F3 "Betaflight"

[Bad Raven]

This is a FC board supposedly specifically designed to cater for most if not all specific Betaflight facilities and to eliminate as much extra hardware as possible. (Built in PDB, OSD, LED control, etc)

Comes in a strong box with a nice colour label. Doesn';t though come with ANYTHING useful with regard what all its features are or what it needs.  Not even a link to get there!!    :lipsrsealed

Going further into "audit" mode and testing their product placement process, for just one example, it has a SD card reader. What for, and how and when do you use it? They are not telling!!   :lipsrsealed

SO, what do I think of it up to now?    RUBBISH!   

This far down the line it is simply NOT acceptable to be supplied a product with such poor usage info.

[Hozza]

Yeah finding  details can be a pain, but FPVmodel have all the connection info on their sales page and I found this link pretty much links you to most things you need to know.
https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight/wiki/Board---BETAFLIGHTF3

But found it to be a good FC, just building a new quad this time trying out the DYS F4

[atomiclama]

Going further into "audit" mode and testing their product placement process, for just one example, it has a SD card reader. What for, and how and when do you use it? They are not telling!!   :lipsrsealed

Black box logging.


Common this is all cheap hobby grade stuff. If you want professional grade with nice detailed manuals and support you are going to have to pay for it. But everyone wants it cheap.

[Cheredanine]

As llama said, sd card is for bb logging, you can use onboard flash for some fc to do this but downloading is hugely timecinsumimg,
Bb logging is useful for troubleshooting but pretty much priceless for setting notch filters, so an sd card reader is really a must in an fc nowerdays

Key points on the bf fc-
It has solder points above and below the board, this makes it very difficult to make a clean build that it is easy to work on
It has high and changing current running through the same board as your video signal, this has the possibility of producing interference you will never get rid of
It says it';s 5v reg is 3amos but it suggests you use a seperate reg to power peripherals - this makes no sense, 3amp is more than double what you would need to power everything except the motors, early doc said it had a 300mA 5v reg, that would make more sense, it is entirely possible they updated the reg but not the advice, but in the air is not the place to find out
Calling it a bf is something they paid for. It does have all the whistles and bells you need,

[Bad Raven]

Well, I have had a pretty torrid time during setting up in which one ESC smoked, was replaced, only for a second different corner to die

On investigating, the ESC and motor on this second corner were OK, but there was no control from the FC board (worked fine from a receiver).  Checking the supplies were present, whereas the quiescent voltage from the data lines on "good" motors was 0.15-0.16 V, on the "dead" motor lines there was 0 V.

So, pretty clearly the board is kaput.

Have to say I think its a lousy design anyway, and for the designer to say that you need to pre-heat the board before soldering to get round the ground pad heat sink issues is fudging the problem. There are far too many connections taking far too long even at seconds each and you cannot heat the board throughout such an extended soldering period like that or the wiring insulation of the completed lines will be damaged. I';m not exactly a beginner at soldering, and I know how to get a good joint quickly on half decent PWBs. This rubbish falls WAY down the table, far below half decent!

It was bought from a mainstream UK based seller and wasn';t cheap, so I';m assuming its not a clone. Very disappointing.

And as to the comment re: manual cost, no, I don';t expect a colour brochure, but I do expect at minimum clear info links TO get at the essential info needed to install it.

[hoverfly]

Hobbyrc are saying its dropped by mfg being replaced by F4.

[Bad Raven]

Hobbyrc are saying its dropped by mfg being replaced by F4.

Not going to get my money............................

[Bad Raven]

Well, I raked an old EMax Skyline32+OSD out of the drawer of "near useless crud you just have to hoard", flashed it latest stable Betaflight (I think it was on an earlyish Cleanflight), and have just been flying the "problem 250 quad build" round the back garden. Flew nicely in Horizon and Rate.

The PAIN that stupid Betaflight F3 board gave me near put me off quads for life.

The only thing that isn';t working now is the cell voltage into OSD as I don';t have the tiny two pin plugged lead to connect it and there is no point on the board to solder to I can find.

Damn those BB-R 2600kV motors are thrust monsters!!!!  (And so far only on 3S, too.................WOW!!) 

[Cheredanine]

The bf f3 board never appealed to me for 2 reasons mate:
Combined osd and pdb is just asking for video noise
Soldering to both sides of the board doesn';t make for clean builds that can be worked on

You have to bear in mind though the board is really nothing to do with bf.  The devs didn';t design it, it just has the capability to use all the features in bf and there is some sort of financial arrangement for the use of the bf brand, which you can';t really blame the devs for.

[Bad Raven]

While in actuality I did not make any comment against the Betaflight team, there';s an old piece of advice that runs "be careful who you climb into bed with" that with hindsight (i.e. bitter experience of this board) is true here!

You';d only need to look at the packaging to see how the item is presented and "ownership" of the product is inferred.

It';s the 1980';s thing emerging all over again when you KNEW if a computer game had a "big name" from Trade, Film or TV attached it';d be poor quality and under developed.

In actuality the soldering of wiring to a double sided board was not that bad.  The extreme heatsink effect of the ground layer was an issue, as was the extremely poor support data.

With regard to "Combined osd and pdb is just asking for video noise", well that is something the development process of the board should have ensured was not an issue.  Personally I don';t see it as any worse than adjacent boards slammed up against each other, usually from differing makers, with plenty of wiring between to pass noise, and at least being all one manufacture there should not be any risk of components not matching.

[Cheredanine]

lol I don';t disagree with any of that mate.

My main point was the bf team are software engineers, not pcb designers, the entire reason the bf name is on their because the manufacturer paid for it.
Personnaly, I am a big bf fan but I won';t use that board