After crashing my KH250 yesterday I 'm thinking about options for a rebuild I think most of it...

[G+_Steve Prior]

After crashing my KH250 yesterday I'm thinking about options for a rebuild.  I think most of it is salvageable, mostly prop/landing strut/antenna damage, but the antennas are going to require me to pretty much disassemble the quad.

 

The things I'd like to improve:

- flight time, with triple 5x4.5x3 props I'm getting about 6 1/2 minutes.

- I've got a FrSky Taranis Plus and X8R receiver and would like to use SBus to talk to the flight controller so I can have more inputs for switching flight modes.  It appears the RTFQ's Flip 1.5 isn't capable of this.

- A GPS return to home would have come in REALLY useful yesterday, I'd like that plus setting waypoints.

- The possibility of a better camera/gimbal would be nice.

 

My KH250 has 30 amp ESCs and 2208-2300KV motors and of course the Diatone 250 frame.

 

Major questions:

- What flight controller should I switch to?  RTFQs has multiple revisions of Flip32/Flip32+/Mega/Flip32 Delux/Flip32+ Deluxe, or I could go with something completely different.

 

- Should I switch frames?  I'm more interested in general flying around and taking pictures than drone racing, though I fly in wooded areas so I'm flying between openings in the trees.

 

My biggest concern is that from my experience with computers, when I've got spare parts around they tend to reassemble themselves.  So if I decide I'm not going to rebuild the KH250 as is and buy too many different parts, I'll end up building the new quad and then reassembling the KH250 anyway.

[G+_Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ]

If you want more flight time, go with 6" props after flipping your long-frame to the underside. 

 

I'm still a fan of the Naza (even though many don't like it) -- though it is a bit expensive.

 

A gimbal on a 250-class is pushing it... there just isn't the real-estate. If you really want smooth AP, you may want to build yourself a 450-class.

[G+_David Dennis]

Naze32 is a candidate because of your Sbus requirement. My favorite!!! If you get the "full naze" and not just the Acro version you get a barometer. They've just come out with a Version 6 and it may be the barometer is standard now. Along the line of Fr. B's Naza recommendation you might also want to look at the Pixhawk. That is a deluxe controller as well. It is now available in a smaller form factor.

[G+_Bongo Nutty]

I have a full Naze 32 FC and I got the Return Home function working pretty well. There are 2 disadvantages with this board though with respect to GPS. You have to use the onboard magnetometer ,positioning  all wires as far away from it as possible to prevent interference. GPS also uses up two receiver inputs. So if you have an 8 channel receiver you lose 2 aux channels (don't know if this is true with Sbus.)

 

You might also check out the Sparky 2 FC board, which is good for GPS. It's a PPM board-- can't remember if it works with SBus too.