I spent a year working on APM 2.5 and 2.6, frying regulators one after another, breaking cables, crashing multis and planes because of weak connections or light entering into the barometer...
I purchased the FY41 lite for a cheaper price than the APM, and it had a GPS, a pitot sensor for airspeed, and even an OSD working perfectly from the start, Did I mention that all cable plugs were also rock-solid and that leds were giving easy-to-remember messages to pilot ?
My FY41 lite was fully operational after 3 evenings working on it and 3 morning tests, and it brought to me the immense joy of reading the OSD on my FPV screen from the very first test. I could even change AP parameters from within the OSD, using my Futaba transmitter joysticks to change basic options.
Now the FY41 lite is not perfect, it has a GCS that truly sucks, or an RTL with a fixed altitude (50 meters), and one needs to purchase the premium version for only 20 waypoints max.
But now I know that it is possible to build a rock solid AP
So 3DR, as long as you keep that "Dear customer, stop complaining, we are DIY, you should accept technical issues" attitude, I will stay away from you.
BTW, your prices are far from DIY compared to the competition.
This morning, I put all my second-hand APM stuff on Ebay. I am angry because it made me lose a big amount of time and money.
Now if I hear in one year that you got the message and seriously upgraded the quality of your components, and that you offer a plug-and-play OSD from scratch, then I shall revert because I am in love with your GCS, your unlimited waypoints and your user community.
Cheers.
Replies
You can't? Oh, sorry.... Why should Aram support you on a product 3DR does NOT MAKE!
Aram is great at his job, and does not deserve people like you bagging him for no reason.
The Pixhawk can be used for many purposes, and many people have repurposed it for many cool applications. I use the antenna tracker, and it works well... If you don't have the ability to set it up yourself, ask at the correct location, the Ardupilot.com forum.... If you look up the code at git.diydrones.ardupilot and read the readme file. You will find a link to gitter, where you can directly chat yo the dev team!
Keep in mind, 3DR designs and makes the hardware, the Dev team write software for the community. And you are welcome to join that.
Keith,
As you went through the problems/bugs/issues people posted about, did you also go through them all to find the posts about any resolution on those problems/bugs/issues and categorize all the posts as actual problems/bugs/issues vs. user error? It would be interesting to see if those issues were primarily ACTUAL bugs or user error. Not only that, it would be even more useful to know the experience of the people posting.
While there may be a lot of posts about issues, most are not due to bugs in the software, it's user error in setting up the software. Sure, 3DR is going the RTF route on things and if you don't make any changes to the RTF stuff, then it works quite well. However, for an inexperienced "newbie" who wants to get cool "dronies" from his supposed toy, or from a basic r/c guy that is jumping into the auto-pilot world with little experience, when they don't take time to research what all the settings do and then start making changes, that's when you see a lot of posts pop up. The instant gratification “I want to get going now” without a lot of research mentality of many is partially to blame for this.
Luckily for us, the software is open and allows for those changes to be made and that is a double edged sword. If the software were suddenly closed and left to only be adjusted, by say 3DR, for RTF products, I suspect it would work very well and there would be much fewer problem posts. The fact that it's open allows for adjustments of nearly everything, thereby making it much more complex. This makes it *seem* as if the software is buggy when it's primarily user error from a lack of understanding what effect their changes will make on the vehicle.
The complaint about less than ideal CS may be valid and I agree that they should have a good knowledge of how the system works but again, think about what you're asking. It would take quite a bit of time to be FULLY knowledgeable about everything you need to know for APM:Copter, APM:Plane, APM:Rover, Mission Planner, AntennaTracker, APM:Linux, etc. Do you expect each CS representative to know everything about the entire code base? I seriously doubt there are more than a very small number of the devs, if any, that know EVERYTHING about ALL the platforms and they're the devs! That's what the documentation is for! Sure, the wiki can be lacking and outdated at times but that also reflects partially the popularity and frequency of updates for the portion of the documentation you are looking at and the willingness of users to correct and modify the documentation to be up-to-date. The antenna tracker, while useful, doesn’t get used by too many people and thus isn’t updated as often as it should be and those that use it move on to other things once it’s working than taking time to update the wiki with what they found, which is their prerogative, even if it would be helpful if they rolled in the updates. Same with MinimOSD and other less used items. The APM:Copter stuff is pretty good. I’m primarily into planes and even the APM:Plane documentation is slightly out of date when compared to the Copter documentation for certain things because there are way more people using APM:Copter because it’s what’s hot right now. If you don’t like it, then make a contribution by offering to fix problems you find in the documentation. That’s what’s great about the whole APM project is that anyone can help out, granted it is harder to do that than to complain about how it’s lacking. Calling Aram out like you did for a seldom used antenna tracker is a bit harsh, although he should at least know it exists but that’s a personal opinion and not necessarily how his performance is reviewed by 3DR. If you asked him about multirotor information related to the Iris+ or other things they sell, chances are he would have had more information for you. You have to remember, they’re there to help with what they sell, not the minutia of every single parameter that’s available in the code base.
If you want open code with lots of adjustments, expect more "problem" posts but you can’t complain when you have to sort through the chaff because of the inherent lack of research people do nowadays. If you want RTF stuff, then APM products may not be your cup of tea but it can still work just fine if you want basic functionality. If you are just complaining about customer service, that would be better served by talking to people in charge at 3DR, not posting on an obscure forum post comparing the APM to a FY41 which some took as bashing APM, that likely won’t be read by anyone of importance in charge of making changes in CS at 3DR.
Edit: Changed forum post comparison description.
Hello Keith,
This thread was meant to compare APM and FY41 ease of use and solidity, and draw 3DR attention about the good newbie-oriented and solid things that FY41 had so that it could be implemented into the next gen AP.
Despite a few quite negative reactions from "old dogs" or other "model experts" (I am sure they are) demonstrating that only experienced DIY users could use the APM well, It was in no way intended to do 3DR bashing but the other way round, that is give chances to 3DR to provide even better products in the future.
I doubt that any company could survive today only serving experienced model users as they represent only a small fraction of the potential market.
Thus the need for newbie-proof items, all the more if competitors have already implemented it. Yes, newbies crash, tearing things apart and no, newbies do not know how to grip a DF13 cable correctly. That is exactly the point.
If anyone intends to complain about 3DR as such or about a specific department or name, I am sure you have your reasons, but may I kindly suggest that you open a new thread for that ? ;-)
I am glad to keep this thread opened and talk more about those newbie-proof items and those items which make newbies run away, but I see not point having defensive or offensive arguments from anyone here, that is really missing the goal of that specific thread;
Thank you very much
Philippe
@Drone-University,
I find your observations to be most interesting as they are totally contrary to my experiences with the original Ardupilot (328), APM1.0/1.4, APM2.5/2.6, PX4, and the Pixhawk which were all purchased with my own funds.
I am a retired System Engineer with around 35 years of experience and have developed common sense procedures to use when working with both hobby, commercial, and military equipment.
When working with the 3DR product line, I have yet to break a connector or fry a voltage regulator. I never force a connector in or out without investigating why there is an issue.
I also measure all power supply voltages before applying them to a navigation controller and double check all wiring connections and connectors for proper orientation.
I always RTFM and all available information concerning a product before I apply power.
Your issues are probably due to inexperience, a lack of patience, and a failure to grasp commonsense procedures and techniques when working with hobby grade products.
Regards,
TCIII Autonomous Vehicle Developer
If APM is such a bad product, I think despite the best marketing strategy, it will NOT selling until now. Let market force to determine who should stay out there.
I've use genuine APM and thanks to 3 DR does not ship to my country, the HK Pilot APM 2.7 work very well.
I recently build a DJI F550 fitted with a Pixhawk. It just settle into a nice steady hover and fly a few way points mission with all default setting. I may be lucky but I do build my hexacopter carefully and back with years of modelling experience.
Funny thing is I have been using 3DR products for a few years and never broke a cable or had the "issues" you discuss maybe the universities curriculum needs to be reviewed and changed?
I laugh at everyone still saying oh Naza worked out of the box, plug and play. Maybe on a 450 or 550 not anything else. It took me more time to tune/setup the Naza I have on my Y6 than to do two APM 2.6. Naza is another example of spend lots of money advertising and promoting in the community and everyone believes its golden. I wont buy another Naza setup not because they don't work it actually works fine once tuned but I much prefer 3DR and others.
Glad you got something up and running. I'm sure the lack of a GCS in the FY41 is a pain but that's the way it goes.
If you want more capability, expect more time to get it up and running. If you (not DU in particular but a generic you) don't have much r/c experience and can't fly anything manually, you'll have major issues getting the APM to fly as you need to be able to fly.
Yes, APM might be complicated in some regards but with more sophistication comes more work to get all that sophistication. As you found, the FY41 has a lot but is still missing a lot of good stuff too. You can't have it both ways because if you could, everyone and their brother would be using that by now.
While it may seem like a pain, people do get things up and running so it's not always an APM issue. I am successfully flying APM:Plane using v3.0.3 just fine, APM:Copter v3.1.5 without issue, and ran what was the latest APM:Rover v2.4 or whatever it was before I sold that APM off as I never used it. Of course, I have been flying r/c for 9 years, followed and worked with the original ArduPilot (not Mega version), and been working on it a while. With enough reading and following the manual the best you can (given it can be outdated in some parts), things should work if you're taking your time and being careful.
Ultimately, just like r/c, APM issues that arise are generally user error, not hardware. The few instances where there were general hardware issues were the Spektrum low-voltage brown out (which was still mostly a user issue because people didn't know how to properly set up a BEC to keep brown outs from coming up in 95% of cases), the light in the barometer issue (direct light from sun, not indirect, which you shouldn't experience if the APM is INSIDE a fuselage), and a regulator issue, which 3DR replaced for anyone that did their reading.
NAZA, FY41, and others work fine and are easier to deal with. If you want the capabilities and the advances of everything else, then put in the time or find someone locally. People online can only do so much to help.
Hopefully you post everything on e-Bay with the caveat that you had problems with it all instead of using the same marketing that 3DR uses, which you don't agree with.
See ?
When I say : "You'd better stop DF13 B.S.",
I hear "yes but we have GPS redundancy" or "it is a user error"
when I say : "I have spent hundred of hours searching for the piece of information I needed and I could not find it,",
I hear : "Just go ahead and read the memo again, you are such a newbie".
then I dare to tell my friend 3DR that the company is focusing on technology but is neglecting the user experience.
Bottom line : 3DR should hire some "ergonomist", or whatever you call it in proper English, someone who truly tries to set up the whole thing from scratch and say : "this is partial info, this is not clear, I just broke this when i was pulling it for the first time"... Basic stuff really. A testing department.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next