The Matek F405 AIO FC is a PDB-integrated flight controller that is able to run 32K/32K with DShot1200 in Betaflight 3.2.

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You can get the Matek F405 AIO FC from: http://bit.ly/2tiwokQ

Learn about the basics of mini quad flight controllers in this article.

UPDATE (Dec 2017): The Matek F4 AIO has been updated to the Matek CTR FC.

What’s Special about the Matek F405 AIO?

The Matek F405 OSD FC with separate PDB combo has been a great success, everyone I’ve talked to who have been using this FC gave me positive feedback. The Matek F405 AIO is basically combining this combo into a single board. It would be interesting to see if this newer FC can keep up the same reputation.

Feature wise, it’s one of the top AIO FC’s out there.

The Matek F405 AIO FC supports 32K/32K(PID loop, Gyro sampling rate) with DShot1200 in Betaflight 3.2

It has 5 UART’s and VCP is also available which means it won’t occupy one of the UART’s when connected to USB. However you still do have to do the “inversion” hack for Smart Port.

There are 6 PWM (motor) outputs which supports hexacopter configuration. The last 2 of the PWM output can also be turned into soft serial ports, for things such as Smart Port (without getting uninverted signal)

The solder pad layout is very easy to work with, however the XT60 connector is designed to stick out on the left or right. You would have to double check if this would work in your frame when planning.

For a full list of features please check the following specification.

Specification

• F4, ICM20602 (SPI)
• PDB integrated, rated for 120A continous, Supports 3S to 6S input voltage
• Betaflight OSD (how to setup betaflight OSD)
• BEC: 5V/2A, 9V/2A
• SD card logger for Blackbox
• 5 UART’s (including SBUS)
• Built-in current sensor

Unboxing

This FC doesn’t come with a XT60 connector or pigtail. But I can’t really complain as it includes a 470uF capacitor for reducing electrical noise in the power, and 4 rubber bobbins (standoff) for FC soft-mounting. I currently don’t see other FC’s that offer these popular “must have” flight controller accessories.

Close Look

The holes in the tab that sticks out allows you to solder a XT60 female connector to it. However I personally recommend soldering a short electrical wires in between the tab and the XT60 connector. I have seen quite a few incidences where the tab broke off in crashes when the connector was “hard-soldered” on the tab.

Also not all frames can accommodate this tab so make sure you check the measurement when planning.

This board is designed to be mounted “side way”. As you can see when the USB port is facing left (or right but you’d have to remap the motor outputs) to allow easy USB access, the XT60 connector would be sticking out of the frame on the other side.

I have seen this design in some of Matek’s PDB, it works like a charm in certain frames (such as stretch X where there is a lot of room in between front and back props, GepRC LSX5), but doesn’t always work in all builds.

The BEC gives 9V output instead of the traditional 12V. The lower voltage can potentially help reduce the heat generate in your VTX/Camera. But make sure your VTX/Camera can actually be powered by 9V when planning.

Another thing is the SD card logger that is located on the other side of the USB port. The SD card has nothing to rest on, like the Betaflight F3 where uses an SMD inductor as support for the card. This might make finding the slot and inserting the card a little bit more challenging especially in a tight build.

FAQ

What Betaflight firmware target to select/use when flashing the Matek F405?

There is no available firmware stable release for the 3.1.7 or older. For now you’d have to download the firmware file from Matek’s page and use “load firmware local” in BF Chrome App to flash your boards. Hopefully the target for these boards will be available in the 3.2 stable release.

I have problem flashing the board… It just get stuck during the process.

if you get stuck during flashing, make sure you’ve disabled “Full erase” and flash again.When it’s done, go straight to the CLI and type “defaults” then <enter>. This will erase all your settings, same having “Full erase” selected before flashing.

The quad responds the wrong direction to my roll/pitch stick movement

Set yaw offset to 270. If the problem persists, try to flash new firmware with “Full chip erase” enabled, or try to flash cleanflight then back to Betaflight, this will help make sure all the settings are reset.

Other AIO FC

For a comparison between different AIO boards (PDB+FC), check out this list I made:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ae8YgcDa0TmSzWenbn4MMDJSnJckB8GCU_3anvo8mKE/edit#gid=0

SmartPort on SoftSerial Not working?

Tried setting all UART pads as soft serial to for the inverted SmartPort, but none of them work.

It turns out these pins won’t work, the only pins that would work for inverted SmartPort as soft serial are the S5 and S6 pins (motor 5 and motor 6).

• Enable SoftSerial_TX on S5 or S6 pad
• Type “resource motor 5 none” in CLI, ENTER
• Type “resource serial_tx 11 A15” in CLI, ENTER
• Connect the inverted telemetry signal to S5 pad
• Then turn on telemetry and softserial, save and reboot
• Set smartport on softserial 1,save and reboot

To learn more about soft serial here is my tutorial.