Moderator

Buy bare boards and components for a DIY ArduPilot

You'll soon be able to buy ArduPilot already made, but for those of you who would rather build their own, here are the necessary parts:

You can buy the boards here.

Eagle (PCB and schematic) files are here.

A pdf of the schematic is here.

Once you've made the board, instructions on setting the fuses and loading the bootloader are here.

A few notes on building the board: Aside from all the surface-mount components below, the only through-hole components you need to solder on are a 5-pin breakaway connector for the FTDI port (first five pins next to the GPS connector), the two 2x3 ICSP connectors, two 3-pin connectors for channel 1 & 2 output, one 3-pin connector for the power select and three pigtails (female-to-female servo connectors cut in half) for CTRL and channel 1 & 2 in. The other two channels (3&4) are not currently used. IMPORTANT: the power selector pins must have a jumper cap placed on two of the pins. Use the two closest to the servo-out ports if you're going to power the board from the RC receiver via the RC-in cables (that's what I've done in the picture above), or use the other two if you want to power the board with a separate regulated 5v power source. If you don't put the jumper cap on these pins, the board will have no power!

Components: ICs:


Capacitors:

Diodes:

Resistors:

Other:

Others things you'll need if you don't already have them:

Views: 1313

Tags: ardupilot

Comment by corey on December 9, 2008 at 9:18am
ardupilot needs the fma copilot as well, right?

Moderator Comment by Chris Anderson on December 9, 2008 at 10:01am
Yes, and you need a plane, too ;-) I'll update the post (which was really just about the board) to include others things that people may not have thought about.
Comment by Michal on December 9, 2008 at 2:29pm
Will EM411 GPS work instead of EM406?

Moderator Comment by Chris Anderson on December 9, 2008 at 4:27pm
We've never seen an EM411 (actually I've never heard of it), so I don't know. If it uses the same connector as the EM406 and spits out standard 9600 NMEA it should be okay.
Comment by Michael on December 10, 2008 at 4:01pm
Hi Chris,

Any idea when they will be ready for sale? Also, will shipping to Australia be available?

Michael
Comment by Nick Sargeant on December 14, 2008 at 11:39pm
How about using this GPS: ?
Is uses the same chip as the LS20031and at the moment it can be bought for $57.95 (a modest $2 saving) The possible advantage of this is it has a SAW filter.
Also, for those of you are into fpv and have an OSD (Eg Dragon, blackstork IFOSD), you will likely already have this GPS.
Cheers,
Nick
Comment by Nick Sargeant on December 14, 2008 at 11:40pm
Oops, here is the link.

Moderator Comment by Chris Anderson on December 14, 2008 at 11:43pm
Nick,

I've got one of those. Unfortunately, the ceramic antenna is too small and it's not as good at picking up sats as its big brother. For OSD it may be good enough, but we need greater reliability for autopilots.
Comment by Nick Sargeant on December 14, 2008 at 11:54pm
Ah, Ok.
Chris, i know you are constantly asked this, but are talks going with your manufacturer?
Are you any closer on an ETA for the ardupilot?

Moderator Comment by Chris Anderson on December 15, 2008 at 12:12am
Same answer as always: before the end of the year, I hope.

Comment

You need to be a member of DIY Drones to add comments!

Join DIY Drones

Contests

Season Two of the Trust Time Trial (T3) Contest has now begun. The third round was a reliablilty/aerial photography round for both planes and copters, which is now closed. Stay tuned for the next round, beginning soon.

A list of all T3 contests is here. 

 

Top Content 

1 What do you think the APM should do on fail safe

What do you think the APM should do on fail safe
2 Hexa-copter found after failed attempt of delivering cell phones to inmates of a Brazilian penitentiary

Hexa-copter found after failed attempt of delivering cell phones to inmates of a Brazilian penitentiary
3 Gauging Interest in the CNC Machine

Gauging Interest in the CNC Machine
4 Housekeeping note: Kevin Finisterre

Housekeeping note: Kevin Finisterre
5 hexa copter calibration problem

hexa copter calibration problem

Groups

© 2012   Created by Chris Anderson.

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service