Control Zero H7

Description

The Control series of flight controllers from 3DR is our commitment to continuous improvement. Our goal with this series was to take every lesson learned from our +10 years of flight controller design and make the best pro-consumer and commercial flight controller on the market.

Purchase Control Zero H7 Kit Purchase Aluminum Case

Specifications

Specifications	Control Zero H7
Main Processor	STM32H743 Arm® Cortex®-M7 core (with double-precision floating point unit). 480 MHz
IO Coprocessor	No
RAM	1 MB
Flash	2 MB
FRAM	256kb
Accelerometers / Gyros / Mags	3x Accelerometers, 3x Gyros, 1x Magnetometer
Sensors	Bosch BMI088 (6DoF) Invensense/TDK ICM-20602 (6DoF) Invensense/TDK ICM-20948 (9DOF)
Internal Magnetometer	AK09916 inside ICM-20948
Barometer	Infineon DPS310 barometer (Very smooth and NO light sensitivity)
Interfaces and Protocols	5x UART (serial ports) [2x with HW flow control]. 1x PPM sum input signal 8x PWM outputs (all DShot capable) 1x RSSI (PWM or voltage) input 1x I2C 1x SPI 1x CAN 1x JTAG (TC2030 Connector) 3x Ultra low noise LDO voltage regulator Supported RC input protocols: Spektrum DSM / DSM2 / DSM-X® Satellite compatible input and binding. Futaba S.BUS® & S.BUS2® compatible input. FRSky Telemetry port output. Graupner SUMD. Yuneec ST24.
Connectors	Molex PicoClasp External MicroUSB
Pin Headers	Yes
Conformal Coating	Yes
Extended Testing and Burn In	Yes
Custom Carrier Board Support	No
NotifyLED	Yes (RGB)
Dimensions	Width: 25.9mm (1.01”) Length: 40mm (1.57”) Height: 13.2 mm (0.52in)
Dimensions w/o case	Width: 20mm (0.79”) Length: 32mm (1.26”) Height: 10.5 mm (0.41”)
Weight	34.94g (1.23 oz)
Weight w/o case	W/ Pins: 18.14g (0.64 oz), W/o Pins 13.04g (0.46 oz)
Mounting Holes	N/A
Protector Case	Included aluminum case
Typical Platforms	Multirotor Rover Fixed-Wing Boats Submarines VTOL Automatic Tractors Others

About IO coprocessors and AUX Pins

Historically, microcontrollers mounted on Autopilots didn’t have enough resources to handle the requirements that industry was demanding. Usually, the features needed to keep up with the trends, pushed manufacturers to add IO coprocessors to increase the number of available timers to generate and decode PWM signals and additional IO Pins. The coprocessor in these hardware architectures is usually connected via a single serial port, reducing the amount of data available in time and introducing more points of failure. This arrangement pushed the pins to be divided by MAIN and AUX Pins, where MAIN were the pins connected to the MCU and AUX to IO coprocessors.

However, later generations of hardware have increased IO pin density, timers and reduced size factor, among other enhancements.

Additionally, a special benefit also stands out for our design principles, and it is the higher amount and more sophisticated DMAs that work really well with peripherals, transferring high amounts of data and decreasing CPU usage. Besides, we are transitioning from a single MCU architecture to more distributed systems thanks to DroneCAN and Ethernet connectivity (coming soon). In practical terms, you can consider every available PWM pin in your board as you would for an AUX pin.

Firmware

The mRo Control Zero is compatible with the following firmware:

Ardupilot

PX4

Normal Usage Guide

All connectors follow the Dronecode connector standard. Unless noted otherwise, all connectors are JST-GH.

Pinouts

The serial ports default assignment is as follows:

Serial	Port Name	AP Serial
USART2	TELEM1	SERIAL1
USART3	TELEM2	SERIAL2
USART4	GPS	SERIAL3
USART8	Additional UART	SERIAL4
USART7	Additional UART	SERIAL5

Custom builds may be needed if you want to change default functionality for UART/SPI 6, this depends on the selected flight stack firmware.

If you have further questions contact us.

Power considerations

The board is intended to be powered either from the power ‘brick’ labeled as 5V_SRC in the above diagram or the VUSB pin or both; 5.25V is recommended due to protection diodes, this way you’ll avoid getting low voltage warnings from the ground station software. The CZ OEM is able to provide up to 1.8A (fused) to the 5V_PRPH power domain, exceeding this current is will damage the board.

Tutorials

• First Time Setup
• CAN Bus Setup
• UAVCAN Setup
• Advanced Configuration

Accessories Bags

Bag #1

Bag #1 contains the [30P-PicoClasp Header + MRC0272 + MRC0277] combined with the [Micro USB Cable], which offers a quick way to attach your autopilot to your PC. The MRC0272 is the female USB cable socket and the MRC0277 is the 6-position, red and black cable with a JST-GH header to attach your GPS. We recommend always keeping this harness on the ground and only using it for quick testing, firmware updates, and/or diagnosis.

This bag also contains the enclosure (optional) and SD Card.

Caution

Note that depending on the SD Card packaging dimensions, it might sometimes be located outside the bag.

• 1 x Micro USB Cable
• 1 x 30P-PicoClasp Header + MRC0272 + MRC0271: 6P-PicoClasp Crimps to 6P-JST-GH Header (Red&Blk)
• 1 x 8GB SD Card
• 1 x Control Zero Case
• 1 x Tweezer

Bag #2

This bag contains 2x red and black MRC0271 cables that will allow you to quickly attach your GPS and/or Telemetry modules that are JST-GH compatible. Please refer to Bag #3 for more PicoClasp to JST-GH options.

The remaining white cables [MRC0274, 5, 6 & 7] have PicoClasp crimps on one side and a “bare” cable on the other. Those are optional cables that allow advanced users to solder them to other hardware, or for pure development purposes.

• 2 x MRC0271: 6P-PicoClasp Crimps to 6P-JST-GH Header
• 1 x MRC0272: 4Pos-PicoClasp to Female Micro USB Socket
• 4 x 30P-PicoClasp Headers

Bag #3

This bag contains everything that is needed to assemble your own custom harnesses and interface between the two onboard Control Zero 30-pin PicoClaps connectors to the standard JST-GH header with 4 and 6 positions. The JST-GH is commonly used for CAN, GPS, Telemetry, and Power modules.

We have included enough “pre-crimped” PicoClaps to JST-GH cables with different lengths and JST-GH Housings to allow you to build any possible configuration. You won’t use most of the cables included, they are just there to give you maximum flexibility. You can obtain more housings at our store to take advantage of the remaining cables, or you can just save them as spare parts.

• 3 x 4P-JST-GH Housing
• 6 x 6P-JST-GH Housing
• 1 x MRC0279-150mm: 6P-PicoClasp Crimps to JST-GH Crimps
• 1 x MRC0280-50mm: 12P-PicoClasp Crimps to JST-GH Crimps
• 1 x MRC0280-100mm: 12P-PicoClasp Crimps to JST-GH Crimps
• 1 x MRC0280-200mm: 12P-PicoClasp Crimps to JST-GH Crimps

Bag #4

This bag contains everything needed to create your own harnesses to attach servos to the Control Zero autopilot. Use the M10067 board to interface with standard 2.54 mm servos, or the M10068 board for the standard mini-servo connector. With some creativity, both boards can be used simultaneously to control a mix of standard and mini servos.

Caution

Note that not all of the MRC0281-xxx cables are expected to be used; choose the length that best fits your needs. The M10068 board is sold separately on our webpage.

• 2 x 10P-PicoClasp Housing
• 1 x MRC0281-50mm: 12P-PicoClasp Crimp to PicoClasp Crimp
• 1 x MRC0281-100mm: 12P-PicoClasp Crimp to PicoClasp Crimp
• 1 x MRC0281-300mm: 12P-PicoClasp Crimp to PicoClasp Crimp
• 1 x M10067 (Board): 10P-PicoClasp Housing to 8x Servo Header

Harness Assembly

Pico-Clasp Crimp Terminal

This is the Terminal Crimp that is included in each end of the cables.

Molex Pico-Clasp Connector

Most of the cables are just “pre-crimped” with PicoClaps crimps. They must be inserted into the “connector” with the correct direction of the latch.

Tip

Notice that the metal Crimp has a little metal “latch” sticking out, the latch goes into the “inner” part of the connector above, you will see that the hole is rectangle and you have a little opening pointing to the middle of the housing, that is where you insert the latch. Make sure it goes all the way in, no metal should be sticking out of the connector.

Accessories

Aluminum Case

Questions or something missing? Please email us at: info@3dr.com