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:
WPNAV_SPEED, WPNAV_SPEED_UP, WPNAV_SPEED_DN, WPNAV_ACCEL allows configuring speeds and acceleration during missions
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.
Tags:
Well said indeed Rob. I was expecting a bit quicker answer to those comments but you addressed them all for sure...
It is obvious that the development is ending but how is it going to end?
Which one would be the final code? (v3.0.1)? or will there be something else after that?
If we knew this clearly, we could better decide what to do...
I would definitely spend money on the next platform(pixhawk) but at the same time seeing my APM 2.5 reliably fly my hexa would be a plus.
Well stated Rob, and actually thanks to Rover & Plane, APM development technically is not ending. ;)
A great example of a "you're doing it wrong"... 433mhz control rx's... STM32@72mhz has a matching 6th harmonic. Almost the same day a community member proved 433 noise was coming from his FC, an open source overclock patch was released to fix it (80mhz clock). A few days later the same group of FPVers showed that Naza has the same problem. Naza boys will be lucky if DJI ever admits to that problem, let alone patches it. If they also sold UHF they'd fix it right away... that's just wrong. I have a few local FPV buddies who could not get UHF to work on their Naza rigs. Let's just say they were not excited to see that spikes on the spectrum analyzer.
Exactly. I can also confirm that Naza has great interference over 72mhz frequency.
I experienced this first hand last year and it was a nightmare.
And whatever you said about the DJI is spot on in my opinion...
Alex O: There will be at least one more significant release for APM. It should be 3.1. I know for a fact Randy and Tridge have spent days doing everything they can to make all the auto modes perform the best that is possible given the hardware restrictions.
For example, they've rearranged things so that the Alt Hold is a higher priority, and the scheduler will automatically drop less important things. For example, as we all know, telemetry used to stop first. Well, now logging will automatically stop too. And Mount will stop. Simple mode just can't stop, but Randy made it faster.
So, no guarantees that Octo will be able to use all the features, but it should be "safe".
If all those are done, it would be a good ending for APM2.x
I do not plan on operating Octo with it. Hexa will be the max. I would go.
Thanks for the answer Rob; I will be anxiously waiting for the final release.
Yes, I think all the developers are committed to delivering what was promised on the APM. The performance is basically there, we're just making sure it is as reliable and safe as possible at this point.
+1 on the great post, thanks Rob. I feel bad Greg and some others are misinformed or are having bad experiences, but I just put yet another quad in the air today for its first true maiden with the APM2.6 (3.0.1) and had a fantastic experience with Stab, Loiter, Auto, and some fun stick mashing. The wind was pretty high as well and I was still able to get 3 great flights.
Anyways, thanks again, and I hope the devs keep up the great work!
...now, about this "sport" mode... can I go upside down? :)
Arducopter 3.1 rc3
No bug reports, no complaints, no .tlog .log etc, only good experience! Tested new lipos (5Ah+4Ah) on HexaCheers for Loiter, ~3.5kg. Cheers DevTeam!
That's awesome Ivan! I just uploaded it to my sport quad and am waiting on batteries to charge. Pretty excited!
Think you'll need a heli for that. ;)
Actually, in Acro you can flip a quad for sure.
I plan to work on inverted Stabilized hovering on helis though. :)
Heh.. no helis for me!
I don't want to hover upside down, (Sorry, didn't mean to suggest I want the magic of collective pitch, w/o actually having collective pitch!) but to do inverted hangs, flips, rolls, etc, that's what I'm after. The wiki points me to a parameter "AXIS_ENABLE" that doesn't exist, but I did try changing ACRO_BAL_PITCH and ACRO_BAL_ROLL to 0, along with ACRO_TRAINER to 0. I've also bumped ACRO_RP_P from 4.5 to 7 (315 degrees per second) to mimic what I'm doing with CC3D. Now I'm just waiting for my batteries to charge so I can go try again. I'll upload a video later to show you the results, but I'm pretty excited.
45 members
1472 members
282 members
470 members
57 members
© 2019 Created by Chris Anderson.
Powered by