SPRacingF3 Flight Controller

[quadfather]

Dominic Clifton (aka Hydra, the creator of Cleanflight) has just announced the release of his own design, the Serious Pro Racing F3 Flight Controller.  It';s available for pre-order, with an estimated shipping date of end of June.

According to Hydra it';s designed for racing

The SPRacingF3 is specifically designed for racing, it gives pilots all the features, connectivity and expansion capabilities they need.

It';s based around the STM32F3 MCU and available in two configurations, Acro and Deluxe.

It has a nice feature list, for example the ability to connect OSD, SmartPort telemetry, SBUS, GPS, addressable LEDs, voltage and current monitoring, sonar and eight motors - all at the same time!

It directly supports the most common receiver protocols and the onboard flash can be used for Blackbox recording.

These are the specs:

• 36x36mm board with 30.5mm mounting holes
• Weight ~6 grams
• STM32F303 CPU, 72Mhz inc FPU
• High-Capacity Flash (Acro and Deluxe)
• MPU6050 accelerometer/gyro
• MS5611 barometer (Deluxe only)
• HMC5883 compass (Deluxe only)
• MicroUSB socket
• 2x 8pin JST-SH sockets (PPM, PWM, SERIAL RX, GPIO, ADC, 3V, 5V, GND)
• 8x 3pin though-holes for pin headers for ESC/Servo connections
• 2x 4pin though-holes for pin headers for 2x serial ports
• 1x 2pin though-holes for pin headers for battery voltage
• 1x 2pin though-holes for pin headers for buzzer
• 1x 4pin JST-SH socket for I2C
• 1x 4pin JST-SH socket for SWD debugging

You can find the full details here http://seriouslypro.com

[Hands0n]

This is a nice spec of board, targeted at Racing community.  As such, it does feel a bit of overkill to me. I can';t imagine a racer having all the additional kit installed on it. But maybe I';m simply wrong?

At this point I would typically start to make noises about Cleanflight and how it has not yet sorted out its assisted flight modes such as GPS Hold and GPS Home.  Possibly because of inherent Mag issues in the Naze32 (and its clones) hardware.  Toilet bowl and "exotic" RTH are very evident.  There is no real track of great success in getting the GPS modes to work consistently well, even if at all. 

But then this is a Racing board and such matters are not important to racing.  Not as we know it today at any rate.

So, £45 for the basic (Acro) board and £60 for the FC with Baro and Mag - although I';m not sure what the benefit of the latter is for FPV Racing ... Someone will no doubt enlighten     I had been hoping that the new generation FC would solve all the GPS issues but am not convinced thats at all likely now.  And at those prices, one would be silly not to simply go APM ::)  (burn the Heretic!).

I am by no means a racer, nor do I intend to be, so I';ll be taking a spectator seat on this particular show.   

[kilby]

So more serial outputs, i2ç (another serial essentially) and a faster processor.

Currently Baseflight/Naze covers my 250 requirements as my flying doesn';t require oneshot and additional PID controllers (maybe if the weather ever clears up this year I will). Stuff like the LED colour business was simply fluff.

I';m with HandsOn with why bring out a FC with many additional ports that serve non purpose as GPS does nothing useful and the Baro does precious little of use in cleanflight or baseflight (btlut then again I do have a use for a 250 or smaller camera ship)

The black box logging is nice but considering its already been done (at low cost)

If they wanted an advanced racing controller then even a minimal OSD built in would be handy (voltage/amps and perhaps temp)

At that money I';d spend the extra and buy a Brain fc instead.

This (to me) looks like it is being sold off the back of cleanflight rather than as a flight controller in its own right.

Don';t get me wrong once I NEED something that CF can give I will switch, though I';m hoping that TauLabs finally create something that makes the 32 bit ports of MultiWii (both CF & BF) up their game across all aspects of their software.

[quadfather]

I think a lot of racers actually have most of the kit installed, minus the GPS.  It supports in hardware what so far has to be done in software (or with adapters) without compromise.

I';m in full agreement that GPS leaves a lot to be desired in Cleanflight (and Baseflight for that matter) based on forum threads and IRC chatter.  I wouldn';t personally bother with a GPS on a 250, apart from playing around with it on the bench.  A 6M weighs 20 grams (at a guess), that';s weight one could rather invest in a higher C rating battery or better motors.

I think this FC will appeal to the racers (and wannabes).  I have ordered the acro to support DC, not because I';m a racer (or wannabe!), and because I like to play around with stuff.  I have no illusions about ever partaking in any racing events other than a casual get together.

Still, I think the specs and features are very nice and I thought I';d put the word out.  Horses for courses and all that.

[dominicc]

Hi guys, thanks for the comments so far.

* GPS functionality is a background Cleanflight feature that is being worked on, slowly.  Once the software is better this board will be also be great for users wanting GPS features.
* The F3 processor does more in hardware and is a better fit for today';s hardware than the old F1 processors - especially in terms of built in FPU, more hardware serial ports that can be inverted in hardware - e.g. for SBus / Smartport / HoTT / FrSky telemetry, etc.
* It';s also developer friendly, with 2x as much on-board EEPROM and 4x as much flash space a Naze32 - if you want to get into flight controller software development look no-further!

Keep the comments coming!

[nub]

i like the name of the board, its very appealing and sounds

[kilby]

There';s things I want and things I need, being skint keeps me away from anything but the need to have

I';m hoping to see a few things that scream ';I must have this'; turns up soon as I like new things and don';t want to simply sitting in a cloth cap talking about nitro engine';s

The floating point and internal recording do appeal.

Any chance of 433MHz telemetry/configuration being considered (its excellent on APM and totally out classes Bluetooth)

[xxpitt]

£45 is a bit much. naze is £20 And does the job. Well usually does, had a nightmere today with it

[nub]

exactly i don';t really see the point, unless it offers something new to the table?

having "racing" in the boards name, personally i would have thought a stripped down bare min version would have been a better idea, more chance of someone like me buying and giving it a try. at that price and with features i';m not really interested in well...

nice marketing though suppose some will buy it without even thinking hehe

sorry, i';m bored tonight

[topdonkey]

I';d happily pay £60 if the GPS worked reliably, I have a 250 quad with gps and a gopro attached and it does seem to be a bit flakey sometimes, although i';m liking the baro module on the bottom for foam fitting

[Hands0n]

This FC definitely needs a nice enclosure designed for it - maybe make it 3D printable and put the STL into the public domain also. That would be a nice touch.   I find that being fully exposed can degrade the board over a period of time as the elements get to them.  This isn';t California or Los Angeles, our weather systems can be a bit "unkind" to the electronics if exposed.

Question for Dominic - Will an FC be made available to a suitable member of this forum to evaluate and report on?  We';ve done that a few times previously.  We';re currently assessing a brand new FC from a French robotics firm   

[teslahed]

I have volunteered my services in reviewing one of the SPRacingF3 flight controllers as soon as possible.

I';ve had to stop myself volunteering too often though; i';m in danger of nagging at this point

I intend to stick one on my 180 or 250 miniquads, play with some settings, writing a short review / guide and then throwing the thing around the sky for a bit like a loon whilst shooting video and trying out the blackbox feature.

I think the main advantages of the board that are immediately apparent are more hardware serial ports and hardware inversion on the ports. This means that serial based receivers, OSDs and GPS';s can all be used simultaneously without problems and the Frsky X4R-SB receiver can be plugged directly in to the flight controller without a separate inverter or fiddly hack.

Other than that more processing power and memory sound good but i';ll be interested to see how the software takes advantage and whether or not i actually notice an improvement in flight characteristics when i swap a naze32 for an SPRF3 and copy my settings across.

At the present moment i think the main advantages of the fully featured version are that the barometer and magnetometer send info to the OSD. So you';ll know how high you are and which way home is. Combined with a small GPS receiver you';ll also get speed information on your OSD which could be a lot of fun for longer races and for when people ask you ';how high does it go? How fast is it?';. I intend to try a mini GPS receiver on one of my miniquads at some point just to see if i get good speed data from it on my OSD.

I look forward to seeing the GPS progress to the point of actually helping with flight modes in the future but i think we';ll need to be a little patient on that.

[Revs]

Do we know if the non-deluxe version will have an EEPROM for logging?

SpekSat port would be nice, too

[quadfather]

Do we know if the non-deluxe version will have an EEPROM for logging?

According to the specs the only difference to the Deluxe is a baro and compass.  Everything else is the same.

[Revs]

Interesting, that';s one thing the Acro Naze32 lacks. Not sure if any of the others have an EEPROM chip..?

[Hands0n]

Chris - when you get to GPS make sure it is a uBlox unit - the FC will auto-configure it for you as the flight software has that capability inherited from MultiWii.

[quadfather]

Interesting, that';s one thing the Acro Naze32 lacks. Not sure if any of the others have an EEPROM chip..?

The Flip32+ doesn';t. Not sure about CC3D, haven';t put CF on one in a while. I don';t have any of the other supported controllers.

[Marty McFly]

Domininic looks great board,if you use a FrSky s-port receiver will we be able to get telemetry on the Taranis screen,Marty and the borrowed doggie, :scotland:

[quadfather]

Domininic looks great board,if you use a FrSky s-port receiver will we be able to get telemetry on the Taranis screen,Marty and the borrowed doggie, :scotland:

He said it does support Smart Port out of the box.  X4R-SB sounds like a prime candidate for this FC.

[Marty McFly]

thank you Q/F,I thought it did but just wanted to make sure,as my vector has that facility,and has some useful features,Marty and the borrowed doggie, :scotland:

[Soler]

Any new on when these will be available?

[tony]

Well I can not wait to try it out faster cpu has got to help as anyone was who stunt fly a Naze32 on baseflight knows it';s recovery time can be butt clenching sometimes
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