Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Heino R. Pull on March 26, 2012 at 12:36pm

George,

What software did you load into your Ardustation and your multirotor? The parameter values that can be edited change from one release to the next of ACM.  The Ardustation software that you loaded must match the ACM software and ACM 2.5.x has been changing rapidly.

Heino

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Permalink Reply by George Brindle on March 26, 2012 at 1:52pm

Heino,

Thanks for the reply.  The Ardustation is using 0022, and the firmware in the APM1 (2560) is V2.5.3 

So far I am just at the level of tuning the Rate and Loiter and the  Ardustation seems to be working fine over the Xbee, apart from the points I noted.

Unfortunatey I have just found that I cannot get the Ardustation to connect to the PC via the FTDI cable, it powers up ok, but when I go through the load procedure ( all carefully written out) to try and load 0023 for example, as a check, then it fails to compile.  This does not in any way affect the subsequent operation of the Ardustation, so it seems to confirm that no connection is made.

  A full stop at the moment.

 

Thanks

 

George

 

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Permalink Reply by Heino R. Pull on March 26, 2012 at 2:02pm

George,

Are you referring to the Arduino compile environment (Arduino 0022)? There is a sketchbook that is loaded for Ardustation and I wondered what sketchbook you downloaded for the Ardustation. I was involved with software called Ardustation II (or 2) that is currently at revision 11.  There is other software that has been written for the Ardustation and I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same load. The Ardustation II is set up for ACM 2.0.49 and hasn't been updated for ACM 2.5.3 yet.  I started testing ACM 2.5.3 over the weekend and was planning to update the edited parameter set  to match 2.5.3 over the next week or so. 

Heino

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Permalink Reply by Ian Mallett on March 26, 2012 at 2:35pm

Heino,

As a novice to computer programing I am wondering what a SKETCHBOOK is,can you tell me what it is .I have never heard of it at all, Iwas wondering if it is an American term as I have never used it,  or seen it in Windows,I  have tryed looking for it in my Apple book's,I notice that it is used a lot on these forum page's but as most of it is from oversea's that where I and a few friend's are lost.If you could explain and tell me where to find it. Thanks for any help. Ian

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Permalink Reply by Heino R. Pull on March 26, 2012 at 2:43pm

As far as I know - the sketchbook is an Arduino coined term that really refers to a groups of projects (sketches) in a folder on the hard drive .  When you load the Arduino environment, you'll find a "Sketchbook" item under "File" and that will have a list of sketches that are really folders each containing a separate project. Each folder (sketch) has the .pde files an h files representing the source for your Arduino application.

Heino

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Permalink Reply by Ian Mallett on March 26, 2012 at 11:47pm

Heino,

Thank you very much for your explaination,now we all of us novice's know what to look for.

 

Ian

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Permalink Reply by George Brindle on March 27, 2012 at 4:04am

Heino,

Thanks for the reply, I think a bit more background information is due from this end.

I use the mission planner for all work I do, it is excellent for my level.  I found the idea of playing with arduino directly too daunting.

I should also explain that Ian Mallett ( who contributed the sketchbook query) had purchased the first Ardustation and early in December 2011 I offered to help him where I could. Martin, at BYOD helped with my attempts, and accessed my PC via Team Viewer and downloaded a folder which contained 0022, 0023, and Arduino 1.0.  Could this be the sketchbook you refer to, as using it does take me through a sketchbook section, to select Ardustation 2.  Ah, maybe the 2 is the clue?

The 1.0 would not load so we settled for 0022, which did.  I liked the concept of the Ardustation, and Xbee, so I eventually got my own and used the same folder to load it.

Your comments about the need to match the APM firmware and the Ardustation software seem to tie in with the fact that I can no longer access the station, using the same folder and method and cable.

Hopefully your editing will sort out the anomalies I appear to have in the display, and by the way, is the BR term in the flight data of the Ardustation actually the bearing/heading as shown on the Mission Planner display?

Now of course, the problem remains ( for us older generation newbies at least ) just how to do the down loads.  Much trawling through the forums has revealed little real information for none software literate users.  Perhaps a few simple download/install directions could be made available.

 

I look forward to the upgrade release, and many thanks for your help so far, it has clarified some points.

 

Thanks again

 

George

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Permalink Reply by Heino R. Pull on March 27, 2012 at 8:42am

Thanks - I now understand where you are and I'm sure I can get the parameters working correctly for you. I was glad for Ian's question also since I had the Arduino terms slightly wrong in my initial answer to you. The sketchbook refers to the collection of projects (sketches) that you can select from when using the Arduino compiler environment. 

I'm modifying the Ardustation 2 code so that it compiles with Arduino 1.0 - which several others  have had issues with and I'm going to update the parameters to 2.5.3 PID values. 

As for the BR term - that is a value that is used for the antenna pointing feature. It gives the bearing to the aircraft from an antenna on the ground tracking the aircraft. It looks random since you are not using the antenna pointing feature and an antenna home position latitude and longitude have not been stored in the EEPROM of the ardustation. The BR value won't be useful if you don't save a home position using the "save home" screen of the Ardustation. If you want to use this, all you have to do is bring the copter close to where the Ardustation is and use the right button on the Ardustation keypad to scroll to the screen that says "save home position" and then press the center button. The BR term will then be the heading to the A/C as it fllies. You can test this on the ground by moving the copter away from the Ardustation and checking the displayed value.

I'm doing some maintenance on my Arducopter for 2.5.3 testing -  which is delayed my work on the Ardustation 2 software, but I should have the new version of Ardustation 2 by this weekend hopefully.

Heino

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Permalink Reply by George Brindle on March 27, 2012 at 1:51pm

Heino

Thanks for the reply.  The waters are slightly less muddy now, especially after your BR term explanation, hopefully I can get the tuning settled down if the weather holds, and use the feature.

.  Look forward to the release of your upgrade.

 

Thanks again

 

George

Permalink Reply by Heino R. Pull on April 2, 2012 at 9:06pm

I have the code modified to compile under Arduino 1.0  relax and I have updated the parameters to match Arducopter 2.5.3.  I tested tonight and I'm having some small issues that I should be able to fix in the next day or so. This version will be 12 and it will now support 42 parameters for the complete set of PIDS. I'll post a blog post when the release is ready.

Heino

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Permalink Reply by George Brindle on April 3, 2012 at 1:56am

Heino,

 

Thanks for the information, look forward to trying it when you release it. 

 

George

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Permalink Reply by Heino R. Pull on April 3, 2012 at 8:10pm

I've got the software working and have released version 2.0.12.  It is available here:

http://code.google.com/p/ardustation-ii/downloads/list

You will need to use Arduino 1.0 Relax - so I would download the zip file and replace the Ardustation 2 and libraries folder in the ones on your computer that were in the Arduino 1.0 folder set up by Martin.  I've very lightly tested the parameter modification, so be careful before flying.  Let me know if you have any problems.

Heino

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