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
Hi ... I have a little trick I do with all my electronic boards.. even esc's and Rx's I use Car clear paint 2K .. I mix up just a small amount in a plastic lid and use a small art brush and coat each board with clear .... it looks great and is completely water proof .... exception of the input and output pins and baro sensor...On my RC cars i did the same with also adding silicone gel into the rx ports then plugging in the rc leads, adding silicone on any else I dont want water to get into.. My cars have been swimming in the sea on several occasions and planes and helicopters flying in the rain ... no issues .. Cheers R
@Thor, I love your positive attitude, it makes reading posts a joy.
I also have a question regarding the APM 2.5 and AC3.1 and don't really know where to post it, so here it is Before Christmas I was filming waterfalls with the trusty GoPro and with a bit of dumb thumbing managed to flip the quad upside down at the edge of the creek, the APM, GPS and 2 motors submerged, 2 motors remained on shore. I rushed my dripping quad home (30 mins) tore everything apart and dried over a wood stove. Assuming that it was destroyed I only recently put it back together to try it out. Surprising to me everything seems to check out and I started flying it again. However it will be awhile before I'm confident that something isn't damaged. Has anyone heard of getting the electronics totally wet and not having problems later on because of it? I don't want to turf the APM and GPS if they seem to be working fine but also don't want an unexpected crash because I should have.
Hello all
I feel like this is a dumb question but i'm not shy so i will ask away. I recently Changed my Octo Quad X frame to a Standard Quad X Frame (XAircraft x650) and was wondering, Would i have to reload the 3.1 the firmware after this change? i didnt think i would because all the X Frames are grouped together? please advise?
Randy,
I just seeNew Beta Firmware Arducopter 3.1.1-rc2 in Mission Planner. What's have fix bug or new Feature?
On Yesterday, I and my friend had test Double Pixhawk with Arducopter 3.1.1-rc1. We have use parameter's Default are very stable but Them need little tune.
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
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