ArduCopter 3.0.1 has been released and is now available in the Mission Planner, firmware.diydrones.com, GitHub and the new Downloads Area.
Warning #1: Compass calibration and reducing interference is far more important than with 2.9.1b
Warning #2: GPS glitches can cause sudden and aggressive position changes while in loiter mode. You may wish to reduce the Loiter PID P to 0.5 (from 1.0) to reduce aggressiveness (see image below of where this gain can be found in mission planner).
Warning #3: optical flow is not supported but will be back in the next release (AC-3.0.2 or AC-3.1.0).
Warning #4: loiter turns does not maintain altitude. This bug will be fixed in AC-3.0.2.
Warning #5: This release has only been lightly tested on Traditional Helicopters.
Improvements over 2.9.1b include:
- Inertial Navigation for Loiter and Auto meaning much more accurate control (Randy,Leonard,JonathanC)
- 3D navigation controller follows straight lines in all dimensions between waypoints (Leonard,Randy)
WPNAV_SPEED, WPNAV_SPEED_UP, WPNAV_SPEED_DN, WPNAV_ACCEL allows configuring speeds and acceleration during missions
- "compassmot" to compensate for interference on compass from the pdb, motors, ESCs and battery. (Randy,JonathanC) (Set-up video here)
- Safety improvements:
- simple Tin Can shaped Geo Fence
- pre-arm checks to ensure all calibration has been performed before arming (can be disabled by setting ARMING_CHECK to zero). (video description here)
- GPS failsafe - switches to LAND if GPS is lost for 5 seconds
- stability patch improvements to stop rapid climbs in very overpowered or overtuned copters
- Circle mode improvements including "panorama" when CIRCLE_RADIUS set to zero (Randy,Leonard)
- SONAR_GAIN parameter added to allow better tuning of sonar surface tracking
- CH8 auxiliary switch (same features as CH7)
- works on PX4 (some minor features still not available) (Tridge,PatH)
How to upgrade:
1. Make sure you are using Mission Planner 1.2.59 or newer (get it here)
2. Click on the MissionPlanner's Hardware, Install Firmware screen. The version numbers should appear as "ArduCopter-3.0.1", then click the appropriate frame icon and it should upgrade as per usual.
3. Reduce the Loiter and Alt Hold PIDs if you have modified them from the defaults. The modified PID values for the 3DR frame can be seen in the image below.
Note: Nav parameters have been combined with Loiter so do not be concerned if you can't find them.
4. Although not directly related to this release, if you purchased an APM prior to March of 2013, update your PPM encoder to the latest firmware (instructions here).
5. Try out the new version in stabilize mode first, then alt-hold, then loiter and finally RTL and Auto.
Numerous How-To videos are available:
Special Thanks to Marco, DaveC and the large number of testers on the pre-release thread who put their copters at risk during the extended testing period. Some of their videos can be found here, here, here, here, here and here. Thanks also to MichaelO for the MP changes required for this release.
All feedback welcome. Please put your questions, comments (good and bad!) below.
Replies
Hello all,
My BarAlt seems very noisy to me. Is this something to do with 3.1-rc7 or is that I am getting too much prop wash? I also noticed that the foam (that protects the Barometer) inside my 1 year APM 2.5 is not as flexible and a little flattened as when it was new. I moved the AMP 2.5 further to the back of my Hex recently instead of it being centered. My flight was fine and Alt-hold was fine. But I am still concerned. What do you think?
Thanks.
Screen Shot 2013-12-14 at 11.41.32 AM.png
Hi Randy & Developers around the world,
Can we work now for battery efficiency? I know some of you are skeptical, but I believe there are a lot of brilliant minds here!
Some smooth cinematic video on 3.1 rc7
By the way, I just got back in from testing with frame 10. After making the APM motor changes, I only had two reverse the rear boom two motor directions.
I can say that it flys quieter, smoother, and loiters rock solid with absolutely no tail wag.
Also it looks like its running a couple amps less in my logs compared to similar loiters on R7 with original frame.
So far, I am very happy with this new frame and release.
Thanks to all who contributed to this improvement.
Mike Governale
I can't find octa v support in this firmware. Does anybody tell me if support this frame in 3.1 firmware?
I just updated to the R8 beta and made the change on my 3dr y6 to the rear props. I replaced the 10" prop on top of rear motor with a CW and the replaced the 11" on the bottom with a CCW. I changed the FRAME from 1 to 10. Do I also have to reverse the ESC on the two rear arm motors to get them to spin opposite for this prop change? When I ARM and the motors spin up, they are still spinning in the old direction, even with FRAME=10. Also, I noticed that when I change the FRAME to 10 from 1, and I go back to the Frame type in MP, it also changes it to the "plus" radio button selected.
We have been running two 3DR y6's with great success on 3.1 y7, 6, and 5 beta. There was an occasional slight yaw wag that we hoped might be solved with the new prop changes supported in r8.
Please let me know what I might be doing wrong.
I'll await your reply before moving any further.
Thanks,
Mike Governale
Is there a Main Thread for Mission Planner questions? i have purchased a 6 position Switch for flight modes, but Mission planner is not reporting the selections i made correctly, mis reporting them as stabilize even though the drop down box clearly says Loiter. this affects position 2,3,5 where no matter what i select, it says Stabilize. the Radio is a TH9X Stock firmware, six position switch purchased from Ebay. sorry i just cant find the mission planner thread.
Hello everyone,
I think there is a bug in 3.1-rc7. I am using the 3DR mini osd (updated to v2.0 including character set) and the flight mode is not displaying. Difficult when flying FPV. Everything else displaying fine.
The setup is AMP 2.5, standard 3Dr radio for telemetry, Hex.
Attached are some pics.
What do you think?
Thank,
SAA
OSD.JPG
OSD2.JPG
At Evening. I had test flight with Arducopter 3.1-rc8 Duo Quad. They are very stable with Loiter modes and RTL.
With regard to my problem loading newer versions to my X8...
Good news:
I changed computers and got the firmware to load. No problem, went through all of the steps right away. After the load it does a verify, and the only thing I could see was that the verify slowed down quite a bit as it progressed, but did finally terminate, without errors.
Bad News:
I am still not able to connect with MAVLink (on either computer). I can see the Mission planner polling, and on the first poll, the card responds, but it doesn't respond again after that.
A small caveat..... Since I don't want to put my X8 out of commission, I'm testing on a second board which is a (gulp) CRIUS v2. Just to clarify. Initially I tried to load the 3.1 rc7 (at the time) directly to my X8, which didn't work. After trying several times, I went to this clone so as not to leave me without the X8.
So is this a (generic) issue with the clone, and should it be safe to try to load my X8 now,
Please any ideas welcome.
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