Just wanted to share some experience to hopefully prevent others from having the same issues.
Long story short:TRY DIFFERENT SOFTWARE AND/OR COMPUTER BEFORE MAKING HARDWARE CHANGES
I had been out of the APM scene for a couple years and recently upgraded my quad to a Y6 and bought a pixhawk FC. I wasnt even able to load firmware from Linux laptop using APMplanner onto Pixhawk. Connected to APMplanner on Windows, got some audible tones and now able to load firmware yay! Camera gimbal not working (even though everything connected correctly). Could not figure out what was wrong and finally found a post just like this one. Installed Mission Planner and connected, did gimbal setup and now works perfectly. Obviously there are some bugs in APM Planner that are not writing settings correctly(update: there was a bug for camera gimbal and it has been fixed). That being said, dont spend hours reconnected things only to go back to exactly how you had everything setup, when you simply needed to use Mission Planner instead of APM Planner or vice-versa.
I hope this saves some one else some trouble.
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Bill I just built APM Planner v2.0.16-rc1 from git and everything works as it should for my camera gimbal. I suspect maybe the windows binary for APM Planner may have not been built from code that has the fix yet?
Thanks to everyone for their help
I run MP on windows and AP on Linux. I find AP on Linux to be far more reliable than MP on Windows, particularly around firmware flashing, but also for parameter/PID management. If you have a particular problem then go and ask on a relevent forum/github for that software, don't just post an ignorant rant against the entire software.
For all I know the issues I am having may be caused by Pixhawk and Ubuntu 14.04, everyone has different computers and OS running on them. My point is to try different software, not trying to make this APM planner vs Mission Planner.
And the bug probably was fixed for camera gimbal but they have not rebuilt windows binary since the fix idk
Hi. please try
sudo gpasswd --add $USER dialout
(add yourself to dialout group) - then logout/login before expecting it to work.
Yes, you may find bugs in both, and people should use whatever works best for them.
Personally, all the more advanced features, I set using "full parmeters" (in APM Planner you need to enable advanced view) Reading about and knowing http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/arducopter-parameters/ is very good - you get the chance to use much more goodies than simple GUI config offer. Also, if you give APM Planner another go sometime, observe the powerful paramter search option, you enter area of interest, and it highlits relevant parameters.
Please - if you fnd a bug, try to narrow it down and post it here: https://github.com/diydrones/apm_planner/issues/new The authors can only improve what they know is wrong.
Finally - when using GUI's to tune, and you are afraid of bugs, export your .param file, then use compare function - it gives you really good view of what's have been changed.
I actually had already added the user to the dialout group, I tried latest GIT version as well. I think it might be an issue with Pixhawk and 14.04, I am going to try loading diff version of ubuntu.
I really like APM Planner and plan on using it in the field as my laptop runs linux and I hate windows. I did notice the search option and found it very useful. Was not aware of the compare function, def could use that, thanks Andre
Yes, it may be something with 14.04.
I do flash a lot, I memeber that once I had some trouble, but that was long time ago - I also don't think there are any magic trics to it, as I flash from my workstation at home, my workstation at work and my laptop (all 14.10). - So I should have remembered if there was something special needed.
Still it would be nice to find out of this. does the ~/apmplanner2/log.txt contain something interesting ?
- Does the install firmware upgrade screen automatically populate "firmware upload com port" when Pixhawk is connected ?
- What (exactly) happened ? - you mention some tones - do you know that after a normal firmware upload, an internal IO firmware may be upgraded - sounding , repeating "low-high-low" tones for some seconds before actually being done with the upgrade ?
I got no tone and lsusb shows connected.
I just figured it out guys, kind of weird. I run sudo apt-get remove modemmanager and it outputs: Package 'modemmanager' not installed. dmesg shows TTY_ACM0 being connected as PX4 3D Robotics but then last line cdc_acm mentions USB modems. So i followed this https://pixhawk.org/dev/nuttx/building_and_flashing_console and blacklisted using udev rules. I now get audible tone. The modemmanager install must have been screwed up idk very weird.
Building the latest git of apmplanner, i suspect everythinng will work now that i am running the latest and greatest on linux. Thank you for your help Andre.
Very interesting. I am having slightly different results. I use MIssion Planner in a Parallels driven Windows 8.1 virtual session on a MacBook Air (OSx).
Recently when upgrading my Pixhawk to Arducopter 3.2 I could not in any way get Mission Planner to successfully complete the flash. I forget right now what the specific errors were but the flash process was crashing.
I then loaded up APM Planner in OSX and was able to flash the Pixhawk to 3.2 on the first try. I never have trouble with wired or wireless communication using the Windows virtual but evidently something in Parallels virtual driver services stumbles during the process of the firmware flash.
mp
Kind of makes sense in your situation with OSX being a UNIX like environment. I have had numerous USB issues in virtual environments which is probably why not flashing correctly. I bet it would work using bootcamp without issue.
I am not trying to make this an APM Planner vs MIssion Planner thing, I am just making the point to try different software before messing with hardware.
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