also is distributing the power from the batteries out to the ESC's now if you're running a four-in-one speed controller, this isn't really a necessity So if you have a four-in-one you can go either way You can get it all in one flight controller and just not use those pads that would be meant to power your individual ESCs But on the flip side if you have individual ESC's It's gonna be a lot more convenient to have that because if it doesn't have the pads for Distributing that power and you need a separate PDB or power distribution board like this flight controller For example doesn't have the power pad. So you're gonna have a double stack like this Your power leads will go to the PDB and then your signal wires will go to the flight controller Other flight controllers that are gonna be called all-in-one may have some additional features like this one for example It's a flight controller, but it's also a four-in-one ESC So we're getting a little more into all-in-one, but it still doesn't do everything There's other ones will be a flight controller and a receiver And then there's some other ones will be a flight controller and your video transmitter But again all-in-one isn't the best word because there's not a flight controller that does everything Now when you get into mixing different components like Four-in-one ESC and a flight controller or a video transmitter and a flight controller It can be convenient. It can save size and weight, but also you're trusting one component to handle multiple responsibilities So there's pros and cons there. It's it's gonna be a little bit easier to set up It can sometimes save you a little money But then if it breaks you're replacing two parts with one board So you'd have to think about that. Okay, next up we have different sizes So your standard flight controller you most commonly will find is a 30 by 30 But there's also smaller 20 by 20 flight controllers, and then they get as low as 16 by 16 now This is typically going to match up with what size frame that you're going to put it in Smaller frames are not going to be able to fit bigger flight controllers sometimes a bigger frame can still fit the smaller flight controller and Through the different sizes they can all pretty much do all the features that you need them to do The main thing to take a look at is if it is an all-in-one meaning that it's a power distribution board and flight controller You need to make sure that it can handle the current that your setup is going to draw So a lot of times with the smaller flight controller They they can't handle as many amps going through them just because the circuit board itself Just doesn't have enough copper in it to handle those amps the next spec And I'm not going to go into too much detail here because a I'm not an expert on this and be it's it's a little over the heads of the Beginner, but there's different gyros that different flight controllers will have I'm pretty sure they'll they pretty much will all work. I don't think there's a gyro that's like up No, just totally stay away from that. It's not going to work. It's garbage But it's just something to maybe keep in mind and do your own research on if you're interested in that But not all flight controllers are going to have the exact same gyro in there So some have been known to perform a little better in some situations. Some are a little better over here There's pros and cons, but again, I just pretty much try a flight controller if it flies good I'll keep buying that flight controller. I don't really think about which gyros in it so much But it's just something to be aware of another feature that most flight controllers are going to have but some don't So it's a good thing to be aware of is whether or not they have an on-screen display chip. You can usually see it It's this longer rectangle chip on the board and This is really handy to have a highly recommend getting a flight controller that can do on-screen display If you don't know what on-screen display is it's it's text that can be overlaid on your screen and give you information So it can tell you your timer how long you've been flying more importantly It can tell you the voltage of your battery. So it gives you an indication of when you need to land But there's a long list of things that it can display to you. I really only use a timer voltage and milliamps consumed so that's telling me how much I've pulled out of my battery with the voltages and How long I've been flying so between those three things I have a good idea of the health of the battery whether or not it's about time to retire it and not use it anymore and You know, obviously it tells me when to land So I'm not over-discharging my batteries causing them to deteriorate faster. I'll be honest sometimes. I'm guilty I know my batteries low, but I just keep flying anyways Don't recommend that but you know sometimes we just get reckless the prices of flight controllers that do and don't have on-screen Display is they're all pretty much about the same price for flight controllers So if you find that one doesn't have it and one does again, I highly recommend go with the one that has on-screen display It's gonna be really useful. Okay, another thing that some flight controllers will have and some won't is Soft mounting and there's a couple different versions of soft mounting. So Almost I think pretty much every flight controller is mounted to a drone the same way There's holes on the corners. These are gonna slide over some standoffs or some screws and that's how it's held down What some flight controllers do like this one? They make those holes a little bit larger than they need to be and then they put a rubber bushing in there That way the vibrations from the motors and the propellers are not getting sent into this as much There's some dampening in between the motor and the gyro this can be really important because Even though you can't see it this thing is going to have these little tiny micro Vibrations that can really send extra noise into that gyro and just affect the performance of it So having that soft mounting is really helpful Another form of soft mounting is some flight controllers will actually have the gyro itself soft mounted So it won't be hard soldered directly onto the board it'll be on like a little ribbon cable and then on some sort of little soft pad and This combined with also soft mounting the actual mounting of it. It just gives you even more Smooth gyro performance one thing to take into account is if you have a really tight low profile frame Sometimes that soft-mounted gyro won't fit. It's gonna fit in almost every frame But just for me in particular I fly really slam down Frames and they don't fit in mine, so I can't use that but almost every other frame in the world They will fit it's not a problem a big thing to take a look at is the input voltage capability of your flight controller Especially on a all-in-one flight controller your battery is going to be plugged directly to this So you need to know that it can handle the voltage that your battery is pushing out So it's going to say it's either good for like two to three s four to six s So again, just make sure the voltage of the flight controller is going to match the battery you intend to use Or if you already have the flight controller make sure You know the voltage capability of it and you get a battery that's going to work with it and not blow it up Sort of in the same line and related to that is the different regulators that's on the board So just about every flight controller will have regulators to take that input voltage that you start with and drop it down for other components because Almost everything on the drone is going to connect to the flight controller So you need to make sure it's got an output. That's the right voltage It's going to work for your camera for your video transmitter for your receiver They're pretty much all going to have the correct ones But some will do it a little bit differently So some will have a 12 volt regulator, which is really good It's going to work for most of your video transmitters, but then some will have a 9 volt regulator and not have the 12 volt Which in some cases could be better because if you're running a three s battery You're really at about 12 volts anyway So it can kind of struggle to regulate a 12 volt voltage Because you may be going below 12 volts the way that regulators are meant to work as you start with a higher voltage And then it can step it down and keep it smooth and constant Especially for your video gear you want good clean regulators because of the spiking and voltage and the fluctuations and changing Can cause interference in your camera and your video transmitter and this give you overall less video performance So there's not really a spec to look at on the product page It's gonna say I mean it probably will say that the flight controller has good regulators and really clean power going out to your video components But some are better than others and it's just gonna take some experience and talking to people to figure out what they're having good success with Another spec of the flight controllers is what kind of processor does it have so you've got f1 f3 f4 and f7 I think that's pretty much all the different processors Basically the higher the number the more powerful that processor is so the more it can handle doing Pretty much every flight controller you're gonna find now is either an f4 f7 We started off with f1 and it had you know limited capabilities f3 came out that really raised the bar And now we're getting into even more advanced things that we can do so like so what do I mean by that within the flight controller Software there's different features that you can enable and there's different Refresh rate speeds that it can run at so what I mean by the refresh rate is Like I mentioned in the ESC video The way that the flight controller is working is in a cycle So it's checking where you're at versus where you should be based on how you move the sticks What correction needs to be made to bring that back in line? It makes the correction and then it starts that over So a better processor can handle doing that faster and at the same time in the flight controller software There's other features that the developers have come up with to improve flight performance Now with a higher end processor you can click all of those on run them all at the same time run at a really fast Refresh rate and it'll still perform well if you have a less powerful processor You can kind of start to run out of processing speed and it just can't handle doing all that at the same time There's a lot more you could go into about processors, but I want to keep this simple you pretty much want F3 or better most flight controllers you're gonna find nowadays or f4 f4 is gonna work Just fine if you want to go for something a little more future-proof They're you know the maximum processing power you can get go for f7 But it's not really necessary at least f3 or better and you're probably gonna go for f4 That's the most common one now related to the processor because different processors have more or less One of these is UARTs or UARTs Basically what that is it's like channels that you can use so having more UARTs is gonna enable you to Connect more external devices So for example your receiver that you hook up to the drone that's gonna take a UART That's one of your channels So if you only have three UARTs you can use one for your receiver Maybe you're gonna use one for your video transmitter that has some Communication channels available to change channels through your flight controller and Then maybe your third one would be used for addressable LEDs where you can flick the switches on the radio and Send that information into the flight controller to change the color of the LEDs. I don't use a whole lot of peripherals So I'm not sure what other things people are using But it's just good to know that a flight controller either has three or it has four or has five It's it's just good to know how many channels you're gonna have available To let you know what's gonna be possible to hook up to that flight controller So some things to consider when you're picking a flight controller number one is what kind of software is it gonna run? There's three main players in the flight controller game. You've got beta flight kiss and flight one So beta flight is gonna be by far the most common. I'm pretty sure there's it's an open source software and Pretty much anybody can make a flight controller that's gonna work with beta flight So you're gonna find a wider range of different flight controllers now with kiss. It's flight. We know his company So only flight do we know it's gonna make a flight controller that's kiss compatible and very similar with flight one only flight One is gonna make flight one compatible flight controllers So there's upsides and downsides Beta flight Easily by far the most common you're gonna find the most people using it You're gonna be able to get help with it probably the easiest and It's gonna be the easiest to find a flight controller in stock that will work Now I've really mainly only used beta flight But a lot of people will tell you that kiss flies better or that flight one flies better So that may be true and you may find that so It's just really depends on your experience and what you like But there's some other advantages like flight one for example is super easy to set up Where beta flight you kind of need to know what you're doing or you know do some research watch some videos And there's different boxes you have to check There's things that are not intuitive that you have to know to get that thing flying properly Whereas flight one has this wizard that just walks you through the steps It just says okay Which motor is spinning right now is it front left or front right and it by you doing those things It knows the way you've got it set up tells you to move the sticks on the radio And it's very easy to get going. I've never set up kiss So I don't really have much experience there But I know there's definitely plenty of people that will tell you kiss is the best flying thing you can get So it may be worth a shot again. It's a little more expensive, but also it's Probably very reliable because this kiss has a really good reputation for making good products So I'll leave that choice to you. I don't really have a preference I just fly beta flight because it's easiest I know it and I can find a bunch of flight controllers that work with it, but I'm sure Any way you go you'll be happy. They all work. Well, they all fly. Well, okay Another really big one to think about and for me This is probably the number one thing of how I pick what flight controller I'm gonna use is the layout of the board So where the different pads and pins are located on the flight controller Some flight controllers you're gonna find that some wires are gonna go underneath and some are gonna go on top for me That pretty much immediately takes it out. I want everything to be able to go to the top That way I don't have to pull the flight controller off and flip it underneath to get things off. That's just a pain I don't like that. Other ones like this one in particular I like the layout of this board because the the pads that you're gonna solder your ESC wires to are on the corners and on the outside of the mounting hole Other ones like this one. They're on the inside It's pretty much the same either way But it's just a little bit easier to solder when it's on the outside So you don't have to worry about that nut that's going to be there kind of in the way and getting your wires around it Other things are going to be like where does your camera and your video transmitter solder to? It's really convenient if the board fits in your frame so that the camera is going to be in the front where you solder it to The VTX is going to be in the back because that's typically how it's going to be laid out The camera is almost always in the front or always in the front and a lot of times the place that you're going to mount your video Transmitters in the back. So it's just a pickiness thing for me It's like the neatness that I don't have wires crossing this one goes here This one goes here. They don't cross each other. It's just convenient So as a really new beginner, you may not know what you're looking for in layout This may come later after you've built a quad or two to know what you do and don't like But it's something to look at where the wire is going to be soldered to if you know Which kind of frame you're going with is that going to work the right way? Another thing is on which side of the board is the USB mounted to you want to make sure that's going to go out One of the sides that you're able to Access that to hook up to beta flight You don't you want to make sure that the way that you're going to align the flight controller doesn't put it in the front Or the back where you'd have to take it apart just to plug a USB into it Most flight controllers are going to work the right way that you want it and have it out the side But it's just something to take a look at another thing to think about is some flight controllers We'll have some special features that make them stand out and be different that other ones don't have There's not a ton of these but there's a few So for example some flight controllers can support two cameras This is a little niche. It's not something that everybody needs but It's a thing so there's something called a cheater quad where you put one camera in the front and one camera in the back and This enables you to either fly forwards or backwards and you can switch the cameras So again, it's not something especially that a beginner is going to be playing with But just something to keep in mind that there's other features So another flight controller that has a cool unique feature that I've used is the speedy B flight controller So what it has is a wireless Bluetooth module in it so you can Hook up your phone to your flight controller to do your pit tuning and adjustments and that's really cool They do also have a standalone unit that will work with any flight controller But it's just an example of flight controllers having cool features that make them stand out and be a little different Another one and this is again, maybe not a beginner focus thing is the black box capabilities So what black box is is it can record all the data going on while you're flying So what is your gyro doing? What are the motors doing? And you can use this to help fine-tune the quad This is definitely I wouldn't say something a beginner is going to do it I even struggle to understand what the information means and what I need to do with it But it's just something to take into account so different flight controllers are either going to have it not have it Or they'll have more memory that's allocated for the black box So in some flight controllers You're only going to be able to do a couple flights and then the memory is full other ones It'll have more memory available on board and then other ones will have a SD card slot So you can increase that memory even more another one is camera control Pretty much every FPV camera has different settings You can change and we'll get into this more on the camera episode But you can change the contrast the brightness saturation different things like this and make it better for some Scenarios and better for other ones. So maybe if you're flying at night There's some changes you want to make to make it perform better at night So some flight controllers will be able to connect some wires to that camera to allow you from the sticks through the flight controller To the camera to change those settings without having to hook up the little adapter board Directly into the camera and changing it that way so again another feature to the look for in flight controllers Okay, and lastly is to think about the brand of flight controller that you're going to use So there's a ton of good flight controllers will work well But you want to try to get a feel for a brand's reputation. Do they make really good flight controllers? Do they have some that are buggy and not so good? What's the reputation over time? What are a lot of people using if you go to our store race day quads get FPV pretty much anything we carry is going to be good But maybe you might find some cheaper flight controllers out there that are not going to perform as well So another thing you don't want is cloned flight controllers I think that you may find is companies sometimes will take a flight controller and reverse engineer it and then just pass it through lower standard of quality control and make it cheaper and I've seen a lot of these boards that are just have nothing but problems They feel easily they may never work right out of the box. So It's just a good idea go with a well respected brand of flight controller. Okay, so that's gonna do it I hope this gives you a basic overview of what you're looking at in flight controllers There's a ton of them out there and pretty much all of them are gonna get the job done There's just certain aspects that you want to look at is it gonna fit in your frame Is it gonna have the layout that you need for the other components? What kind of software does it run? These are the main things that you want to take a look at so thanks for watching and this has been learned to FPV