After months of testing AC3.1 is finally available in the Mission Planner and GitHub.
Warning #1: If the vehicle is left landed (but armed) while in AltHold or Loiter mode for more than a few seconds, the vehicle may suddenly jump into the air the moment the pilot raises the throttle above zero. The reason is the baro altitude may fall while the vehicle is sitting on the ground. In AC3.2 this bug is fixed because we reset the target before take-off.
Warning #2: Motors will spin (slowly) by default as soon as the copter is armed! You can switch this feature off by setting the MOT_SPIN_ARMED parameter to zero.
Warning #3: if you see "Bad Gyro" on the HUD then you may have a blown 3.3V regulator. See this thread for details.
Warning #4: if you use a sonar set the SONAR_GAIN parameter to 0.8 or lower
Warning #5: Trad Heli users should now connect their main rotor ESC to APM's RC8 output
Warning #6: Trad Heli BUG causes loss of collective control in ACRO mode if swash type set to flybarred (i.e. not flybarless). Will be fixed in AC3.2.
The major improvements over AC3.0.1 are (full list here):
1. Pixhawk support (Tridge & PX4 development team)
2. Autotune of Roll and Pitch gains (Leonard/Randy)
3. Drift mode (Jason)
4. Improved Acro (Rob/Leonard) and new Sport mode (Leonard)
5. Arming, Take-off, Land in Loiter or AltHold
6. TradHeli improvements (Rob) including:
a) support for direct drive tail rotors
b) smoother ramp-up of main rotor
c) reduced collective for better control in stabilize mode (STAB_COL_MIN, STAB_COL_MAX params)
7. Support for SingleCopter (Bill King)
8. Performance improvements resolve AltHold troubles for Hexa & Octacopters
9. Safety Improvements:
a) GPS Glitch detection (Randy)
b) Motors spin when armed (Jonathan Challinger)
c) crash detector shuts off motors if copter flipped for 2secs
d) batt failsafe option to RTL instead of LAND, gps failsafe option to trigger AltHold instead of Land
e) more pre-arm checks of inertial nav speed,
10. Bug fixes:
a) optical flow working again (although performance is still not great because not integrated with inertial navigation)
b) ROI working (use DO_SET_ROI command)
How to upgrade:
Click on the MissionPlanner's Initial Setup >> Install Firmware screen. The version numbers should appear as "ArduCopter-3.1", then click the appropriate frame icon and it should upgrade as per usual.
Special thanks to Marco and the many beta testers on the AC3.0.1 thread who put their copters at risk during the testing of this new version and uncovered many problems so that you don't have to! Here are some of their videos: loiter in wind, patio sonar, autotune, autotune2, roi, beach, acro, vrbrain, tricopter, train spotting, radio failsafe, the tree, double loiter
If you haven't seen it recently, please check out the ArduCopter wiki.
Feel free to post comments below and we're going to use the new APM Forum for support issues so please post your support requests there.
Replies
Sorry guys, I don't want be boring or abusive but I had no response from my last post with dataflash log (post in page 39, maybe forgotten because that),
I'm desperate with this Alt Hold issue, I think that my vibrations are acceptable (you can confirm in the log with IMU data activated), I'm hoping a answer from you, if no responses/solutions I'll stick a older firmware in the APM.
Thanks in advance
2014-01-20 18-26.log
hi everyone. Can someone please help figure out what's happen here. It triggers to RTL even without entering into rtl. I disable my failsafe (both battery and gps). Attached herewith my log.
2014-01-20 13-06.log
Hi Guys
I thought I would just show you my little trick with a Lego block, I took a square Lego brick removed the center post .. made a small hole in it with a heated pin.. then added foam inside and hot glued the brick over the Baro ..making sure it was nicely sealed around the smd chips... What this does it add a baffle and stops pressure buffeting the sensor . similar to how DJi's IMU box is made ..result better altitude hold .. Enjoy..
Reuben
Hi Randy .. I have a question .. When setting up multiple copters .. I use copy paste in my radio settings as I have more than one one machine but same setup just different model names in the radio.. In MP when you do setup of new copter do you have to do radio calibration for each model .. and does the 2nd or 3rd radio calibration done for each setup have any affect on the first setup I did ..i.e ..should I be worried about radio settings (calibration) when i go back to say model 1 to change a flight mode sequence in MP ..Or does the radio calibration setting get stored in the APM board rather than saved in MP so it knows which radio setting is for with which model ? Hopefully you understand what i am trying to say ..lol
hello ..yesterday i was upload the code to my ATG600X4 with NTM2830 750kv and 4s 5000mah battery ..everything was ok in STABILIZE MODE but when i was going to ALTITUDE MODE ..i had a crash ..please see what happend at my quad..
2014-01-19 14-21 20.log
Hi guys, AltHold motors pulsing problem in my hexa :(
My baro is covered with foam and my vibrations are under control (I guess...), but with default pid's when I engage the Alt Hold the copter starts to make small pulses on motors and sometimes starts to oscillate the altitude (almost scare...) . I tried to low the Alt_Hold value to 0.5 but the oscillations becomes worst. Tried to disable all dataflash logging, but no luck.
I have just a Tlog that I would appreciate if you can analyze and give me some help.
APM 2.6, Frame F550 clone, Sunnysky 980kv motors, 30A simonk esc's.
Thanks in advance!
P.s.: The first part of the flgiht log was with 1.2 Alt_Hold value, and the final seconds was with 1.0 value.
2014-01-19 23-06-34.tlog
Today, I just got PIXHawk from fedex. I do install Board to my Quad and used Beta Firmware 3.1.1-rc1.
It's very smooth control and Perfect's Loiter. But, I saw bug about Battery warning is no have alarm from buzzer. But, Battery Failsafe is still work.
I don't know RSSI port. What's connect RSSI Port? Randy, You can answer me please.....
Hi Randy
I watched a video of yours where you explored the instance of GPS interference from a Sonar device. I am currently experiencing the same interference from an FPV setup, Devention 5803TX 5.8ghz and a DV04 Camera with a clover leaf antenna. if you dont mind, did you solve this problem?
My TX5803 is about 15 inches and Below the UBLOX GPS on my APM 2.6 i got from 3DR robotics.
i guess some copper shielding tape would work but what would need to be shielded, the bottom of the GPS? the TX5803? Does GPS work in the same GHZ range?
thanks in advance
I am pleased to present the new "Hybrid flight mode" for APM Copter boards, a "flyable position hold" similar to the same flight mode of DJI, Mikrokopter, Zero-UAV etc... stay tuned! :-)
Bests, Marco
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/hybrid-flight-mode-what-was-mis...
Problem with vertical speed on a large Hexa.
happy new year to every one ,and congratulations to the all team who worked on the last soft version 3.1.
Everything works great (stab ,alt hold,loiter,RTL) the only problem is manual landing : reducing gas to land is very touchy and it looks like even in the low part of the gas stick the motors are running too fast !! I have reduce throttle accel P to 0.5, I to 1.0
and Throttle rate to P 3.5 it is better like this but still difficult to achieve a nice and proper landing.
Any suggestion for tuning it properly ? Marco pls??
I had to adjust Throttle MId to 330 to get hovering at middle stick
Config :Hexa Tarot 690 ,motors T-motor 4006-13 KV740,Props carbon 13x4,Lipo 4S total weight around 2.2kg with gimbal
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