APM:Plane 2.78 released

This is a bug fix release for a number of important issues found in the 2.77 release.

The changes in this release are
Fixed sensor start-up on the APM1
I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't test the APM1 for the 2.77 release as my APM1 had died. It was a trivial fix, and the APM1 is working again in 2.78
Pixhawk Barometer fix
Fixed a potentially serious bug on Pixhawk if the board is flown in high temperature environments. If the board temperature gets above 65 degrees C then some boards would get bad barometric readings, thus giving bad altitude readings. This fix was a change in the GPIO settings on the SPI bus used to talk to the MS5611 barometer. Many thanks to Darrell Burkey for supplying the log file that found this bug.
Fixed LED behaviour on Pixhawk
The large 3 colour LED should now correctly display the failsafe and GPS status
Improved PX4 and Pixhawk compass calibration
We now run a strap calibration on every boot which improves compass accuracy by a small amount
Added RSSI_RANGE parameter
This allows you to scale your RSSI input to match your receiver
Fixed GPS health status in MAVLink
The GPS health bit will now show as unhealthy if the GPS does not have 3D lock. Thanks to Iskess for reporting this issue!
Also thanks to everyone who gave feedback on 2.77, much appreciated!

Issues with this release should be posted on the APM:Plane forum

When I upgraded from 2.76b to 2.78b it introduced a weird issue with auto landings. Is there a new landing parameter that I need to set? With 2.78 in normal flight the nav_pitch more or less tracks the alt_error and it does a good job maintaining altitude. when the plane begins its descent, the nav_pitch and alt_error seem to be less tightly coupled and it does a poor job coming down on target.

Each time during the planes final approach nav_pitch jumps up to zero for a few seconds in this case about 11 seconds even though alt_error is negative. I dont know what would cause the controller to do this. At the old landing flare time/altitude, nav_pitch goes to -5 degrees like it used to do but because it was at zero pitch for a while, it overshoots the intended landing zone by 60 meters. The little spike in nav_pitch at the end is human flare to soften the landing out a little.

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Comments

Ben Howard February 22, 2014 at 2:41pm

When I upgraded from 2.76b to 2.78b it introduced a weird issue with auto landings. Is there a new landing parameter that I need to set? With 2.78 in normal flight the nav_pitch more or less tracks the alt_error and it does a good job maintaining altitude. when the plane begins its descent, the nav_pitch and alt_error seem to be less tightly coupled and it does a poor job coming down on target.

Each time during the planes final approach nav_pitch jumps up to zero for a few seconds in this case about 11 seconds even though alt_error is negative. I dont know what would cause the controller to do this. At the old landing flare time/altitude, nav_pitch goes to -5 degrees like it used to do but because it was at zero pitch for a while, it overshoots the intended landing zone by 60 meters. The little spike in nav_pitch at the end is human flare to soften the landing out a little.
Detlef February 7, 2014 at 5:00am

Just noticed something on my 2.78b failsafe setup. If my plane is actually in LOITER it ignores any throttle failsafe and also my flight mode channel in order to activate RTL. It just continues in LOITER? I put a comment in the support forum with a little video. Maybe I am doing something wrong? I believe that was working with the previous version.
json February 2, 2014 at 5:45pm

2.78b working great in my 1900 skywalker 2014. Stab, Loiter, RTL and Auto (with land) works great. The RSSI also strangely is working again ie max values are now higher than the min.
json January 31, 2014 at 6:59am

I also noticed that with 2.78, the rssi values reported in minimosd is reversed..ie the 'no radio' link is at 1489 and the max is at 1085.
Gustav Kuhn January 31, 2014 at 3:21am

Eish, (sorry, that expression is reserved for South Africa), so glad I haven't flown my Talon in full auto yet....

Tridge, any time you need airplane tests done on APM1, I'll try to accommodate, I have three of them.

Hopefully try the new code this weekend.
Developer

Andrew Tridgell January 31, 2014 at 2:49am

Hi Jayson, yep, there was an 'oops' in 2.78 fixed in 2.78b thanks to sharp eyes from Valince on the patch.

Cheers, Tridge
json January 31, 2014 at 12:42am

ok this seems to have been fixed with 2.78b.. thanks!
json January 31, 2014 at 12:12am

hi tridge! after updating to 2.78, I cant seem to change the RC1_REV using APM planner 2.0. Changing it to "-1" gets 'written' but after a reboot, the old value of '1' returns. I was able to do this in 2.77.
Austin Suhler January 30, 2014 at 7:54am

Thanks guys, can't wait to start tuning my X-8! On that note, any idea when auto-tuning will be added? ;) Just kidding, great work guys!
Jack Crossfire January 30, 2014 at 12:14am

It's been 3 days since your last release. Slacker.

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