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Something coming up soon. This little guy will be driven by 2S battery. Yeah… meaning going to running on my latest 2S ESC version. Will keep you guys update soon… Stay tuned….

Had been really long busy year. Finally able to fork out some spare time to kickstart back my long waited project. This will be combining the Flight Controller, 4 x ESC, Current Sensor, High Efficient power regulator for 3.3v and 5v, Powered by 2 x 18650 battery and many more!!

Hope to get this done quick then can start to fly with my new BigRC (Installed with RubyFPV system and custom controller using ESP32). This will be mini long range quad!!!

Next is to design a suitable frame for the quad while assembling the parts one by one……

Stay tuned….

Finally had send this latest version for PCB fabrication. I had been busy recently but able to fork out some time to continue this hobby.This year new objective 2022 is to make this one work better than previous version. What I had done:
1. I separated the ESC with Power Supply section to one board
2. For the FC board, just plainly MCU, Gyro, Receiver.
3. Now my custom receiver is upgraded to ESP12F. Sounds like expressLRS, but is not. It was my long time ago receiver until now. It was running on atmega328 but I had migrated to this ESP32 and now shrinking it. Also using E01-ML01 as the receiver (NRF24L01P compatible)
4. I call it SimpleFC because I want it to be simple and clean. So, this round I had removed BARO and also using STM32F411CEU6 microcontroller. How I did that? I reverse engineered from the code. Based on the code, I mapped back the pins and build backs the schematic. Is a pretty fun process.
5. Of course now is year 2022, we need USB C. I had found pin layouts from USB C pins and successfully linked it back to the board. No longer need to carry another USB cable for that. I know some are using WiFi cheap for flashing but I still prefer to have cables.
6. Both the board sizes are: 37mm x 37mm with 1mm thickness and 4 layers.

Interested? Support me via -> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bertfpv/schematic-for-simple-fc-simple-esc
You will be able to download the schematics.

Specifications:
FC:
– USB-C port
– STM32F411CEU6 (FC MCU)
– MPU6000
– OSD
– ESP12F (Receiver MCU)
– 6 ESC outputs
– AUX1, AUX2 can be used for RSSI (Next version will link the RSSI)
– 2 hardware serial ports
– 1 I2C port
– Supports INAV or BETAFLIGHT
– 1 x CAM port with 5V power
– 1 x VTX port with 5V power

ESC:
– 4in1 ESC
– 18A each phase
– Including 3.3V and 2x 5V buck booster
– Voltage sensor
– Only support 1S (Supported voltage from 2.0v ~ 4.2v) Once the voltage hits 2.5v motor spins but not enough rpms to maintain. Only able to power up the electronics.
– Supports BlueJay and BLHeli_S firmware.

Recently flying my nano quad, felt a bit scary without a second receiver on the goggle. I had to keep moving my head to get the best reception for the video feed. Finally, I learned about the little display thing on every one’s FPV goggle is actually dual RX5808 receiver with some firmware that keep switching to the best video feed signal. My Eachine EV-100 having dual antenna but is not a very good in handling diversity. I found a few good opensource projects and saw their designs very good but I need audio output as well for the receiver so decided to make my own version. The board already sent for fabrication and now left the firmware to be developed and make it working. I had already tested the tv composite output is working and is very fun to built this diversity vtx receiver. Wish me luck!

The specifications:
– Dual RX5808 Receiver
– Video Out
– Audio Out
– 4 Touch Sensors
– minimal components
– single PCB with dual layers
– 5V input
– Using software SPI mode
– Buzzer
– 2 LED indicators
– OSD in display
– Web OTA


PCB DESIGNS:

Had done all my testing and flying on this version. Found some bugs and fixed it. The problem was during 3.6v and above the output will be getting higher linearly. So I had added a diode with a 0.6v forward drop voltage. This enables it to have a stable output at 3.3v.

This board design is only meant for 1S. Meaning operating voltage is in between 2.0v ~ 4.2v. Higher than that you need to modify the buckbooster part into a 3.3v LDO as well as the 5v power line to a 5V LDO. I modified this from OMNIBUSF4PRO to my custom made version. I removed SDCard as the blackbox to save more space for the All-In-One board.

For the USB port, I am not supplying the 5V to the board. It needs to be power up from the 1S battery. I dont want it to overload my laptop 5V to it or maybe accidentally shorted the board cause the laptop 5V logic all burned off. That is why I designed it not to supply to the board but needs to power up with the battery or some power supply regulator to the board before the USB port is recognized by the laptop or PC.

For the ESC part, is designed to be running on 1S. The MOSFETS are running at 5A maximum at continuous and pulse drain at 12A. Due to the ESC I had flashed with BlueJay, it should be able to handle a bit more then 5A. The trigger level (Vgs) of the MOSFET is very low, there isn’t need any MOSFET drivers. The only thing, we need to invert the output from one of the line to drive the P-MOSFET. If intended to driver higher current, try to find another type of MOSFET and replace it. The ESC design also can be used those single MOSFET rather 2-in-1 MOSFET. It will be bigger but reliability wise should be better. When designing a higher voltage ESC, meaning more than 1S, you will need higher current rating of the MOSFET and may need to add a driver or custom transistor to drive the MOSFET. I will be working on higher “S” ESC in near future. These designs are came from tinyPEPPER – https://fishpepper.de/projects/tinypepper/ with some modifications done to the schematic where it enables it to run at a very low voltage to provides stable 3.3v to the EFM8BB21F16G and is sharing with the main board FC’s 3.3v powerline. This will save some costs of making this FC. One 3.3v buckbooster that powers up the FC, Gyro, Baro, VTX, Cam, ESC and etc. It will not draw more than 1A as I had tested so far. The VTX is powered up by another 5V buckbooster power line. So is totally not affecting each other.

For the FC firmware, I am using INAV 3.0.1. I am a INAV fans. For betaflight it will work too but need to changed to OMNIBUSF4 board for the firmware.

Initially, the ESC’s EFM8BB21F16G are blank. You need to flash in the firmware using C2CK and C2D pins before you can flash the ESC firmware over serial passthrough method. Once if flashed, all ESCs will be appeared in the INAV configurator. You even can use the BLHeli or BlueJay configurator to set your preferred settings. If you need to know how to flash in the ESC firmware, you can read from here -> https://www.bertfpv.com/how-to-flash-blheli_s-firmware-to-efm8bb21f16g/. You will be able to have a full control of your hardware and without fear of broken it again.

I will include the gerber file on the next version. For this version, I still need to fix the distance between the pads and the SMD components. It needs a very steady hand to solder the wires on it. So I am going to built version 2.0 very soon.

Sponser this project:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bertfpv

Below is the schematic diagram for this All-In-One flight controller I had built. I had included both PDF and PNG. Time to built it your own and fly it. Is a very great experience and understanding how the whole quad works. Stay tune.

Well, this site is to share all my RnD work to everyone who likes to build things from scratch. I am building drones since 6 years ago till now. At time my first drone was a big giant bird. I was using 500 X-Mode Alien Multicopter 500mm Quadcopter Frame. I picked that frame because the FC was just an Arduino running on MultiWii and some custom made receiver. Yeah, I am building everything my own even the receiver and transmitter. I developed the firmware for the receiver as well as the transmitter. Is using custom data packets using nRF24L01 modules. Now I am using EByte module which is identical to nRF24L01 and with more power you can go with.
The fun thing of this hobby is letting you to build everything by yourself. Is a lengthy and long way to learn everything but is worth it. Trust me, is worth it. You will learn the electronics part, mechanical part and firmware developments. You can just buy DJI and fly but it will not last. You will get bored and forget about it. Building it your own will just let you keep this hobby non-stop on going to build more and more things on it. I will slowly share out all the things that I had built for this project from Custom Radio Controller, Receiver, FC and ESC. In order to learn more, you need to share more to others 😉

Finally came to an end where I need to redesign the schematic again for lesser components and trying to get power source from FC rather from itself. The whole idea is to cut costs and able to build it easily. Below is the diagram currently I am working on and going to test out the firmware on BLHELI_s with the version O_H_5 but with some minor modification on the code. I had accidentally swapped the pins at the MOSFETs side. Lets see how it goes once the board is back from JLCPCB.

Below is the image of the ESC I had designed (Generated from EasyEDA):

The Schematic:

• Operating from 0.8v ~ 4.2v (Theoretically from the buck-booster chip that I am using at FC). I would predicted as it will be flat at 2.5v as the minimum it can go.
• Maximum rated 18A @ continuous and 45A @ pulsation mode.
• Maximum support protocol upto DSHOT600.
• Pass-Through mode supported through any FC. (Tested on INAV 3.0)
• PCB designed only 2-Layers.
• Only 1g for the weight of the ESC
• Initial flash from C2CK and C2D pins for loading the firmware into the EFM8BB21F16G.

Now for the time being, I will just wait for the components arrival and start testing it and sharing the details again once I get the result.

Finally added a new repository server to my site. This will store all my source codes for the FPV related projects here. Freely shared to everyone to rebuild it. I will constantly update it. Stay tune.

https://git.bertfpv.com/explore/repos