Arducopter 3.1-dev

[rickp]

Put a few batteries through my reptile flying 3.1. I was mainly interested in the ability to take off and land in alt-hold and have it detect the landing. It seems to have a couple of issues that I need to look into - but works pretty well.

Whilst flying around, we saw a red kite approaching - and then it flew very close to us, checking out the model. Was pretty cool but very hard to follow in the goggles. We did get some video though....

Flying in the quarry with some unexpected company

[Hands0n]

Liking the early looks of 3.1.  Is there a change log published yet? Even if only intended changes?

[optiplex]

hi rick
what do u mean land in alt hold ? its a regular land and it auto stops the motors ? like a land in fail safe ?

[rickp]

Well, strictly - the ability to arm/disarm in alt-hold and loiter. Plus when you land in those modes, the code detects the landing better and reduces throttle to the ';arming'; level - which should be low enough to just turn the rotors - though in my case thats not happening.

It no longer bounces on landing like it did in 3.0 on my reptile (though I never had that on the hexa) - so its a definite improvement.

[optiplex]

at the moment if i land in loiter sometimes it can jump up in the air and gets nuts
so its now safe to land in loiter ?

[rickp]

Right - thats much improved now - though I still had it running the motors up a bit, but not enough to take up. I think its due to trying to level and building up an i-term. It doesn';t take off, or bounce anymore though.

[optiplex]

Tested 3.1 rc1 this morning, everything seems good, I tested the new feature of takeoff and land in alt hold and loiter, works nice
However..  when landing in loiter the motors go to slow speed and goes off after few seconds which is a part of this new feature, but they remain armed not disarmed after some time, and if I forget to disarm from the tx and I lift the quad to remove the lipo the apm prolly detectes the altitude change and started the motors, which is very dangerous ofcorse, so....  is there a way to tell the apm to disarm after some time when I land in loiter ???

Sent from my C6603 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[rickp]

Jake - you need to increase MOTOR_SPIN_ARMED until the motors are just spinning when armed. It defaults to 65 which is too low on my quad - but I';ve not had time to increase it yet.

[optiplex]

ahh ok, i decreased it to 50, so i will increase untill it starts spin when armed even if in stab mode ?
that way it will disarm when i land in loiter ?

[rickp]

What it will do is keep the props spinning from the moment you arm until you disarm. The idea is to set that just low enough that the props spin but not higher enough to generate lift.

[optiplex]

whats the idea behind this feature ? that the props spin all the time while on the ground

[Hands0n]

The Naza does this, when armed it will spin the props slowly until either you cause it to accelerate and lift off or the FC disarms after about 10 seconds of inactivity of the throttle.

I think the MultiWii had this feature also.  It is really handy as you know for certain that the FC has armed, there is absolutely no doubt.  No chance of accidentally picking the quad up while it armed.   

I like 

[rickp]

whats the idea behind this feature ? that the props spin all the time while on the ground

Lots of people complained that its not clear enough when its armed. You can disable it if you want the old approach by setting the parameter to 0.