Does anyone know when the 2.8 firmware will be hitting the download page for Helicopters? Also what are the major changes?
Thank you,
Sean
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Does anyone know when the 2.8 firmware will be hitting the download page for Helicopters? Also what are the major changes?
Thank you,
Sean
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Replies
Ok guys, so I have a question for you. You can have input on the future code. ;)
Previously, Randy had a piece of code called "heli angle boost". Basically it was similar to what the multirotors have. It's a piece of code that attempts to increase the throttle (collective pitch) automatically whenever you lean the heli over, in order to give it enough throttle to maintain altitude. So, say you're leaned over 45°, it would increase collective by maybe 70%.
But I actually took it out of the program that I'm working on here for 2.8.1
Reason is, I am attempting to create a two-level collective pitch range. You get to set up a full range for acro mode, and then can have a reduced range in Stabilize mode. I had trouble integrating it with Heli Angle Boost.
Secondly, I'm not sure if Heli Angle Boost is really doing what we want. Theoretically it could work if you are doing all your manoevers at zero airspeed. But with a heli in particular, there are some really large aerodynamic effects that completely swamp any of these angle boost functions.
If you're flying foward at 50 km/h, and pull back on the elevator just a bit, the heli will climb far beyond anything than the collective could do. Simply put, you don't need Angle Boost at speed.
In fact, if you are going fast and trying to stop by "slamming on the brakes", it can actually fight you because in that case you need to dump collective pitch to avoid climbing, but the Angle Boost will be adding a bit of collective.
So what do you think? Leave it out, or try to figure out a way to keep it in?
Sean, I tested the prototype for 2.8.1 yesterday. It went pretty well. I have some changes to push to my clone so that Randy can bring them into trunk.
Overall, I found the 2.8.1 transformed highly sporting flying in stability mode in the same way that it did for multi-rotors. Banking and Yanking feels much more responsive now, whereas before it was always mushy. I was having fun with the heli and even started getting the blades to "bark" in some manoevers for the first time, so it was being pushed and responded well.
However, when it comes, everybody needs to be prepared to do EXTENSIVE retuning of the PID's. You will not be able to fly with your old setup. Everything changes. Luckily, for the most part it is straight forward, and I can walk you guys through the conversion process.
So the only downside is I was having too much fun again, and did the same stupid mistake I've made before leading to a crash. I use the ESC control mode which drives my governor equiped ESC direct on Ch8 from the APM. This does not use any input channel. Soon as you arm it, and raise the collective off the bottom, it sends a preset PWM to the ESC. Soon as you drop the throttle, it shuts down.
I had made a mix in my Tx, where I could flick a switch which locked out the bottom 1% of the throttle range, which prevented an in-air shut-down. But, I was so busy tuning the PID's, that I forgot...
So I have to change this mode. It's too dangerous, I've done this twice now.
What I'm going to do is control the throttle off of Ch8 input.
Now, when will this all hit the downloads? I'm not sure.
Randy is looking to bring in his accelerometer augmented position hold, and then pushing the whole thing out as 2.9, but that might delay things a bit more. I could consider having a special push of 2.8.2 just with what I have now for Helis only.
But the only problem is, that I only have 3 flights on it before my crash. I'm not totally happy with that. So it depends on you guys, how you feel about it.
I tested hovering precision, high speeds, and full acrobatics (well, whatever you can do with only 45° in stab mode). I am a little concern about some weird imprecise feeling in Acro mode, but then you guys never had Acro mode before, so anything is better than nothing?
I just found that the control wasn't precise. But then, I don't have a lot of experience in acro or manual flying so... maybe it's just me. I have done a bit, in full-manual flybar mode in the past, it did feel fine. This new mode in Acro on a flybar... I'm not sure. Maybe it was just a bad day.
Anyway, the 600 is down for a while, I blew the ESC. I hope my 450 will be running again soon.
Sean,
There's no specific date set yet I'm afraid. The issue is that for 2.8.1 we modified the rate controllers to work in the body frame and we may have broken the heli controls while we were doing that. The additional problem is that both Robert and my helis are out of action at the moment.
Robert Lefebvre is actually master of the heli code these days.
-Randy