Hobbypower Top Pin APM2.6 External Compass APM Flight Controller w/ UBLOX NEO-6M GPS

The controller worked well with 2.9. X firmware. But just about every version of 3.x firmware will not except this unit in auto mode and GPS guided mode. The problem is the unit sold here has semi second rate hardware and mission planner has trouble loading the firmware correctly with the minor errors in the chip on the board. It is not a bad unit and works great for uses other then auto modes. This is a very common problem many have written about with clone units like this one. If you plan to use this unit with mission planner for wp missions don't use 3.x firmware.Also! This is a 2.5 APM unit. The GPS/compass chip is a 2.6 setup. This unit has a compass on the main unit. 2.6 units do not have this feature. Unplug your GPS chip and load up mission planner. You will see you compass still functions!= 2.5 north will be south in this configuration!Also! This unit has the mistery component. Next to your APM ubec port on the board there is a black chip. It is a simple 100uf cap. Not listed on any data sheets online. Sadly this is the tell tail signs on the bad chip design used for these clone boards. It is used to semi control the brownouts even on a unit became made for APM units. Ask the countless people online what the flip of death is lol. You will find out anyhow after you buy this and run alt hold or loiter for a lolIt is a great starter unit and for fun flying its alright. But if your going to sink 100$ into your project buy a legit 3dr unit. I know your saying $$$ but it's worth it if your going to strap cameras and such on.Also! Don't buy China ubec APM units. Hobbyking and 3dr units are the only ones that power this unit enough to make it fly right. Your motor ESC that has a bec on it. Don't use it for the flight controller. These clones have a 65% brownout rate on them !

I have been trying to set this up for a few days and have been having issues with the compass. # 1 there is no arrow on the gps/compass to tell you which is the front. #2 I don't believe that this is a real 3DR unit even though the board says it is. #3 and the biggest issue. The description on this product here states that it is an APM 2.6. after having issues with the compass and reading some information from 3dr, i decided to open the case and check things out. Stamped right on the board is APM 2.5.2, NOT 2.6. I have not modified this in anyway shape or form I just opened it up to read what was on the board.I will be contacting the seller about this discrepancy immediately. Not that the 2.5.2 was a bad design but it is not what is advertised here. I expect what I ordered. The 2.6 does not have an internal compass, the 2.5.2 does and this is the reason that the external compass is not working properly. 3dr advises on the 2.5.2 model that if you have an external compass you have to cut between two contacts on the board in order to disable the internal compass so that everything works properly.I will post back my results, as of right now I am not happy about this purchase and would not recommend anyone to purchase this unit until either the description is fixed or they offer the proper product.

BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN PICKING THIS CONTROLLER. I bought it because I wanted to have a controller that had RTL and other GPS features. As a simple flight controller, it works great. But as soon as you start trying to use the GPS features, things go awry. When I received this board, it was my first GPS flight contoller so I spent weeks looking up all possible things that could go wrong and making sure I prevented them, taking only short flights to tune out any shaking or bad controller inputs. I did all of the setup by the book. The first time I attempted to use RTL, I plugged in the battery, made sure I had GPS lock, took my hexacopter off and flew about 40 feet away from me and 30 feet high. I flicked the switch to tell it to come back, it turned towards me and started coming back for about 3 seconds, but suddenly started flying away from me and climbing very quickly. I flipped it back to stabilize and put the throttle at about 30%. Nothing changed and it just kept climbing. It stopped at about 120feet up and did a triple roll before killing the throttle and falling all the way back to earth. From a conservative estimate, this thing cost me $300 worth of motors, a frame, etc. Beware!

This unit gets the job done pretty well for a Chinese knockoff. My only gripe is that I am unable to install the latest firmware version via mission planner. I've used the GPS functionality to do multiple RTL landings and it works perfectly. The loiter mode also works great. I have yet to do any autonomous missions with this particular flight controller (i.e. Waypoint navigation), so I cannot comment on that. Only problem so far is that I can't upgrade the firmware.