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    Wiring Diagram: Raspberry Pi and Pixhawk 6C

    Every connection of a full Aircast build on one sheet: battery power, the flight controller, Starlink, the gimbal camera, the LTE backup, the packet radio and the gripper servos. The numbers on the diagram point to the notes below it.

    • Battery (VBAT)
    • +5 V
    • GND
    • USB
    • Ethernet
    • PWM
    Aircast wiring with a Raspberry Pi and a Pixhawk 6CA 4S-6S battery powers the gimbal camera, a 5 V DC-DC converter for the Raspberry Pi, the PM02 power module for the Pixhawk, the Starlink Mini and a BEC for the servos. The Pi reaches the Starlink Mini through its Ethernet port, the camera through a USB-Ethernet adapter, and the Pixhawk 6C, an LTE modem and a wfb-ng radio over USB. Four gripper servos hang off the Pixhawk FMU PWM outputs.+−45V6GNDVBATVBATVBAT · 14-25 VGNDBattery4S-6S LiPo / Li-ionGimbal cameraSIYI ZR30, A8 mini,Topotek, Viewpropower 11-25 Vcamera 192.168.144.25Pi eth1 192.168.144.2/24Ethernet · RTSP + gimbal controlUSB-Ethernetadapter · eth1DC-DC5 V · 5 A+5 VGNDRaspberry Pi 4 / 5wfb-ng radioRTL8812AU · optionalLTE modembackup · optionalEthernetinternet · DHCPStarlink Mini12-48 V · 25-40 WLAN port, RJ45dish 192.168.100.1USB · MAVLink · auto-detectedPM02FC powerPOWER1USBPWMFMU PWM OUTAUX 1-4 =outputs 9-12Grippers ×4servos · optionalBEC5-6 V122334
    Starlink on the Pi's Ethernet port, the camera on a USB-Ethernet adapter, the flight controller on USB. The photo is a Pi 4; a Pi 5 orders its Ethernet and USB ports differently, and pins 4 and 6 are the same.
    Wiring diagram
    • Battery (VBAT)
    • +5 V
    • GND
    • USB
    • Ethernet
    • PWM
    Aircast wiring with a Raspberry Pi and a Pixhawk 6CA 4S-6S battery powers the gimbal camera, a 5 V DC-DC converter for the Raspberry Pi, the PM02 power module for the Pixhawk, the Starlink Mini and a BEC for the servos. The Pi reaches the Starlink Mini through its Ethernet port, the camera through a USB-Ethernet adapter, and the Pixhawk 6C, an LTE modem and a wfb-ng radio over USB. Four gripper servos hang off the Pixhawk FMU PWM outputs.+−45V6GNDVBATVBATVBAT · 14-25 VGNDBattery4S-6S LiPo / Li-ionGimbal cameraSIYI ZR30, A8 mini,Topotek, Viewpropower 11-25 Vcamera 192.168.144.25Pi eth1 192.168.144.2/24Ethernet · RTSP + gimbal controlUSB-Ethernetadapter · eth1DC-DC5 V · 5 A+5 VGNDRaspberry Pi 4 / 5wfb-ng radioRTL8812AU · optionalLTE modembackup · optionalEthernetinternet · DHCPStarlink Mini12-48 V · 25-40 WLAN port, RJ45dish 192.168.100.1USB · MAVLink · auto-detectedPM02FC powerPOWER1USBPWMFMU PWM OUTAUX 1-4 =outputs 9-12Grippers ×4servos · optionalBEC5-6 V122334

    Notes

    1Flight controller over USB, no UART

    aircastd finds ArduPilot and PX4 autopilots by their USB name (Holybro, CUAV, CubePilot and others), so one USB cable is the whole telemetry link. The Aircast image leaves the GPIO UART off, and TELEM1 and TELEM2 stay free. Secure the plug: if it works loose, telemetry stops until it is back, then aircastd picks the autopilot up again by itself. The Telemetry Setup guide covers the ground side.

    2Starlink on Ethernet, the camera on its own port

    The Mini runs its own DHCP server, so the Pi's Ethernet port gets an address and becomes the uplink. The camera wizard gives the camera's port a fixed 192.168.144.2/24 with no DHCP (192.168.2.2/24 for Viewpro), so a camera on the same port, or on a switch with the Mini, would cut the internet. Put the camera on a USB-Ethernet adapter. Starlink Mini Uplink covers activation and the cable.

    3Power

    The Mini needs 12-48 V and 25-40 W, and a 3S pack spends most of a flight under 12 V, so fly 4S-6S. The ZR30 takes 11-25.2 V, which still covers 6S. A Pi 5 without a USB-PD supply caps all its USB ports at 600 mA combined, and this build hangs four devices off USB: add usb_max_current_enable=1 to config.txt on the card's boot partition. A Pi 4 runs fine from 5 V 3 A. Hardware Reliability covers brownouts.

    4Servos on their own BEC

    A stalled servo on the flight controller's rail drags it down and can reboot the Pixhawk. The grippers are set up with parameters only; before flying, check that outputs 9-12 (SERVO9-12_FUNCTION) are not taken by the gimbal.

    Photos: Raspberry Pi 4 by Laserlicht (CC BY-SA 4.0), LiPo by RC Lipo battery (CC BY-SA 3.0), SG90 servo by Suyash Dwivedi (CC BY-SA 4.0), XL4015 module by Retired electrician (CC0) and TP-Link UE300 by Hayden Schiff (CC BY 4.0), all from Wikimedia Commons, backgrounds removed; Pixhawk 6C and PM02 from the PX4 User Guide (CC BY 4.0); SIYI, ALFA Network and Starlink product photos by their makers.

    Flash your Pi in about 5 minutes

    The Aircast Flasher downloads the image, sets Wi-Fi and hostname, and verifies the card.

    Download the Flasher