Matek F405 OSD Flight Controller | BetaFlight F4 Killer?

Matek F405 OSD F4 Flight Controller Review

F4 Flight Controller is Matek’s first attempt at flight controllers. How did they do? Let’s find out.

Matek is know mostly for making power distribution boards and LED boards. Lately they’ve been coming out with some interesting products like this F405 flight controller and the VTX-HV (which I will be reviewing next).

The Matek F405 comes in two versions, AIO and OSD. The AIO version is the F4 flight controller with PDB pads for the battery and ESC. This is a great option for people who like to build the traditional way with an ESC on each arm. The OSD version, the one I’m reviewing, is an F4 flight controller without the PDB pads but has BetaFlight OSD.

I haven’t really used OSD in about a year because in the past if you wanted OSD you’d have to run a separate board like the DTF OSDoge. But BetaFlight OSD is awesome! The OSD functions are built directly into the flight controller and has pads for the camera and VTX. This makes installing the FPV part super easy. There’s really no need to splice camera and VTX wires. Just solder the wires right on the flight controller and you have OSD. The top reason I like Betaflight OSD is that you can tune pids from the OSD!

Specifications

• F4 STM32F405RGT6 processor
• BetaFlight OSD
• 5 UARTS
• 6 PWM Dshot outputs with 5 and 6 can be configured for FrSky Telemetry
• Built in inverter for FrSky SBUS on UART2
• MicroSD BlackBox
• 5v and 10v BEC
• RGB LED support
• Beeper out

Parts Used in this Build

• Tokio X
• Matek F405OSD
• Spedix 30A ESC
• Tmotor F40 Pro 2400kv
• FOXEER Arrow V3
• FX799T (soon to be replaced with the Matek VTX-HV)
• FrSky XSR-M
• HQ Props 5x4x3vs1 Tri-blade props
• FlightClub 4s 1500mAh Graphene Battery

I really like the layout of the Matek F405OSD. It has signal pads in the 4 corners of the board in the BetaFlight 1, 2, 3, 4 layout.

Betaflight Setup

In order to get the telemetry and LUA script on the Matek F405OSD, you have to reconfigure signal pad 5 to enable SoftSerial_TX.

• Connect the Smartport wire from the XSR-M to the s5 pad on the board
• go to the CLI screen and type “resource motor 5 none”, ENTER
• then type “resource serial_tx 11 A15”, ENTER
• type “save”, ENTER
• on the configurations tab, enable SOFTSERIAL and TELEMETRY
• on the Ports tab enable “SmartPort” under Telemetry Output for SOFTSERIAL1

In order to have turtle mode setup you need to have BetaFlight 3.2 firmware (I’m using 3.2 RC5) and have the ESCs flashed with 16.63 DSHOT commands firmware.

Then setup an AUX switch to enable turtle mode.

Here are the PIDs I’m running for the Matek F405OSD with my setup.

Matek F405OSD, is it worth it?

I would say yes! Most flight controllers these days run around $40-$45 dollars. The Matek F405OSD is a feature packed F4 flight controller for only $30. It’s easy to build, flies great and has been durable so far. We flew it into branches, tree trunks and fell out of a tree and kept rocking. Check out the board and let me know what you think!

**UPDATE 11/8/17**

After using this board for some time, I do not recommend this board. I had two go out within 2 weeks and one more this month. Sorry Matek, first and second I thought maybe were just flukes but three flight controllers went out on minor hits. My go to board the Lumenier LUX v2 which I have in nearly all my quads can take dozens and dozens of gate crashes and keep soldering on. These Matek F405 boards all went out within 10 battery packs. This is unacceptable and I do not recommend.

If you found this post helpful, it would be super cool if you purchased the components from my store or purchase items from my Amazon links. These posts are expensive and take a loooong time to make so the purchases make it possible for me to keep making them. Thanks in advance, I greatly appreciate it 🙂