Gimbal problem on power up when "facing South" fixed, due in first week of October

[Ian [P13]]

Thanks to people sending their logs to 3DR, they've tracked down the code causing the gimbal to fail to calibrate properly when the Solo was pointing South at power up.

AP_SmallEKF: replace incorrect quaternion rotations with library call by jschall · Pull Request #179 · 3drobotics/ardupilot-solo · GitHub

The fix will have to go through testing (it's had a flight test, but that alone isn't enough), so 3DR have said it's due around the 3rd of October.

 

[JoelNewman]

OK this may sound like a silly question, but now that some of us in the southern hemisphere are getting our hands on gimbals it would be good to know whether the same "point north" advice holds for us?

I can't think of a reason why it would be different, except if it's something to do with magnetic dip, but it can't hurt to ask!

I don't want to bd the first crash test pilot in Australia

 

[Timmytimetravel]

I just knew it was the quaternions all along! Wtf! I knew it sounded crazy but experienced it. Didn't want to add fuel to the possible hysterica about more crazy issues, so didn't add my voice. Yay, another fix. Just flew another awesome gimbal mission starting north

 

[Ian [P13]]

OK this may sound like a silly question, but now that some of us in the southern hemisphere are getting our hands on gimbals it would be good to know whether the same "point north" advice holds for us?

I can't think of a reason why it would be different, except if it's something to do with magnetic dip, but it can't hurt to ask!

I don't want to bd the first crash test pilot in Australia

It's a valid question but I don't know the answer...

If the gimbal acts strange on power up, spin the Solo around 180 degrees and recycle the power and you'll be covered that way.

 

[Timmytimetravel]

Unless you are flying Zero degree gimbal above a toiletbowl , in which case you need to account for the ground effect and downforce change from the water flushing the opposite way.

 

[Timmytimetravel]

Just watch out for deadly snakes hitching a ride in your engine bay and licking your windscreen whilst driving down under like someone today mkay?

Queensland motorist startled on Bruce Highway by venomous snake on her windscreen - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

[Ian [P13]]

By the way, enhancements to the video link and GPS are due in the update too apparently.

Chris Anderson on Twitter

 

[Rich]

How do we link this fix to the face southern issue? Just wondering as I see no mention of facing north or any other direction on startup.

 

[Ian [P13]]

How do we link this fix to the face southern issue? Just wondering as I see no mention of facing north or any other direction on startup.

If you look at the description it says "solo-pr-southern-dinardi" It was Paul Dinardi on the Facebook group that first flagged the problem as a trend.

 

[Rich]

I missed that, thanks.

 

[RichWest]

Imagine the problems this is causing pilots at the north pole....

For the record, I thought the whole south thing was a farce. Last night I fired up my bird pointed South and sure enough the gimbal flopped.

 

[Ian [P13]]

As bugs go, it's one of those you think "surely not" until you see it yourself.

 

[mcneely19]

I had this issue as well and can confirm the update timing based on what the support engineer told me last night. I was having other issues as well so I have to RMA my gimbal, but good to know this update is coming.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

 

[Adimuzio513]

Definitley one that's hard to believe, ive had probably ten or so packs through mine since I got my gimbal over the weekend and the one time I had problems thinking back was in fact facing south. I assumed it was the android app update and switched to my iPhone then everything worked but I had changed direction some. That and the fact that the problem seemed to fix itself has me convinced. All but that one time mines performed great so I guess I gota pay attention when I go to power up.

As always thanks for the Info Ian, you've yet to steer anybody wrong that I've seen.

 

[JohnSal]

Today I double checked my wire routing for the gimbal data cable, pointed it to the north and powered on and it worked. The gimbal worked. Multiple times. Live video, Hero4 control everything.

Installed the gimbal the night before when I didn't really have time to mess with it. Double checked wiring then as well but it still had gimbal flop. Yes it was pointing due south. What? Huh?

 

[rrmccabe]

As bugs go, it's one of those you think "surely not" until you see it yourself.

Yea does not get much more bizarre than that !

 

[mcneely19]

So I probably just RMA'ed my gimbal for a stupid reason. I was definitely facing south when I powered up and had issues.

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

 

[RichWest]

Beyond the bizarre issue of facing south, the gimbal seems very stable in flight. I took it out yesterday and flew aggressively. Filming at 2.7k-60fps medium, I never had the props or legs within the video frame. The gimbal's yaw stability is very impressive as well, from my test video it gave a minimal amount (if any) of rolling shutter on vertical objects. Minor issues aside, the gimbal/bird respond very well together from my experience.

 

[nuggetz]

This is great news. Someone posted this on a facebook group and I was wondering what the hell a quaternion was but glad its being sorted out.

 

[chadgadget]

I had a feeling that this was an issue. I would have gimbal issues during some flights and would work great during others. I made it a habit to face it west when powering up and have never had gimbal issues for past few weeks. Cool to know why It was an intermittent problem now.