Autopilot Firmware Upgrade from 1.3.1 to 1.5.3

[pyrate]

the anticipation is a killer

 

[Craig L. Johnson - USMC]

I guess could wait until, tommorrow...so I can read your post, after you have tested it.

also, I take it that most of you guys in this post are also using the new Solex app also?

 

[Craig L. Johnson - USMC]

yes it is.

 

[pyrate]

I have solex but have not invested the time I should to learn all the features
mostly I fly the IOS app

 

[Stealth]

So finally 3DR got back to me today Friday 2/10 after initially submitting support requests through Solo app last Saturday 2/4. The support was very polite and helpful except that as was expected they do not replace individual components. They confirmed that the problem was accelerator sensor in Pixhawk 2.0 cube and offered to replace the entire Solo with a refurbished one. And informed me that the average turn around time is two weeks.
At this point I declined the replacement. I have had a spare Pixhawk 2.0 cube that I replaced an original faulty one with on Sunday 2/5 and had multiple flights and no issues so far.
I have bought Solo brand new and did not want to risk getting a refurbished replacement.
So for now I am flying on 1.5.2 firmware and pretty happy with it.
Can't wait to get the green Solo Pixhawk 2.1 cube from ProfiCNC.and try the Arducopter master on it

I had a similar problem with my Solo, its Pixhawk had a faulty barometer. After talking to 3DR CS for more than I month they finally sent me a new replacement Pixhawk unit (at no cost). Prior to that they said that I need to send them my Solo and they will have it fixed (as in your case). But as I am currently in EU and I have bought my Solo from BB/USA and the shipping expenses are a killer. After all I managed to convince them that sending a replacement Pixwahk is way more cheaper than sending a new Solo in case my Solo crashes due to the inaccurate barometer reading in the faulty Pixhawk. After talking for a month with Gio (who was very helpful BTW) I was finally redirected to an engineer - Santiago who made the final decision.
Just good to know if anyone has a similar issue!

 

[mike sember]

READ THIS BEFORE ASKING A QUESTION PLEASE

This is the firmware on the Arducopter based Pixhawk in the solo. This is what controls the motors, takes inputs from the sensors, compass, GPS, etc, and manages stable flight. It is the same device many of use use in our DIY drones, with some solo specific modifications.

This is not the same thing as the updates you get via the app updates. Those updates contains this firmware as needed, and also update the companion computer, controller, and gimbal. That is not what this is. Put simply this Pixhawk firmware has absolutely nothing to do with smart shots, geofences, flight modes, GoPro control, gimbal control, video, photos, etc. So please do not ask if this will do anything for any of those aspects. The answer is no.

No, this is not Arducopter master. This is a 3DR solo specific version of Arducopter 3.2. It is not AC3.3, 3.4, or 3.5rcx. It contains updates and improvements to the current production release of the Solo version. 3DR has not pushed this out to it's consumer customers, but it you are not locked out from doing it yourself.

So what improvements does this give you? Many wonderful things!

• Improved landing detection. This greatly improves the solo's ability to detect it has landed. In the past, it could get confused by a rough, fast, or jerky landing. This results in it refusing to disarm or and sometimes flipping over. The new landing detection algorithm is greatly enhances. You will notice it now takes and extra second or so to disarm once you're on the ground. And you may see a little switch in the throttle. It is literally testing the ground. It works quite nicely.
  
  
• Low battery thrust priority. If the battery is getting dangerously low, it will allow itself to sacrifice yaw (rotation) control to increase thrust to prevent a crash. This could give you the thrust you need to land softly rather than dropping out of the sky.
  
  
• Distance based battery failsafe. It can now compute how much time it needs to get back to a safe landing at the home location, compare to how much battery is left, and execute the RTH failsafe based on that. The parameter defaults will calculate it based on having 10% remaining when it lands. You will notice the failsafe kicks in at 17-19% now rather than 9-11% like before. This is because it is trying to get back to a landing with 10% remaining rather than 0% remaining. You can adjust this by change the FS_BATT_CURR_RTL parameter with the Tower app or Mission Planner. It's default is 30. Reducing it to 22 or 25 will extend the flying time before failsafe, making it land at less than 10%.
  
  
• Will not lose altitude by going too fast in Follow Mode! In Smart Shots, the solo will not allow itself to go "too fast" causing a loss of altitude. Prior to this, you could go too fast, say following a moving car, and the solo would try to keep up, sacrificing altitude in the process. That will no longer happen. It will recognize it is losing altitude and back off the speed to prevent it. So for example, if you're doing a follow smart shot and start driving too fast, it will fall behind instead of crashing into the ground.
  
  
• Misc minor tweaks and adjustments to various parameters and code that probably aren't noticeable or "features". Just basic behind the scenes improvements.
  
  
• Anecdotally, I think it is remarkably more stable. I've burned through 6 batteries with this and noticed the video was the most smooth and stable I have ever captured with the solo. I cannot relate that to specific change in the firmware because I didn't write it. But I love it.

READ THIS BEFORE ASKING A QUESTION PLEASE

This is the firmware on the Arducopter based Pixhawk in the solo. This is what controls the motors, takes inputs from the sensors, compass, GPS, etc, and manages stable flight. It is the same device many of use use in our DIY drones, with some solo specific modifications.

This is not the same thing as the updates you get via the app updates. Those updates contains this firmware as needed, and also update the companion computer, controller, and gimbal. That is not what this is. Put simply this Pixhawk firmware has absolutely nothing to do with smart shots, geofences, flight modes, GoPro control, gimbal control, video, photos, etc. So please do not ask if this will do anything for any of those aspects. The answer is no.

No, this is not Arducopter master. This is a 3DR solo specific version of Arducopter 3.2. It is not AC3.3, 3.4, or 3.5rcx. It contains updates and improvements to the current production release of the Solo version. 3DR has not pushed this out to it's consumer customers, but it you are not locked out from doing it yourself.

So what improvements does this give you? Many wonderful things!

• Improved landing detection. This greatly improves the solo's ability to detect it has landed. In the past, it could get confused by a rough, fast, or jerky landing. This results in it refusing to disarm or and sometimes flipping over. The new landing detection algorithm is greatly enhances. You will notice it now takes and extra second or so to disarm once you're on the ground. And you may see a little switch in the throttle. It is literally testing the ground. It works quite nicely.
  
  
• Low battery thrust priority. If the battery is getting dangerously low, it will allow itself to sacrifice yaw (rotation) control to increase thrust to prevent a crash. This could give you the thrust you need to land softly rather than dropping out of the sky.
  
  
• Distance based battery failsafe. It can now compute how much time it needs to get back to a safe landing at the home location, compare to how much battery is left, and execute the RTH failsafe based on that. The parameter defaults will calculate it based on having 10% remaining when it lands. You will notice the failsafe kicks in at 17-19% now rather than 9-11% like before. This is because it is trying to get back to a landing with 10% remaining rather than 0% remaining. You can adjust this by change the FS_BATT_CURR_RTL parameter with the Tower app or Mission Planner. It's default is 30. Reducing it to 22 or 25 will extend the flying time before failsafe, making it land at less than 10%.
  
  
• Will not lose altitude by going too fast in Follow Mode! In Smart Shots, the solo will not allow itself to go "too fast" causing a loss of altitude. Prior to this, you could go too fast, say following a moving car, and the solo would try to keep up, sacrificing altitude in the process. That will no longer happen. It will recognize it is losing altitude and back off the speed to prevent it. So for example, if you're doing a follow smart shot and start driving too fast, it will fall behind instead of crashing into the ground.
  
  
• Misc minor tweaks and adjustments to various parameters and code that probably aren't noticeable or "features". Just basic behind the scenes improvements.
  
  
• Anecdotally, I think it is remarkably more stable. I've burned through 6 batteries with this and noticed the video was the most smooth and stable I have ever captured with the solo. I cannot relate that to specific change in the firmware because I didn't write it. But I love it.

Hey guys, i not very tech savvy like you, but i installed the 1.5.3 and flew around a lot today. I noticed all the differences that were noted. I also noticed a load beeping coming from solo at the end of one of the flight and a lot of vibration. Is this normal, and what can i do if it is not?

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Well the loud beeping is probably the low battery alarm, which is pretty normal. You might notice it coming on a little bit sooner, but there has always been a low battery beeper. As for vibration, I don't know what to tell you about that.

 

[mike sember]

Well the loud beeping is probably the low battery alarm, which is pretty normal. You might notice it coming on a little bit sooner, but there has always been a low battery beeper. As for vibration, I don't know what to tell you about that.

The load beeping was with about 30 to 35 percent battery left. My friend and i were standing there when i was landing and we have never heard those tones before after hundreds of flights. Ill try to recreate the vibration and tones and let you know.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Are you familiar with the low battery beeper? Was this something different?

 

[mike sember]

Are you familiar with the low battery beeper? Was this something different?

Yes I am. I have never heard this load beeping before and I was a different time than low battery alarm. I flew again tonight and no vibrations, no altitude loss, and no beeping. Ill try again tomm. Thanks.

 

[mike sember]

Yes I am. I have never heard this load beeping before and I was a different time than low battery alarm. I flew again tonight and no vibrations, no altitude loss, and no beeping. Ill try again tomm. Thanks.

Loud

 

[BigTulsa]

Is this the tone? (skip to 0:49 as time coding doesn't seem to work in the URL here).

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[BigTulsa]

Also, not sure how viable this page would be for the cube in the Solo, but here's a more updated list of sounds based on what causes them.

Sounds (Pixhawk/PX4) — Copter documentation

 

[mike sember]

Also, not sure how viable this page would be for the cube in the Solo, but here's a more updated list of sounds based on what causes them.

Sounds (Pixhawk/PX4) — Copter documentation

Yes....that was the sound. I guess it was louder and came on earlier. Thanks.

 

[BigTulsa]

Yes....that was the sound. I guess it was louder and came on earlier. Thanks.

Which I think was expected with the new firmware. That should be able to be modified but I am not sure which parameter to set. I know there are several failsafe settings as they regard to batteries (voltage failsafe, remaining mAh and such) but I haven't looked to hard into it. On my DIY rig it doesn't have a battery failsafe because the simple power modules that they use tend to put themselves in failsafe once you place the vehicle under load even though the voltage recovers after you 'unload' it. Kept having failsafes enable too soon. I have telemetry piped back to my Taranis to tell me the realtime voltage of the cells so I'm pretty good at knowing when I need to bring her home.

 

[porlock]

Hi all
I heard that this firmware suits only to improved solo version that is selled for industrial market with sony camera and it is not recommended for "old" gopro solo releases. And it even can physically damage motor control unit in the gopro solo version. This is true ?

 

[cryhavoc38]

Hi all
I heard that this firmware suits only to improved solo version that is selled for industrial market with sony camera and it is not recommended for "old" gopro solo releases. And it even can physically damage motor control unit in the gopro solo version. This is true ?

I havent heard that. Did you read it online somewhere? Have a link?

 

[pyrate]

Officially this is not a release for consumer based solos. If it were you would have gotten an update notice on your app.
That being said, it appears to work just fine but its a side load not officially a release

 

[porlock]

I havent heard that. Did you read it online somewhere? Have a link?

Well... some guy on FB Polish 3DR Solo user group claims that, i do not think that link to that post will give any extra light on this, but i already ask him where he get this news.

 

[BigTulsa]

Interesting. The gimbal on mine works just fine; just like it did on 1.3.1 (last known updated version for consumer versions). I think that poster is likely blowing smoke.

Then, there's the issue of the gimbal firmware not being updated since the autopilot firmware was, so we are still using the same gimbal firmware. Yep, blowing smoke is my verdict.