Autopilot Firmware Upgrade from 1.3.1 to 1.5.3

[Pedals2Paddles]

Nobody has provided any evidence that the protections in place for the ESCs were removed in this firmware. I've had mine balls to the wall with no ill effects.

 

[porlock]

Ok, I have the source of this ESCs protection removed news, it is on closed FB group "3DR Solo Hacks",

需要安全验证

Autor clearly indicated "This is not to be copied." so I can't make a quote, but in this thread there is a statement of another guy who confirm that information and if You read all post carefully You can draw conclusions that he is a member of ardupilot-solo developers group.

 

[speatuk]

Ok, I have the source of this ESCs protection removed news, it is on closed FB group "3DR Solo Hacks",

需要安全验证

Autor clearly indicated "This is not to be copied." so I can't make a quote, but in this thread there is a statement of another guy who confirm that information and if You read all post carefully You can draw conclusions that he is a member of ardupilot-solo developers group.

I have read this also.

I WILL BE RETURNING MY SOLO TO 1.5.2

The latest version is NOT and I repeat NOT for the solo without sightscan.

PLEASE
ALL DO THE SAME.

-Steve

 

[Jubalr]

Ok, I have the source of this ESCs protection removed news, it is on closed FB group "3DR Solo Hacks",

需要安全验证

Autor clearly indicated "This is not to be copied." so I can't make a quote, but in this thread there is a statement of another guy who confirm that information and if You read all post carefully You can draw conclusions that he is a member of ardupilot-solo developers group.

That was an old post from 2 weeks ago. He thought they were referring to master. We covered this at the time.

 

[porlock]

That was an old post from 2 weeks ago. He thought they were referring to master. We covered this at the time.

So You want to say that this 2 guys from "3DR Solo Hacks" are wrong ?

 

[Jubalr]

So You want to say that this 2 guys from "3DR Solo Hacks" are wrong ?

I'm not going to re-hash this for you here. It's all been covered in another thread 2 weeks ago. No one told you to load it if you don't want to.

 

[pyrate]

Like Jub said this is elective for the user. My hat is off to the folks that found it, tested it and and published it
we should be grateful for that. If you don't have issues and don't want to fly it don't

 

[porlock]

Do not get me wrong i do not want to argue with You, my knowledge about 3D Solo is minor that is why i ask this questions, i want to get the best for my drone and at the same time do not damage it. I have it 2 days so im a little scared about anything, even when charging battery

In my first post I ask about that anyone heard about this issue and some user write that never heard about this so I thought this case was not discussed in this topic. I will read all the post more carefully and maybe i will get some conclusions to upgrade or not upgrade. Will be nice if You point me to that another thread where this case was discussed 2 weeks ago. A lite leniency for a newbie please

 

[Xor]

Just read that FB thread, 3rd comment (2nd from Philip) clearly said that because of video title they were thinking it is about ardupilot master, which indeed doesn't have workaround for solo ESC. As far as I got it - our beloved solo has hardware issue with ESC that instead of correcting 3dr decided to workaround in firmware, and I bet all ex 3dr employees are under NDA and 3dr don't want this issue to be discussed. This is my impression and not necessary true state of the things.
I personally went through all the changes from 1.3.1 (latest pushed to solo) to 1.5.3, there is only one commit somehow related to ESC, which bumps max pwm value, I just reverted it to 1.3.1 value (it is luckily just a parameter that can be easily changed from tower app)
Btw, there was comment from sitescan user who confirmed that sitescan solo uses new esc.

 

[speatuk]

Ok, I have the source of this ESCs protection removed news, it is on closed FB group "3DR Solo Hacks",

需要安全验证

Autor clearly indicated "This is not to be copied." so I can't make a quote, but in this thread there is a statement of another guy who confirm that information and if You read all post carefully You can draw conclusions that he is a member of ardupilot-solo developers group.

Just read that FB thread, 3rd comment (2nd from Philip) clearly said that because of video title they were thinking it is about ardupilot master, which indeed doesn't have workaround for solo ESC. As far as I got it - our beloved solo has hardware issue with ESC that instead of correcting 3dr decided to workaround in firmware, and I bet all ex 3dr employees are under NDA and 3dr don't want this issue to be discussed. This is my impression and not necessary true state of the things.
I personally went through all the changes from 1.3.1 (latest pushed to solo) to 1.5.3, there is only one commit somehow related to ESC, which bumps max pwm value, I just reverted it to 1.3.1 value (it is luckily just a parameter that can be easily changed from tower app)
Btw, there was comment from sitescan user who confirmed that sitescan solo uses new esc.

What was the parameter and the value please in 1.3.1

Many thanks in advance.

 

[porlock]

Xor thanks for valuable and substantive answer.

 

[Xor]

It is in this commit: ROMFS: Allow use of full ESC output · 3drobotics/ardupilot-solo@60e3ebf · GitHub

The comment reads
>>ROMFS: Allow use of full ESC output

Testing with Solo ESC's shows that saturation occurs at a PWM value of 1870.<<

Old value MOT_THST_MAX, 0.940000
New value MOT_THST_MAX, 0.965000

Based on comment it might be that they tested with consumer ESC, but may be not, so I lowered that value to be safe. If others with 1.5.3 who didn't lower it and fly with full throttle, banking hard, etc will confirm that there was no issues whatsoever I might bump it back to 0.965 value.

 

[speatuk]

It is in this commit: ROMFS: Allow use of full ESC output · 3drobotics/ardupilot-solo@60e3ebf · GitHub

The comment reads
>>ROMFS: Allow use of full ESC output

Testing with Solo ESC's shows that saturation occurs at a PWM value of 1870.<<

Old value MOT_THST_MAX, 0.940000
New value MOT_THST_MAX, 0.965000

Based on comment it might be that they tested with consumer ESC, but may be not, so I lowered that value to be safe. If others with 1.5.3 who didn't lower it and fly with full throttle, banking hard, etc will confirm that there was no issues whatsoever I might bump it back to 0.965 value.

Thank you. I do appreciate this


Keep flying safe everyone

 

[Deleted member 6872]

I WILL BE RETURNING MY SOLO TO 1.5.2. The latest version is NOT and I repeat NOT for the solo without sightscan.
PLEASE - ALL DO THE SAME.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read earlier in this thread that the only difference between 1.5.2 and 1.5.3 was changes to the pixhawk beeps/tones to avoid negative impact on IMU or something...? What I understand now, there are also issues related to control of the ESCs which may negatively impact a (stock) Solo?

Based on the above: Can we conclude that 1.5.2 is considered a safe upgrade for a stock Solo and 1.5.3 is not?

 

[speatuk]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read earlier in this thread that the only difference between 1.5.2 and 1.5.3 was changes to the pixhawk beeps/tones to avoid negative impact on IMU or something...? What I understand now, there are also issues related to control of the ESCs which may negatively impact a (stock) Solo?

Based on the above: Can we conclude that 1.5.2 is considered a safe upgrade for a stock Solo and 1.5.3 is not?

From what I am lead to believe, 1.5.3 is for commercial solo sitescan.
Commercial Solo sitescan has different ESC.
I am also lead to believe that a parameter needs to be changed to prevent a brown out.

Read further up the thread and if you are happy do one this, change the parameter with Tower or Mission Planner.
We were all warned this was up to us to update if we were confident enough to do it and it is not a factory release update.

That's all I know.


Keep flying safe everyone

 

[porlock]

Commercial Solo sitescan has different ESC

I see a lots of speculations and miss understanding about this topic, so i have to ask Is this is a confirmed info ? can You give some source ?


One more thing, i think about it, and we do not know why exactly developers change this MOT_THST_MAX parameter, maybe higher value is needed for some other functionality works correctly, and You can't see it in straight way and can't assume that if will affect only ESC and nothing more. So lowering this parameter can cause more problems than props. it's just my thoughts.

 

[speatuk]

I see a lots of speculations and miss understanding about this topic, so i have to ask Is this is a confirmed info ? can You give some source ?


One more thing, i think about it, and we do not know why exactly developers change this MOT_THST_MAX parameter, maybe higher value is needed for some other functionality works correctly, and You can't see it in straight way and can't assume that if will affect only ESC and nothing more. So lowering this parameter can cause more problems than props. it's just my thoughts.

The information I have read is from a Facebook page.

Xor has also read this

"Just read that FB thread, 3rd comment (2nd from Philip) clearly said that because of video title they were thinking it is about ardupilot master, which indeed doesn't have workaround for solo ESC. As far as I got it - our beloved solo has hardware issue with ESC that instead of correcting 3dr decided to workaround in firmware, and I bet all ex 3dr employees are under NDA and 3dr don't want this issue to be discussed. This is my impression and not necessary true state of the things.
I personally went through all the changes from 1.3.1 (latest pushed to solo) to 1.5.3, there is only one commit somehow related to ESC, which bumps max pwm value, I just reverted it to 1.3.1 value (it is luckily just a parameter that can be easily changed from tower app)
Btw, there was comment from sitescan user who confirmed that sitescan solo uses new escs"

If this is true, I would say the greater value will give greater stress on the esc.
If the commercial solo has "beefed up" esc, then this is why the parameter is higher on this update.

I am going to drop the value to that of 1.3.1

If the commercial solo has different hardware then this would also give the reasons for a higher pwm value.

If you read through the thread from start to end you will read that these updates were, for commercial solo.

Hence the RTL battery value being smaller as the extra weight of the Sony camera would give lower flight times.

The original poster of this is a very reputable person who I would tend to believe before I gave in to speculation.

Im dropping the value.
What you do is up to you. But it was categorically stated not to fly your solo with this version if it was not solo sitescan as a brown out could occur


Your choice.

 

[porlock]

What You saying seems reasonable it could be that way, On the other hand.. every motor have some initial ratings, PWM signal it is not the same like increasing voltage, it is electronic signal that You can use to change for example motor speed. If You have a motor control unit that suits for 10000RPM motor if You give them a 95% filled PWM signal it should get some RPM value depending on electronic and pasive component for example let it be a 9900RPM, if You use a different motor and different motor control unit it for example max 2000RPM and You give them 95% filed PWM it will not have the same value like for 10000RPM motor. So You cant strictly say that "If the commercial solo has "beefed up" esc, then this is why the parameter is higher on this update. ".

I just want to say that every speculation that we made are useless, we do not know why devs change it and this could be related to the new ESC or maybe something else, convincing some one to change it to the value from 1.3.1 can be a good or bad idea on the same level

Of course like You said it is every one personal choice, but i think everyone should be aware that it is not so simple.

 

[Bilge]

almost 300 threads on this.....Wow....

I had switched to 1.5.2 but after reading thru all of this I have decided to reload 1.3.1 firmware....... it comes down to personal perference & what one feels comfortable with.

When you have Philip pitching not to upgrade, there must be a solid reason for that statement

My take is 1.5.2 is geared towards commercial Solo drones vs consumer drones.........or 3DR would have pushed the update out to their loyal consumer drone customers.....unless they just don't care about us anymore....( which may be the very case ).

 

[porlock]

In my opinion 1.5 firmware will not fry Your solo, but .. there is always some but ;-)

All improvements are made and more importantly tested on commercial solo with have more powerful motors and suitable ESC. That is why what is an improvement for commercial heavier solo does not have to be equally good for lighter gopro solo.