Developer

PixRacer with Ardupilot

This is a discussion to focus the feedback and support of ardupilot on the PixRacer board from AUAV.co.

We believe that all teething problems encountered are now resolved and so we recommend people load Copter-3.3.4 which is available for all multicopters through the Mission Planner's (and other GCS's) Install Firmware screens.  Note that because regular Pixhawks are still on Copter-3.3.3 the install icon may show Copter-3.3.3 but rest assured, Copter-3.3.4 will be installed (you can check the version by looking at the very top of the Mission Planner).

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        • Hi Tridge,

          you are right, I had forgotten to turn of the safety switch.

          I tried both, with and without switch, both works perfectly now.

          Setting mot_pwm_type=2 lets the motors sound different and throttle responds much better.

          Wow, that was a great testflight. Really cool :-)

          Thank you very for the great job. It seems that (at least for me) all issues are solved and the tiny little boards performs incredibly well!

          Best Regards

          Thomas 

  • Hi all, been away for some time, my pix racer has just turned up so will be following this thread. Very impressed with the board, will hopefully be trying this on a traditional helicopter and when the next one arrives on a HK Go Discover. 

    malc

  • HI guys, its great to see the development to continue even given serious financial cut backs! There is one frame which is supported by AC, but which we cannot run pixRacer on- it is a Tricopter - yes the humble tricopter. Why- because tail servo is located on ch7 output, May I propose to move onto ch3 which is currently available. Thank you!

    • Developer

      Hi Artem,

      I'm working on a patch that would allow the tricopter motors to be arranged on any channels. I'll let you know when its ready for testing.

      Cheers, Tridge

      • Thank you very much! 

        I will gladly test it, just let me know via a PM. 

        • Developer

          @Artem,

          I've created a pull request for this:

          https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/3945

          With that patch applied you can set:

            RC5_FUNCTION=39

          to move the yaw servo to channel 5. The magic number 39 is the RC function code for motor7. So this says "make RC5 output be the output for motor7". We could already move any of the motors on other multicopter frames in this way, we just hadn't extended it to the tricopter yaw servo.

          It works for me in bench tests but I don't have my real tricopter setup yet so I can't flight test it. I've uploaded a prebuilt firmware for you to try here:

          http://uav.tridgell.net/Artem/ArduCopter-v4.px4

          It is an experimental firmware so please do initial tests with props off and make sure it responds correctly.

          Cheers, Tridge

          AP_Motors: allow tricopter motor 7 to be moved to any output by tridge · Pull Request #3945 · ArduP…
          eg. RC5_FUNCTION=39 will move the tail to channel 5
          • will try tonight-tomorrow night, we are going to fpv this evening so I need my tri fully functional. currently it has pixhawk on it, will have to replace, a lot of stuff to fully test, I've being asking for this patch since February on the RCG without luck and honestly did not expect such quick result!

            THANK YOU! 

            • Developer

              no problem.

              I've now added a tricopter simulator to master which allowed me to test the change properly. It works fine, so I have pushed it to master. You will be able to get it with crtl-Q in missionplanner in a couple of hours

              • great!

                while we are at it, going back to AC 3.1.2 (ancient now) tricopter yaw control was much better with only the stock YAW PIDs (crisp and precise), now stock values make YAW really "delayed" and autotune returned yaw PIDs are plain hard to fly.

                the performance changed back  in AC3.2 though it became worse in AC3.3 (both EKF enabled)

                lol, I know you have a lot on your plate besides these, but it would be great if we could change servo control frequency (default set at 50Hz), I know a few tri pilots who run heli tail servos with faster PWM (333Hz). this would really be beneficial on mini-tricopters! 

                • Developer

                  Hi Artem,

                  I hope you like master. I am very interested to get your feedback on tri's. I am not sure why things have got worse from 3.1 to 3.3 because as far as I know, nothing has changed....... Unless the Yaw filter has been set by default for tri's.....

                  Make sure RATE_YAW_FILT_HZ is set to 20 Hz. I suspect that is the issue.

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