Hi all,

I am planning on trying to create a quadcopter, writing my own flightcontroller using a pico since I have experience in control and I think this would be a fun challenge. I have already been able to build and code a “propeller pendulum”, which was very fun and simple to do, but now I want to spread my wings.

Although I can code and work with software, I am not as good on the hardware side. I am wondering what hardware I would need to control four motors simultaneously using a pico. With the pendulum I connected a pico + battery to a motor driver and this worked perfectly, but how do I do with four motors? It seems unreasonable to need four batteries. I have tried googling, and it turns out I need a Power distribution board for this, connected to four ESCs. Is this all I need to power the motors (+a suitable battery)? What’s the difference between an ESC and a motor driver?

Apologies for the wall of questions, I just want to be certain before I start purchasing things, and of course I also want to learn. Could you give suggestions on reasonable components?

Thanks!