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!
Replies
Which mission planner should be used with 3.3, the latest stable or beta release?
Would it be possible to post the flight settings for a multi that is flying well on 3.3 as a reference point so that the rest of us rookies could compare it to our own setting.
Looking at my own parameter tree there are a few that show a Yaw setting that is at the minimum possible value on the slider. I am not sure which should be at minimum and which ones should be brought up some.
Wes,
Mission planner still assumes the maximum value is as you've described. In order to raise it further you must find the value you wish to change in the full parameter list that is not min / max checked by mission planner and enter the value there. Once you've entered the new value be sure to write it to the board. Once you have entered the value this way mission planner will reflect the new value in the tuning tab however it will not let you increase it further only decrease via the tuning page. For further increases in value you must manually enter them in the parameters table. BE CAREFUL ENTERING VALUES IN THIS TABLE. DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING!!!
Also I don't think it isa good idea to use other people's PID settings regardless of how similar the components that made them may be. Every frame will fly to some extent differently. There are a lot of guides that help with specific PID tuning but understandably they can be confusing even still. If you want help with tuning / adjusting parameters feel free to message me outside of this thread and i'd be glad to help out.
I will do that and report back - thanks Randy! Happy to test tri's, they are a lot of fun.
Does 3.3 default to auto CTS/RTS for radio telem? I see BRD_SER1_RTSCTS is set to 2 on all my units. If you're wired for ctsrts, would you just leave the RTS/CTS checkbox empty in mission planners radio setup? The reason I as is all my 3dr air side radio's still work fine on 3.3rc8. But my air side RFD900a's and RFD900u's aren't connecting for various reasons. Seems the CTS will put them into firmware mode. Or the frequencies and power settings just change by themselves. Maybe the RFD stuff just shouldn't connect the CTS and RTS wires and leave BRD_SER1_RTSCTS to 0.
I just set mine to 0 and all my different units work fine. I only have 1 that actually supports CTS/RTS and when enabled it's laggy as all get out. It do though enable both ECC and Op Resend on all my air and ground units which does seem to help keep a great link between them.
Thanks for the reply. Think I'll do the same, set to zero and leave the cts/rts wiring off (save me 50% soldering time : )).
Altitude Jump during AUTO mission.
On RC8, fully tuned including Yaw without any alteration afterwards (perfect feel, no twitching in Pitch), the drone is pretty stable and has had a number of flights in the Netherlands, without the strange jumpyness in Loiter, I experienced recently at my holiday location in France...
After taking off in Loiter with a fast flashing green indicator, and a HDOP lower as 0.90, I took this heavy drone to approx 10m, when I noticed already a not so steady Loiter as usual (motor sound not monotone, but quickly ramping up, down, while maintaining altitude...
Never heard that before in loiter....(as If GPS height position was not constant, and EKF was not smoothing it out)
Then switching to Auto mode for a 900m traject, at 20m Altitude, so drone started gaining altitude to get to 20 meters at first waypoint...and everything was still fine...
Then around the second waypoint it just shoots up into the sky full throttle, climbing quickly to approx 40m, after which it stabilized by itself, but didn't get lower to the original programmed 20m for the trip, so switched out of the Auto mode and brought it back in Loiter, where it remained very rough on the engines... i.e. sounding like ramping up and down rather quickly every now and then (as if it was planning to Shoot up again..)
So after it getting on the ground, it flipped (no harm done), I investigated the log, looking for the obvious like GPS Glitch or Baro problems, either one failing or whatever, but none of the above... (No EKF failures, and before shooting up limited VIBE in X, Y, and Z axis..)
Log at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwKkz56PHqS0RE02VnJXaWc2RW8/view?u...
I am completely stunned as what happend here.., ???
There is a marked increase in vibrations at the time this happened (particuarly on the Z axis) so I wonder whether something mechanical was at the root (apart from the overall bad vibrations that Randy mentioned).
You also have a Gyro dropout in IMU2 earlier on, I've not seen this before.
If you look at EKF4->SV you will see it jump above 2 which means that the vertical inconsistency got so bad that it stopped using the GPS. However EKF4->SH (the baro vert inconsistency) shows the same thing, so it seems more likely that the vibrations caused the inconsistency. Note too that the IMU clipping goes up at the same time, so I think probably you have some kind of cascading effect.
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