I started researching/designing a custom flight controller!

I began by choosing an IMU for it. I was initially going to use an MPU-6500, but learned it was trash for drones. I eventually settled on the BMI270 since it was relatively cheap but still powerful. Another benefit of that chip was that it could be hooked up to a magnetometer, so I looked into the BMM150, which was recommended. I also wasted my time with another random magnetometer that I keep forgetting the name of.

Anyway I added those to the schematic, which wasn’t too bad. I’m pretty new to KiCad so I needed to figure out how to import symbols into it. I discovered the lifesaver known as the componentsearchengine, which is an extensive database of symbols that KiCad or other cad programs may not have.

I also chose a microcontroller for the FC. I wanted to use an ESP32 chip since I’m most familiar with them, and ended up choosing an ESP32-S3 Wroom 1 (mostly arbitrarily)