just would like to cover few topics and ask few questions. some of these were already covered in other posts and some were not and rather than replying to each of those separately I thought it may just be better to do it under one summary.
for PC (Windows) users obviously Mission Planner is the best way to read the logs and do other fancy things.
Mac users can install Parallels (or WMware as I did) to run Windows and then install Mission Planner, I went this route only to find out after installing WMware and Windows XP Pro that Mission Planner will not run (it installs but trying to launch it will give me non-32bit application error).
Is there a Mission Planner version that was compiled for 32bit environment ?
APM Planner seems to be rather unfinished product and some expected functionality is not there (unless I missed something somewhere) :
- cannot run Motor test
- cannot re-run flights on the map (you can only export to .kmz file)
- cannot load Tlogs from the controller
What it can do, is to load Dataflash logs.
It can read existing Tlogs but it cannot load them from the controller, you need to load Tlogs by other means (Telnet session), once on your Mac then you can open them in APM Planner.
(If it can load Tlogs, please let me know, I can't find a way).
Sometimes when loading Dataflash logs, it gets stuck forever (in my case exactly at 50% and then it reads parameters and this process will never finish).
Even when successfully dataflash log is loaded, then trying to open it will always end up in error : "Log parsing ended with errors", nonetheless it seems to display the data in the graph.
For my piece of mind, at the very least I'm trying to have a functionality whereby I would be always able to locate lost Solo (or find its last known GPS location), what are the options ?
Lets say I'm in remote location several days away from internet, all I have is my laptop, the controller, iPad/iPhone.
Last known GPS location (from the last flight) is in the controller in the Tlog file called "solo.tlog". APM Planner cannot load this file because by default "download log" button is disabled whenever the Solo is not connected to the controller and even when this button is enabled (when Solo is in reach) then anyway this function only allows to read dataflash logs, not the tlogs. This is when you can run Telnet session and retrieve the Tlog file manually, then in APM Planner you can load ("Open Log") the file.
latitude and longitude are available under "GPS_RAW_INT" but the format is rather strange because it's RAW (I have not yet investigated how to convert these numbers such as 205510564, 1.34913277e+09 into some meaningful real coordinates).
also, tlog files are binary files so you cannot read them with text editor like any other typical log files, otherwise I would simple search for the GPS location in there.
I don't know is there any easier (sane) way to find out the last known location of a lost Solo ?
Are there similar limitations in Mission Planner (when Solo is not in reach and you are trying to find last known GPS) ?
Is there any other way ?
There is an application for iPhone called Find my Drone (written by the same guy that wrote the APM Planner) but this application only works when Solo is connected to the controller and thereby not of any use when your Solo is lost. The only other way to use this application is to run it instead of Solo App, then you would know the last GPS, but if you are running Solo App (as we do) and your Solo is lost then launching "Find my Drone" is too late because Solo is no longer connected to the controller. Both applications (Solo App and Find my Drone) cannot run at the same time, only one of them can connect to the controller.
Is there an Android app that could do that ? After you lost your Solo - to retrieve the Tlogs from the controller and tell you what the last knows GPS coordinates are ?
I would've thought such a basic (and possibly necessary) functionality is somewhere in the Solo App, but it's not, right ?(or I just don't know where to look for it) Or even displayed on the controller when the connection to Solo is lost. Cannot be that hard to include it in the app, if the app is already displaying distance between home and it's current position, how does it do that ? Interpreting both GPS coordinates to calculate the correct distance, so why not just show it to us ?
I was therefore considering installing additional GPS tracker on my Solo, but in the scenario I mentioned above (being in remote area with no internet) this is useless as well because you need internet to find location of your GPS tracker.
The other thing I was wondering since we can't do it in APM Planner, does anyone know the actual commands to activate each motor one by one, so that one could do this in a Telnet session ?
Pete
for PC (Windows) users obviously Mission Planner is the best way to read the logs and do other fancy things.
Mac users can install Parallels (or WMware as I did) to run Windows and then install Mission Planner, I went this route only to find out after installing WMware and Windows XP Pro that Mission Planner will not run (it installs but trying to launch it will give me non-32bit application error).
Is there a Mission Planner version that was compiled for 32bit environment ?
APM Planner seems to be rather unfinished product and some expected functionality is not there (unless I missed something somewhere) :
- cannot run Motor test
- cannot re-run flights on the map (you can only export to .kmz file)
- cannot load Tlogs from the controller
What it can do, is to load Dataflash logs.
It can read existing Tlogs but it cannot load them from the controller, you need to load Tlogs by other means (Telnet session), once on your Mac then you can open them in APM Planner.
(If it can load Tlogs, please let me know, I can't find a way).
Sometimes when loading Dataflash logs, it gets stuck forever (in my case exactly at 50% and then it reads parameters and this process will never finish).
Even when successfully dataflash log is loaded, then trying to open it will always end up in error : "Log parsing ended with errors", nonetheless it seems to display the data in the graph.
For my piece of mind, at the very least I'm trying to have a functionality whereby I would be always able to locate lost Solo (or find its last known GPS location), what are the options ?
Lets say I'm in remote location several days away from internet, all I have is my laptop, the controller, iPad/iPhone.
Last known GPS location (from the last flight) is in the controller in the Tlog file called "solo.tlog". APM Planner cannot load this file because by default "download log" button is disabled whenever the Solo is not connected to the controller and even when this button is enabled (when Solo is in reach) then anyway this function only allows to read dataflash logs, not the tlogs. This is when you can run Telnet session and retrieve the Tlog file manually, then in APM Planner you can load ("Open Log") the file.
latitude and longitude are available under "GPS_RAW_INT" but the format is rather strange because it's RAW (I have not yet investigated how to convert these numbers such as 205510564, 1.34913277e+09 into some meaningful real coordinates).
also, tlog files are binary files so you cannot read them with text editor like any other typical log files, otherwise I would simple search for the GPS location in there.
I don't know is there any easier (sane) way to find out the last known location of a lost Solo ?
Are there similar limitations in Mission Planner (when Solo is not in reach and you are trying to find last known GPS) ?
Is there any other way ?
There is an application for iPhone called Find my Drone (written by the same guy that wrote the APM Planner) but this application only works when Solo is connected to the controller and thereby not of any use when your Solo is lost. The only other way to use this application is to run it instead of Solo App, then you would know the last GPS, but if you are running Solo App (as we do) and your Solo is lost then launching "Find my Drone" is too late because Solo is no longer connected to the controller. Both applications (Solo App and Find my Drone) cannot run at the same time, only one of them can connect to the controller.
Is there an Android app that could do that ? After you lost your Solo - to retrieve the Tlogs from the controller and tell you what the last knows GPS coordinates are ?
I would've thought such a basic (and possibly necessary) functionality is somewhere in the Solo App, but it's not, right ?(or I just don't know where to look for it) Or even displayed on the controller when the connection to Solo is lost. Cannot be that hard to include it in the app, if the app is already displaying distance between home and it's current position, how does it do that ? Interpreting both GPS coordinates to calculate the correct distance, so why not just show it to us ?
I was therefore considering installing additional GPS tracker on my Solo, but in the scenario I mentioned above (being in remote area with no internet) this is useless as well because you need internet to find location of your GPS tracker.
The other thing I was wondering since we can't do it in APM Planner, does anyone know the actual commands to activate each motor one by one, so that one could do this in a Telnet session ?
Pete
