Developer

Copter-3.3 beta testing

Warning #1: an issue has been found with Tower's Pause button which can cause the vehicle to fly to an old position if the vehicle has not sent a position update to Tower in some time.

Warning #2: Copter-3.3.2 fixes a bug found in Copter-3.3.1's desired climb rate initialisation which could lead to a sudden momentary drop when switching from Stabilize or Acro to AltHold, Loiter or PosHold.

Warning #3: Copter-3.3.2 fixes an issue found in Copter-3.3.1 which could lead to hard landings in RTL or AUTO if the WPNAV_SPEED_DN was set too high (i.e. >400 or 4m/s) and/or the WPNAV_ACCEL_Z was set too low (i.e. <100 or 1m/s/s).

Warning #4: a bug was found in Copter-3.3 which could cause a sudden crash if you abort a Take-off initiated from a ground station.  Video description is here.  The bug is fixed in Copter-3.3.1 so we recommend upgrading.

Note #1: AC3.3-rc8 corrected a long standing bug in the HDOP reporting.  HDOP values will appear about 40% lower than previously but this does not actually mean the GPS position is better than before.
Note #2: if upgrading from AC3.2.1 the vehicle's accelerometer calibration needs to be done again.
Note #3: set SERIAL2_PROTOCOL to "3" and reboot the board to enable FrSky telemetry like in previous versions.
Note #4: the wiki will be updated over the next few weeks to explain how to use the new features

Copter-3.3.1 is available through the mission planner.  The full list of changes vs AC3.2.1 can be see in the ReleaseNotes and below are the most recent changes since AC3.3.

Sadly this version (and all future versions) will not run on the APM2.x boards due to CPU speed, flash and RAM restrictions.

Changes from 3.3:

1) Bug fix to prevent potential crash if Follow-Me is used after an aborted takeoff

2) compiler upgraded to 4.9.3 (runs slightly faster than 4.7.2 which was used previously)

Changes from 3.3-rc11:

1) EKF recovers from pre-arm "Compass variance" failure if compasses are consistent

Changes from 3.3-rc10:

1) PreArm "Need 3D Fix" message replaced with detailed reason from EKF

Changes from 3.3-rc9
1) EKF improvements:
    a) simpler optical flow takeoff check
2) Bug Fixes/Minor enhancements:
    a) fix INS3_USE parameter eeprom location
    b) fix SToRM32 serial protocol driver to work with recent versions
    c) increase motor pwm->thrust conversion (aka MOT_THST_EXPO) to 0.65 (was 0.50)
    d) Firmware version sent to GCS in AUTOPILOT_VERSION message
3) Safety:
    a) pre-arm check of compass variance if arming in Loiter, PosHold, Guided
    b) always check GPS before arming in Loiter (previously could be disabled if ARMING_CHECK=0)
    c) sanity check locations received from GCS for follow-me, do-set-home, do-set-ROI
    d) fix optical flow failsafe (was not always triggering LAND when optical flow failed)
    e) failsafe RTL vs LAND decision based on hardcoded 5m from home check (previously used WPNAV_RADIUS parameter)

Thanks for your testing!

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Replies

        • T3

          OK, thanks!

          Then these sawtooth pattern make sense. 

          • T3

            ...not sense, but we know where they come from :-)

      • thanks for looking...no I have never had any motor/esc probs with this copter and I have had it since march......i have flown it several times since yesterdays incident (but on AC3.2.1) and not one single hiccup.....

        whats agcCnt for UBX1?  and GPS2 is an M8N while GPS1 is M7N...but why would it care if GPS2 had no fix as long as GPS1 was ok?

  • T3

    Hi all,

    this is OT, but since this feature was mentioned here a few times:

    Anyone playing with the new log bitmask feature in Mission Planner (1.3.30.2 beta) be careful (https://github.com/diydrones/MissionPlanner/issues/938). You might end up with the wrong bitmask value and loose data. (I now have some nice images but no GPS and CAM logs...).

    Best regards,

    Thorsten

  • Randy,

    could you please check if geofence arm check actually looks at the value of GPS_HDOP_GOOD value to establish if geofence is ready or if it uses some other hardcoded value? As it takes very long time to arm when geofence is activated and I usually get to 1.3 - 1.4 HDOP when it finally gives a signal that pre-arming check is completed.

    hdop good parameter i did set to a value of 251 to speed that up and without geofence is works fine and lets me to arm in position hold almost right away as I hook to 9-10 sats immediately. with geofence on I have to wait for 3-4 min minimum until I get to minimum of 11-12.

  • rc7 is ignoring the roi points in my auto mission. The points get deleted from the mission plan after a flight. How do I get roi working again?

    • Developer

      Arni,

      Thanks for the report.  It's best to include a log.

      Without a log, my guess is that it's a ground station issue because the Copter flight code never deletes mission commands.

      Make sure you're using DO_SET_ROI commands and not NAV_ROI commands (NAV_ROI commands should not even appear in the list of available commands unless the GCS is out of date).

      • Thanks Randy, sorry I forgot the log here it is log. I tried with MP stable and latest beta 1.3.30.2 without luck. Added the DO_SET_ROI command after first waypoint.

        2015-07-17 22-31-00.bin
  • Not sure if this is 3.3 related, but my copter flips when landing in loiter.  I didn't notice the issue before 3.3... It happened occasionally, but I was always able to blame a hard landing or something.  Now it's every time..   It's like when it hits the ground and stops moving, the copter speeds up the props..  Then even w/ 0 throttle the props keep spinning and it flips, and the props keep spinning, until I put it in stabilize.  I got in the habit of quickly switching to stab just before landing, but forgot today, and it flipped and broke all the props :(.   Expensive mistake (t-motor brand props :( )
    it's a 650ish size quad, 16" props, lots of power. 

    If it would detect it's not descending anymore, and detect it has flipped over, and immediately stopped the props, there wouldn't be so much damage..  But as it is, they just keep on spinning and shred themselves on the ground. 
    I know I can switch to stab,  but in a panic, sometimes it's difficult to remember procedure.

    I'm still on rc5.

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