APM Planner 2.0.XX not completing accelerometer calibration

ArduPlane VTOL Plane
1

Hey All.
Sorry, this might be a bit long.
I recently got a HeeWing T1 Ranger VTOL PNP with FC. Direct from HeeWing.
I haven’t been able to fly it yet tho, because the ACC calibration keeps… i dunno.. not working.. It doesn’t crash, it doesn’t throw errors, it doesn’t freeze, it just stops. The last calibration message I get is the “Place Vehicle nose down” calibration. The I click but button and the message goes away and it goes back to counting down from 40. And that’s it, it just counts down till it times out.
If I click the button again, nothing happens, but if I click it enough times, it shows “SUCCESS: Executed CMD: 241” where the “Place the vehicle blah blah blah” message should be.
I have to restart APM Planner just to be able to try again because clicking the button from this point on doesn’t do nothing anything any more.
Ohh and the calibration screen does not respond to my keyboard. So I can’t “Press Space bar to continue” or whatever… I have to click the button… just sayin.

I’ve did find a suggestion to use the CLI to launch the calibration, but of course, that doesn’t work either.
If I click the Views menu and click Terminal, nothing happens.
If I goto Tool Widgets menu, and open that Terminal Console. I just get ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?SDf((? ? ? ? ? ? ? endlessly scrolling after connecting to the FC.. And the Logs from the Messages tab are pretty useless too..

I’ve tried on 2 different Macs (a new iMac and an old Macbook), I’ve tried almost every mac version from the Andrupilot Download section. And I’ve tried a few different USB cables too.
Everything else works, just not the ACC calibration..
I’m pretty sure the ACC is working because the AH is moving, and the first few steps of the calibration don’t fail. Also, if I power up the plane and move it around I can see the servos moving correctly in response.

Anyway, Im at a loss at this point.
Any help would be appreciated.

Here are some logs from the Messages tab (pretty useless) :
[MAV 001:1] SUCCESS: Executed CMD: 241
[MAV 001:1] Place vehicle level and press any key.
[MAV 001:1] Place vehicle on its LEFT side and press any key.
[MAV 001:1] Place vehicle on its RIGHT side and press any key.
[MAV 001:1] Place vehicle nose DOWN and press any key.
[MAV 001:1] SUCCESS: Executed CMD: 241

2

So, the only way around this crap, was to buy a cheap Windoze laptop.
Just to calibrate my ACC!!.. This is totally unacceptable guys.
You all really need to put some work into the Mac APM Planner..
I think you underestimate the amount of Mac users that are into RC..

I should bill you guys for the Laptop.. LOL

3

APM Planner hasn’t seen any development in some years. You can calibrate an accelerometer with QGC.

2 Likes
4

Seeee!!!.. that’s the kind of helpful replies I was looking for.
Thanks Dave. A bit late, but thanks none the less. :+1:

1 Like
5

image
image832×562 61.7 KB

I tested it on M1 Mac Mini. I did get it to calibrate. Just at the point it stops just click the button a couple of time and it moved on. (workaround)

I will investigate why that is not working with a simple click of the button (and fix the spacebar, and it’s easier)

6

While I use APMplanner exclusively for all my configuration tasks (and log viewing! - nothing in the ecosystem is even remotely close to APMplanner’s log viewing), I have to do calibration (both accel and compass) from mavproxy, because there is - I guess - some protocol issue somewhere between APMplanner and newer Ardupilot. I am unfortunately not that experienced to pinpoint what exactly is the problem, but there are plenty of sorta-new protocol options that are simply not implemented in APMplanner.

7

I’ve made the accel calibration reliable, and added the simple accel cal option as well. The spacebar will now work as expected.
see Fix Accel Calibration · ArduPilot/apm_planner@415bfff · GitHub

I will check the compass cal and make sure that is work as well.

3 Likes