The Pixhawk 2 is coming soon as a standalone flight controller

[Ian [P13]]

The Pixhawk 2 is coming as a standalone flight controller. There's an official Facebook page for it here:
Log into Facebook | Facebook

And on DIY Drones here...
Pixhawk 2 User Group

The Pixhawk 2 isn't coming from 3DR as it appears they're moving away from DIY and open source after Solo to the Snapdragon Flight running the PX4 flight stack.

However, there are people that were involved in the hardware and software on Solo that are supporting the Pixhawk 2 so it should have a bright future regardless.

 

[Adimuzio513]

I totally understand moving from diy cause I'd say there won't be as much money to be made in the future, but moving away from open source is a bit scary. Not that I'm good enough to do a lot with it right now, but that's kinda their thing isn't it and I hoped to learn more about uses for it. Right now I'm totally happy and really don't need much else aside from sensors, I'm sure that will change though in the future.

Is this something to worry about, as in are they going to go more the dji route after solo? These are their selling points for solo I'm curious why the sudden change of heart. Not complaining just inquiring, couldn't be happier with solo now, so I hope they don't stray too far from this type of setup.

Thanks for the heads up anyway Ian and I'm excited to learn more about Snapdragon flight as well.

 

[RichWest]

Got to love open source...and we need to support it as well. I look forward to the PixHawk 2

I found an interesting statement to quote, "...The DF17 connector was specifically chosen for its vibration tolerance, and boy has that been tester(ed) to the max!"

 

[Ian [P13]]

I don't know 3DR's future plans myself, but it's no secret from various sources on the Internet, that Qualcomm is a large investor in 3DR, Qualcomm have their own hardware called the Snapdragon Flight, which it has to be said is very good.

Whilst the Arducopter software is very powerful and well supported by a community, the fact it's open source means that 3DR has put its money into supporting the software, meanwhile cloners build Pixhawk compatible hardware without contributing back with hardware improvements or contributing to Arducopter.

So it looks like 3DR is moving to PX4 so that 3DR will no longer have to share its code. With that 3DR would lose one of the benefits of Solo with future products, as long as 3DR keep their great customer service and allow users to still extract and examine their own log files, then I'm not too worried, if they simply become another DJI though that would worry me.

For Solo owners there's no real issue as Solo's code is becoming part of the main branch of Arducopter so you'll get new firmware for many years to come. Also as the Pixhawk 2 is being sold seperate and will have companion computer options there's a possibility you'll be able to upgrade your Solo yourself in future.