The Betaflight F7 flight controller has just arrived! FPVModel fixed a lot of the issues in the Betaflight F4 board, and added many new features and capability in the new FC. In this review we will take a close look at the board.
Buy the Betaflight F7 from: FPVModel | Amazon
Specs and Features of the Betaflight F7 FC
- Integrated PDB
- Two on-board IMU: MPU6000 and ICM20608
- Input Voltage 3S-6S
- 4 UART’s (all have built-in inverters)
- 5V BEC 1.2A
- Betaflight OSD
- Current Sensor (supports up to 145A)
- 16MB Flash memory for blackbox
- Supports TBS Crossfire & Telemetry
- Supports Frsky SBUS & SmartPort without inversion hack
- Dedicated pins for ESC telemetry
- Dedicated pin for FPV Camera Control
- Firmware Target: BetaflightF7 (BFF7)
Betaflight F7 FC Top
Betaflight F7 FC Bottom
Betaflight F7 VS Betaflight F4
Here is the comparison between the Betaflight F7 and F4 flight controllers in terms of features and improvements.
Check out the full review of the Betaflight F4 FC.
| Betaflight F7 | Betaflight F4 | |
| Price | $60 | $45 (on sale now for $34) |
| MPU (Processor) | F7 | F4 |
| IMU (Gyro) | MPU6000+ICM20608 | MPU6000 |
| Soldering | Pads | Through-holes |
| ESC Connection | Only on top the board (thanks god!) | On both sides of the board |
| BEC | 5V, 1.2A | 5V, 1.5A |
| UART | 4 | 3 |
The F7 is a more powerful processor than the F4, but right now the advantage in processing power is not a big deal because we haven’t used up all the resources on the F4 yet. The biggest difference for me is the number of UART’s, you get 1 more on the Betaflight F7 than the F4, and you won’t have to worry about getting the uninverted signal for SBUS or SmartPort because all the UART’s has built-in inverters in the F7 processor.
The solder pads style and layout on the Betaflight F7 look similar to the CLRacing F4 FC, and I think that’s a good direction to take. The solder pads are good sized and look to be really easy to work with :)
Finally I am excited to see they have finally moved the ESC power pads to the top of the FC, it was such a difficult task with soldering on the F3 and F4, where the ESC power was on the bottom of the board while the ESC signal was on top.
Closer Look at the Betaflight FC Board
So far, the improvement and spec we have mentioned above seem excellent.
The most interesting update on the Betaflight F7 is the two onboard gyro sensors: the MPU6000 and the ICM20608. However, don’t get your hopes up, it’s not a “dual gyro stabilization”, these are just options you can choose to use.
Surely having two gyros on the same board will increase the cost, but this might make this board more future proof. Right now most people are happy running 8KHz looptime, using the MPU6000 is enough. But future Betaflight development might benefit from a faster Gyro such as Kalman Filter.
Another drawback of the soft-mounted ICM20608 Gyro is the added height of the board and increased weight. The height of the board is only 5.3mm, but with the gyro protective case it adds another 5mm to it, making it a total of about 10mm.
The board weighs a total 12g, and only 9.6g without the ICM2068 gyro (it’s removable which I will show you in a moment).
The MPU6000 is the “good one” that provides more reliable performance up to 8KHz sampling rate. The ICM20608 allows you to run 32KHz gyro sampling rate but it’s known to be susceptible to noise, I guess that’s why this gyro is soft mounted in a plastic protective case (same approach is used in the Kakute F4). (The MPU6000 is hard-mounted on the board, that’s why the FC comes with rubber grommets).
You can choose which gyro to use by entering commands in CLI:
To use the MPU6000,
set gyro_to_use = 0 save
To use the ICM20608,
set gyro_to_use = 1 save
Removable Gyro!
If you don’t like the ICM20806 gyro, or the idea of using a ribbon cable to connect the gyro, you can just remove it and use the surface-mounted MPU6000.
The ribbon cable is connected with a connector and removable. There are 4 screws on the back of the board that hold the gyro protective case in place.
The board works as normal without the ICM20806, putting it back on the board and it still works as normal :)
The advantage of removing the ICM20806 is lower profile by about 5mm, and reducing the weight by 2.5g.
This is kind of cool… but I also feel a bit messed up because you paid extra for it and now you want to remove it :) Maybe the extra ICM20806 gyro should have been a option when purchasing the board?
Testing and Review
Beware that there is currently still no firmware target available for the board on Github, and therefore you won’t find the board in the firmware flasher in the configurator when you try to update it. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.
I plan to test this board in a quad soon, stay tuned!
33 comments
i got racerstar f7lite but no osd built in. can anyone suggest what brand specs of osd that i can use? newbie
Can not run dshot 600 with it betaflight 3.5 quad flips out when taking off works fine on multishoot 3.5.
I
Betaflight 3.3 works fine with dshot600
please see hardware bug section.
What UART would someone use for the New Runcam Micro Eagle that uses remote control.
banggood.com/RunCam-Micro-Eagle-11_8-CMOS-800TVL-Global-WDR-16943-FPV-Camera-Built-in-Remote-Control-Version-p-1305349.html
I don’t think it would work on the dedicated CAM ctl pad. Anyone done this yet?
any spare UART should work
Please someone figure out how to use 32k on this damn thing they claim it but it will NOT save the correct gyro to be able to click 32k which was the whole reason I bought this fc.hint hint Flightone ripper here!
But seriously devs can you please help me if you read this. I love all the new settings and how your changing the filter settings also keep up the great work! You just gotta step up with the 32k f7 new school stuff that’s the future for now at least.
you have to tell the firmware in CLI to use only the second gyro. He has the procedure above..
One small comment for the community …
The MPU6000 (the 6 DOF by Invensense) is, as can be see in the Invensense site NR/ND – that means that it is not recommended for new designs, or in other words: about to be in the end of life => will not be manufactured for more than couple of months.
We should expect to see new boards with something like the ICM20689 (its successor). Since as soon as the MPU6000 will be declared obsolete, its price will jump so high, nobody will continue to use it.
Just saying.
Has anyone been able to run ESC telemetry and smart audio at the same time?
No about to build my one but I have the samr question kind of?? The qick set up guide says to wire esc telem. on tx3 with is a pad I neen for a crossfire Nano RX I idi not catch another wrote you can share esc telem with the smart audio port.
I want to be able to control 8 motors. Is it possible to remap some of the pads (e.g TELE) to act as an ESC controller pins?
Just the fact that you have two gyros ? and can remove and even replace one? I don’t see why not… to me is a pretty cool feature. He is absolutely right though. 32k sends coy to 100% but I am running a Matek F7 at 16 16 and is maybe a little behind the Revolt (my fav F4 to build with) but it’s close enough. I got the BF F7 sitting on a Floss2 ready to be wired to a DalRC 40amp 4-1 BLheli32:) wonder if I can do esc temlemtry ? I needed the pin out for this board. Thank you Oscar! Appreciated!
Looks like FPVMODELF7 Target just replace BetaflightF7 Target in the latest 3.3.0 version.
I take that back. Do NOT flash FPVMODELF7 target to this FC. Bad things will happen when you try to fly. I just tried this on my FPVModel F7 FC and the quad would flip out every time I gave it some throttle. Not at all flyable. Went back to BFF7 original firmware and no issues.
Where do I get a copy of the original BFF7 firmware that came with the board?
Theres now a new firmware for this fc I used it and the firmware is pretty solid as is..turns on and off the correct filters also like turns off the notch filters and turned back on the dinamic filter like bardwell mentions in his lastest vlogs. Only issue that I have is how to run the 32k on it even after selecting that filter in the cli command! Any thoughts would be great! It’s dailed in now running 8k & 8k with 3%cpu load but I want to take full advantage of the 32k and my blhelli-32 Dshot 1200 esc,s.
Thanks from OCD-FPV
FPVMODELF7 does not work for me
Yeah I have the same issues I’m running the latest firmware and configurator of beta flight with all the new filter settings and it’s perfect but it won’t save to 32k in the cli (damn) love the board I just want to be able to select 32k! Any thoughts from anyone else to fix this would be great!
Hi! BF code have no target BETAFLIGHTF7. Were i can find firmware for this board?
It’s been confirmed they have changed the name of the board, as well as the target to FPVModelF7
Have they begun to optimize the firmware for the F7 yet? I assume it can handle all of the dshot commands as well? I have a proton sitting on the shelf I want to get in the air soon using the F7 and the quadrant esc’s.
Yes!! you can do more with the current F4, the CPU isn’t as powerful as an OC’d F4. There is no firmware for this board, and you probably won’t be able to use the custom Hex’s using Kalman filters EVER. The devs are taking full fledged Kalman filters out of the 3.3 release, so you can only get that on customer HEX now, and nobody has created anything for this FC.
Pros: the board runs 8×8 with 10% CPU load with Dshot 1200, runs great with both gyros, and it’s future proof once Betaflight is optimised for the F7. It will be Kalman ready when/if they ever release it. I’m happy with the board, and I’m going to use my F4 to test customer firmware.
Are there currently any down sides to using the F7 over the F4?
The good news is the F7 will be getting more attention from the DEV’s.
That flex ribbon cable is begging for a prop strike :) Hint, tuck it in somehow.
It’s a bit silly that an fc carrying the Betaflight name would choose to go into production of an F7 powered fc when all the devs know that F7 is not up to snuff yet and there’s an open issue since last June. F4 overclocked is crushing F7, which currently goes to 100% CPU at 32kHz gyro sampling. Maybe the designer added two gyros with the hope that one day the devs will be able to make full use of the ICM20608. Right now it’s just extra weight. The only benefit to F7 is built in inverters for FrSky. I had high hopes for F7 last year but I think the truth is we won’t see F7 at its full potential for some time.
Thanks for the insider info! Yea right now I think I tend to agree that the F7 has no obvious advantage over the F4 until the code is optimized for the processor.
Hello can i run on this FC smart audio(TBS unify), TBS crfs reciver, and esc telemetry at once?
I was wondering the same thing? One would assume the F7 could handle this but what port could be assigned these functions seperately?
I bought one :) hyped reverb running kalman 3.2 on this. You think that’s doable right now?
Maybe in BF 3.4? :)
Looks like the camera and video pads will be difficult to solder being so close to the esc pads.
Knowing that F4 is the standard and that Betaflight is pretty much optimised to run on F4, could there be a case whereby F4 (especially an overclocked F4) can outperform a F7 ?
You cannot to my knowledge overclock an F7 yet under Betaflight.
There are other benefits in using an F7 such as the number of UART’s and UARt inversion.
But you are right at the moment Betaflight is not yet optimized to run on F7.