Hardware

To make a start with Drone the most affordable, the following reference hardware was selected for this book:

Packed

  • 2× STM32F103C8T6 development boards (Blue Pills)
  • CH340G USB-TTL converter
  • Female-to-female jumper wires

And optionally:

  • 2× Angled 40-pins 2.54 mm header - Blue Pills already come with straight pin headers

Unpacked

Usually Blue Pills come with not soldered pin-headers, except the SWD header. If you don't want to solder, you can twist the wires like this:

Twisted joints

Please be aware that the above method can lead to signal integrity issues or shorts. Therefore proper soldering is recommended. Here are the Blue Pills soldered with the angled pin-headers:

Soldered pin-headers

In the next chapter we will show how to convert one of the Blue Pills to a Black Magic Proble.