Pixhawk (Black cube) ‘standard’ carrier boards

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Please forgive me if the answer to this is somewhere in the forums, I have had a good search and read heaps but can’t find anything definitive.

With all these Green cubes getting purchased, I’d assume there are loads of people out there with spare black cubes, which could be reused for other projects (fixed wings, rovers etc) though there seems to be lack of availability of stand alone carrier boards and PSMs (apart from this one from SpectreWorks) Multi-Rotor Pixhawk2.1 Carrier Board

All of the required files are available on github, for 2 types of CBs (PCA-0005 Full CB and PCA-0006 Mini CB) and the PSM v3 - GitHub - 3drobotics/Pixhawk_OS_Hardware: Design files for the open hardware designs used by 3DR

So my question(s)..

1. Are these readily available anywhere?
2. If not, would anyone else be interested if I arranged production run? (mini would be my preference)
3. Am I completely missing something?
 
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I have at least 3 or 4 Black Pix Hawk cubes doing nothing but gathering dust. Would love to know some options I could explore with these.
 
Someone could modify the design to include level shifters on the Carrier Board for the ESCs....
 
So you're saying the carrier board could be designed to mitigate/bypass the problem with the black cube so you wouldn't have to use a software patch?
 
In theory.

Until someone tries it it'll be neither proven nor disproven. But if it is at a design stage one could certainly make it jumper-selectable. So even if it doesn't work you'd be able to remove it from the equation and still have a functional board.

Just a thought.
 
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You know what happens when my imagination starts to warm up?

It's getting hot in here, so take......uh....never mind.
 
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Yeah well I wandered into dangerous territory today and started looking up the "How to build your own drone" guide... I have no issues with trying to build a small cheap quadcopter ... but man an octocopter would be WAAAY better.... I think I should lock my credit card away for a while....
 
Be very easy to drop level shifters between PWM out and ESCs, though I do like the idea of including them on the CB - could potentially put connectors either side of the shifters so you could choose to use them or not. Might be difficult to fit on the mini, but very doable on the Full CB I think.
 
Someone could modify the design to include level shifters on the Carrier Board for the ESCs....
This doesn't need to be done. The 'problem' you are trying to fix is in the Solo's ESCs. If you run a stock Solo cube in a carrier board with standard off the shelf ESCs, nothing needs to change.
 
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This doesn't need to be done. The 'problem' you are trying to fix is in the Solo's ESCs. If you run a stock Solo cube in a carrier board with standard off the shelf ESCs, nothing needs to change.

True dat... (Insert face palm) :cool:
 
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This doesn't need to be done. The 'problem' you are trying to fix is in the Solo's ESCs. If you run a stock Solo cube in a carrier board with standard off the shelf ESCs, nothing needs to change.
Imagine, perhaps, that someone would like to use existing parts they have in an attempt to minimize costs. Including, say, some Solo motor pods. What is the harm in including a JUMPER SELECTABLE set of level shifters on the carrier board? The real estate is minimal, the parts cost is VERY minimal (if one chooses to purchase and solder them on)

I know I personally have about a dozen Solo motor pods which I would be very excited to be able to use in a DIY hex- or octo-copter with AC3.x.

I appreciate the knowledge input, but my suggestion was intended to widen the usefulness of a board before sending it out to be spun. Not to fix any particular problem per se.
 
What is the harm in including a JUMPER SELECTABLE set of level shifters on the carrier board?

There’d be ‘no harm’ in doing this, though the effort required in branching the ‘known good’ 3DR board design, altering routes and layout, going though testing etc. would probably not be worth it.

I definitely get your point, but to be honest, if reusing Solo Pods in a DIY build, would be very simple to drop a multi channel shifter in line.

Like this one... (Lego Space Man not essential)
33213446-9CD0-4B74-87B0-7F62E18A3799.jpeg AE65A5B5-0B03-42D1-9237-0FECD70B5832.jpeg
 
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There’d be ‘no harm’ in doing this, though the effort required in branching the ‘known good’ 3DR board design, altering routes and layout, going though testing etc. would probably not be worth it.

I definitely get your point, but to be honest, if reusing Solo Pods in a DIY build, would be very simple to drop a multi channel shifter in line.

Like this one... (Lego Space Man not essential)
View attachment 7883 View attachment 7884
Do you just enjoy pissing on people's parades or something? I'm not asking you to do the layout or testing work so I fail to see why you insist on publicly pooh-poohing the idea.
 
I guess I quoted the wrong post when I replied. Let me try again and maybe my original response will make more sense:

So you're saying the carrier board could be designed to mitigate/bypass the problem with the black cube so you wouldn't have to use a software patch?

So in response to that specific post, I had just wanted to point out that there isn't a 'problem' with the black cube. The 'problem' is with the Solo's ESCs. The stock cube operates at 3.3v like any other flight controller would.

I'm not saying anyone should or should not add level shifters, flux capacitors, or a garbage disposal to a carrier board... just there isn't a 'problem' with the stock cube. :)

With all that being said, I had contacted ProfiCNC / Hex last week about buying their standard carrier boards a la carte, and the replies I received were:

"The Standard carrier board is not for sale, you can buy the Intel carrier board from our distributors."

And

"The carrier board has been sold out in US. You can order the Intel Carrier Board from Spanish distributor Stockrc. Thank you!

Intel Edison Carrier Board including PSM without the cube and Edison Chip

Should you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact us."

Unfortunately, at that price, it would be cheaper to buy another complete Pixhawk flight controller than to try and reuse our stock Solo 2.0 cubes.

Maybe if enough of us asked (and if the price was reasonable), ProfiCNC / Hex would make another run of their standard carrier boards (non-Edison since we already have the IMX-6s).

I would also be interested in several simplified carrier boards if you guys decide to make them. For me, the smaller the footprint and lighter it is the better.
 
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