Upgrading from Atmel 328 based FC. Atmega 2560 or 32bit

[brewski]

Hi Guys,
If I am going to upgrade my Crius SE V2.5 328 FC to Atmel 2560 to get more inputs, outputs & memory for sketches & GPS waypoints, what are your thought on getting a 32bit board that will give all this plus ability to run more complex programs when Multiwii upgrades eventually to 32bit. From the little I have read most 32bit boards are just running recompiled 8 bit code so not really any benefits at present, but the 2560 boards are the same price as 32bit from what I have seen.
The programming of Cortex 32bit processors is apparently not as easy as the IDE used for Atmel 8bit microcontrollers. What about the Atmel 32bit microcontrollers. Do you know if these can be programmed via Arduino IDE + run in Configurator & do you know of any FC boards using it you can recommend?

Cheers...B

[timecop]

For GPS waypoints I recommend DJI NAZA V2 w/GPS or DJI NAZA LITE V2 w/GPS or DJI A2M or Wookong.

[brewski]

I can't afford the NazaV2 or Lite (which both cost more than my X525 kit with FC which is easy to configure & flies so well) so which of the open source 32bit FCs would you suggest that can be configured using IDE type programming & simple Windows type configuration programs which will give me what I have now with upgrade potential .
Cheers..B

[felixrising]

Discovery F3 or F4... cheap, has sensors already.. nice place to start if you are interested.

[brewski]

More info please

[e_lm_70]

Hi Guys,
If I am going to upgrade my Crius SE V2.5 328 FC to Atmel 2560 to get more inputs, outputs & memory for sketches & GPS waypoints, what are your thought on getting a 32bit board that will give all this plus ability to run more complex programs when Multiwii upgrades eventually to 32bit. From the little I have read most 32bit boards are just running recompiled 8 bit code so not really any benefits at present, but the 2560 boards are the same price as 32bit from what I have seen.
The programming of Cortex 32bit processors is apparently not as easy as the IDE used for Atmel 8bit microcontrollers. What about the Atmel 32bit microcontrollers. Do you know if these can be programmed via Arduino IDE + run in Configurator & do you know of any FC boards using it you can recommend?

Cheers...B

STM32 boards are cheaper then ATmega2560

You can DIY Baseflight with 10DOF for 14$ -> http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2154329

Development in STM32 is different then on ATmega 8bit ... but ... do you really need to make development ?
Baseflight and Harakiri are available.

Set up the development environment for STM32 take a little bit of time ... but over "Linux"/ubuntu/Lubuntu .. it is quite easy and fast (on PC you are faster to download a WMplayer image of Lubuntu and follow the easy installation steps)

If you are not up to a DIY HW projects, you can get the STm32 board from the "father" of the STM32 MultiWii ... http://www.abusemark.com/

PS: If you are into waypoint navigation with a ready solution ... go for a APM clone board ... this will be the most easy approach .. even if it is not the most future proven one ... still APM does almost all what you may want to do with a control board.