Ok guys, with all the people waiting on APM2 and all the exciting new alpha and beta releases of APM firmware coming, I think many people are starting to chomp at their bits, a little.
To that end, I've opened up this discussion for all those with complaints. As I've joined the Dev Team, and not at a productive stage yet, I'll monitor this discussion, and relay things to the others on the Dev Team.
These could be both hardware or software, or just general rants and raves!
Hope everyone takes advantage of this! Maybe we'll all learn some things in the process.
Just wanted to add this response from Chris Anderson:
Please just contact sales@3drobotics.com and inquire about the status of your order. They are not necessarily shipped in order. For example, the unsoldered ones are shipped first, because they're faster to put together. Then soldered with GPS, then soldered without GPS (or maybe those two in reverse order, I can't remember). There are approximately 50 going out each day and the team tells me that the backlog should be over by Mon/Tues of next week.
I agree, please use this discussion for Rants and Raves. Order issues should be directed to 3DR directly. I think you will get better response there.
Replies
Waiting for someone to respond to posts sucks.
Googling through pages and pages of old forum posts to end up with a vague idea of an answer to the question sucks.
Reading Wiki pages for multi-rotor craft looking for answers to trad-heli questions sucks.
Reading "C++ for dummies" to still have no clue sucks.
Buying the on-board GPS only to find out that it sucks, sucks.
Finding the answer to what IMAX is sucked.
Not knowing why my GPS reads well in MP, has a solid blue 3Dfix LED with 10 sats, and not getting a blue "C" LED light (unless it's plugged into my PC) so I can try loiter sucks.
11:45 PM and going to sleep bummed about what I though was going to be an ultra cool learning experience with a UAV module
sucks.
What ever, I'm going to bed.
I miss the old school RC crowd where there was always some guru who was willing to throw up a 10 second post for the guy that couldn't see the forest through the trees and asked some basic question that we all take for granted since we've been doing it for years... Now it's a world full of programmers who expect you to understand a layered PID algorithm and the difference between STB and RATE P values.
Yah, bed
Order #24049 shipped and @home !!!
Thank a lot for the apm box ^^
Insert Rant here: I've already conversed with Chris about my specific order...but just noticed Sparkfun have 1251 ATMEGA328P's in stock...and DIY have 51 Ardustations insteock but cannot ship without ATMEGA...but why is there no ATMEGA's available when Spark have over 1000...?
Not too much of a rant but it might help if there were more responses to new users questions in the forum sections
Otherwise people like myself are left to wander the internet looking for solutions to challenges we have and sometimes not being able to find answers
I'm not sure if it has been requested yet or not, but it would be nice if there was mores explanation on the effects of the PID settings in mission planner. I have a print out of the AC2 tweeks from the WIKI, but doesn't explain clear enough. In the mission planner software there is Stabilize_Roll, Stabilize_Pitch and Stabilize_Yaw. The only two mentioned are "Stabilize"?? and "Stabilize_Yaw". There is no mention of the other Stabilize PID or its function. Also the channel six tuning would be better if the drop down actually matched the name of the paramitter that was being tuned. It would take the guess work out of what you are tuning.
Does this make sense?
Thanks in advance.
Barry
I have gone back to using my KK board as I had very little success with the APM2.0 and my Tricopter.. I had high hopes but it has crashed once and I have just about saved it from crashing tens of times. Shame
I received my APM2 about exactly when they said I would when I ordered. It looks to be a good product but the manufacturing process needs ALOT of help. I did a visual inspection of my board and found 6 solder balls on my board, 2 pins that I think should be soldered that aren't, 2 pins of an IC with a solder bridge between them, and worst of all a place where it appears there was a short and an xacto knife was used cut deeply into the board to remove it. Overall, I am happy. I have the ability to deal with these issues, others might not. I knew this was a new product and expected hobbyist quality. That is what I received. I found these issues in a quick 5 minute visual inspection. No commercial product should go out the door without this type of inspection in my opiniion. I am not sure I can show photos here but will try.
Photo 1a shows the solder bridge between pins 7 and 8 of the IC
Photo 2a shows one of the solder balls on the board
Photo 5a shows the deep cut into the PCB. It is very deep which might be hard to tell from photo.
1a.jpg
2a.jpg
5a.jpg
I didn't get a tracking number either but one day my APM2 just showed up in my mailbox, right on schedule in the batch of corresponding order numbers they were posting on twitter. I have no complaints. It seems to me that 3DR is being up-front about how it works. It may not be how you want it to work but it says on the web site that you can expect to wait several weeks before it ships. So if you don't want to wait several weeks, you have the option of course to simply not order one until the backlog is gone and the web site says it is in stock.
The point is they're not deceiving or misleading anyone. It is what it is. They're making them as fast as parts and equipment will allow. The price is crazy cheap. I personally am thrilled to have one. If they hire more people the price goes up. So I'm happy with things like they are. Of course I already have my APM2 (which I ordered in Feb and received last week).
Here's 3DR Twitter feed for last few days:
3DRobotics Last APM2 order out today 19782yesterday · reply · retweet · favorite
3DRobotics Jordi on the cover of the San Diego Business Journalpic.twitter.com/alUHcvGW3 days ago · reply · retweet · favorite
3DRobotics Last APM2.0 order out today 197465 days ago · reply · retweet · favorite
3DRobotics @d0tslash :)5 days ago · reply · retweet · favorite
3DRobotics First 3DR box shipped :)pic.twitter.com/EbXgK3R15 days ago · reply · retweet · favorite
skelly .@3drobotics boxes!pic.twitter.com/OVIFPWb0
If they were at 19782 yesterday, 19746 5 days ago, that's 7.2 orders per day. By my estimate, they will get to 22179 in about 332 days. Of course there was a weekend in between. Btw, I think they are relying on people to follow their twitter feed rather than doing individual e-mails.
Have to rant about sending my APM2 to be looked at since gyros are not working last month 4 weeks ago and they said they will be sending back after testing in couple of days. This was last week. I send a email 4 days ago and still havn't got a response. Response time is so slow why? They have great products and customer service when you get a hold of them but it takes over a week to get a response if lucky.
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