Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Drone Savant on December 30, 2012 at 7:21pm

hey Joe if you are still stuck hit me up in a PM, I run http://www.diyclones.com and have quite a large archive of clone hardware and experience with their nuances. 

for other reasons I have quite a bit of PPM encoder experience as well and I would be glad to help you.

Don't let anyone shun you for your purchase of CC-BY-SA clone hardware btw. It is completely ok.  

Permalink Reply by Saurabh Srivastava on December 29, 2012 at 2:20am

Hi Chris and Joe,

Sorry... I am being a noob here.. Just trying to understand your statement... "So you won't be able to upgrade the firmware on that chip without using an ICSP programmer"

 

Does that mean that I cannot load Arducopter 2.9 when it will be available ??? Or are we talking about some other firmware ??? I am currently running 2.8.1 and it works great... However, I have another two sets of APM 2.5 bought from DIY.

 

Another point... the boards that came from DIY were deep purple in color and did not come with any code loaded. The red blue and green lights were running in sequence upon connecting to the USB.

Whereas, the board from rctimer are not that deep purple in color and also came with 2.8.1 loaded... dont know why ??? Is that something that we are talking about here??? and should that really bother me as an end user ???

 

Thanks for your time.

Permalink Reply by u4eake on December 30, 2012 at 5:37am

Hi Saurabh,

Your confusion is understandable and I suspect it's a little what Chris intended.  He wants to scare you out of buying an RCflyer and push you into buying from his company, 3DR.  A normal reaction, he's protecting his income.

Let me assure you that you CAN upgrade to arducopter 2.9 on the arduflyer when it comes out, just like with a 3DR board.  The 32u2 chip is the small processor that handles your inputs from your receiver, combines them and feeds them to the main atmega2560 processor.  Actually this chips hardly ever needs updating.  I've never update mine in 3 years.

Updating a new arduplane/copter firmware is done on the atmega2560 chip (not the 32u2), which works just fine on the arduflyer, either with arduino or with mission planner.

The fact that the arduflyer comes with the latest stable arducopter firmware loaded is just an extra service from RCTimer.  You can change this firmware on the arduflyer, just like with 3DR boards.  I have changed the firmware on my arduflyer to arduplane 2.66 with mission planner.

So in short, as a normal enduser you most likely will never have to update that 32u2 chip.  You shouldn't worry about it. 

Permalink Reply by Saurabh Srivastava on December 30, 2012 at 6:44am

Hi u4. Thanks a ton for your lovely explanation. It surely makes sense.

I am soo relaxed.... Eagerly waiting for the 2.9 version. I heard there have been a lot of GOOD improvements.

 

Appreciate your time and efforts.

 

Wish you a Very Happy New year ahead.

 

Regards,

Saurabh.

Permalink Reply by Saurabh Srivastava on December 30, 2012 at 6:48am

Just to add... I have 2 boards from 3DR and 1 board from RCTimer with 433 modems . The RCTimer modem had a small PCB board attached to the bottom side which had "RCTimer" printed on it. I happen to peel off that board and below that it read "3D Robotics"...

LOL !!!

DeveloperPermalink Reply by R_Lefebvre on December 30, 2012 at 6:54am

Your confusion is understandable and I suspect it's a little what Chris intended.

Honestly, that seems a little unfair don't you think?  What Chris wrote is clear as day.  

Permalink Reply by u4eake on December 30, 2012 at 7:25am

It might be clear to you and me Rob cause we know what the 32u2 does, but the moment I read it, I thought : people are gonne assume arduflyers can't update their arduplane/copter firmware. (cause that's the firmware everybody knows how to update)

However I kept from replying at the time.

But look, a day later someone is already indeed confused about it, feeling bad/worried about having bought an arduflyer.

If Chris wanted to be clear, he should have included the info that the 32u2 chip rarely needs updating and that this does not affect the ability to update arducopter/plane firmware.

DeveloperPermalink Reply by R_Lefebvre on December 30, 2012 at 4:14pm

I disagree.  The only thing that is confusing here is why somebody who doesn't know what 32u2 means would buy hardware from somebody offering zero support.

This is the problem with these things.

Permalink Reply by Drone Savant on December 30, 2012 at 7:43pm

I actually read it the same way you did u4eake. I've been critical in the past about folks that are heavily involved in the project offering advice "to be kind and helpful" alas it is incorrect or incomplete advice. I am not saying it was malicious... but it seemed rich with FUD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt funny to read the first example here: "An individual firm, for example, might use FUD to invite unfavorable opinions and speculation about a competitor's product"

This feeling bad about clones horse has been been beaten to death.  "...if they only clone the products and sell them at lower prices, that’s okay, too. The marketplace will decide." - http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/05/19/cloned-open-source-hardware...

I just noticed someone may have censored or edited one of my comments on this subject on another thread. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22place+to+debate+the+semantics+of+OpenSource...

What I said was that a great place to debate these open source semantics is over at the Creative Commons mailing list. http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/

Don't feel bad about your clones, and if no one will talk to you about em, you are always welcome at http://diyclones.com 

DeveloperPermalink Reply by Marco Robustini on December 31, 2012 at 12:22pm

There's big problem with the "old" ArduPPM encoder and Futaba rx, i broke my quad often for this reason, so this update is quite important if you have a Futaba rx.

Permalink Reply by Simon on December 30, 2012 at 9:01am

Well done u4eake - it was about time someone 'clarified' the situation.

I have been a long term supporter of DIYdrones - and no doubt will continue to be - but I'm also a discerning buyer and don't care for deliberate obfuscation.

DeveloperPermalink Reply by John Arne Birkeland on December 30, 2012 at 12:43pm

Chris could just as well have said nothing, and let RCTimer board users try and figure out the source of the problem them self's. He/3DR has no obligation what so every to support RCTimer customers.

And if you read the post Chris wrote, there are no factual errors and every line is clearly referring to the 32u2 chip and ArduPPM firmware.

3DR and the developers have spent a lot of time to make the system 'brick proof' and relatively easy to upgrade. It's not our job to hold hands if/when someone else breaks the system.

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