Mission Planner firmware upgrade to 3.1.5 ...fail

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I got my beautiful Iris+ yesterday and it had its maiden voyage flawlessly. Looking forward to the follow me feature I installed Mission planner and the first option is firmware upgrade. So of course I clicked it.

I installed the latest firmware ( 3.1.5 ) and then when the Iris+ rebooted, I got the startup tone and with the double da - da at the end. No rear LED flashing.

Long story short and a couple of hours on the phone with 3DR (Antonio was great!) and we just can’t figure it out. I’ve spent hours reading the forums today and since this is a new device I thought I would put down my issues just in case, it’s not hardware.

At one point we installed Arduplane to clear out the firmware. Funny it actually held. When I booted the machine back up I got a yellow LED flashing in the rear and was able to do an EXC calibration. At the end of the calibration, I got to test the drone but only one prop was working (plane firmware). We spent another hour trying to get 3.1.5 quad copter back on the device but it always ends in the startup tone and da - da. Two tones.

An RMA has been called. So I have been playing around and I installed the beta firmware, 3.2 . Very similar to 3.11 for the plane, the firmware took and I was able to do an ESC calibration and all 4 props spun. But when I rebooted the device, the rear LED flashed yellow indicating some kind of troubleshooting requirement.

At different points we logged into the Pixhawk via Terminal and if I installed arduplane 3.11 or arducopter 3.2 (beta) the terminal screen spun up with the intro message that included the firmware name and version. But when 3.1.5 is installed, the terminal screen just goes straight to a nsh>.

So something is off. If there are any suggestions or clarifications needed, please jump in. If you have similar problems with updating the IRIS+, please jump in. If you have a completely different issue please start your own thread!

thanks
kevin

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Iris+ ships with a custom version of 3.2. When you attempted to load new firmware, you were actually downgrading to an unsupported version with 3.1.5, thus the problems. There should be no need to upgrade the Iris+ firmware as shipped.

One way to clear the flight controller and load anew is to power on with the Safety Switch held down, until the tones stop. Then you should be able to load the latest 3.2 RC10 firmware.

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That is great news. The biggest reason to post was to caution others that just click menus blindly. Definitely a lesson learned.

I managed to get 3.01 installed and then released that all the settings were wiped out. I recalibrated what I could, thank god for the 3dr videos. I’ll install 3.2rc10 in the morning and rerun calibration.

Thanks for the tip about the version and clearing the controller. The fact that the Iris+ comes reconfigured and setup was a huge draw. Now that I’m hitting that steep learning curve I’m appreciating all the hard effort the folks at 3dr are doing!

I’ll post my results tomorrow
Thanks
Kevin

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Just an update.

I got 3.2 rc10 successfully installed. I recalibrated my controller, compass and accelerometer. The system would not arm so I hooked it up into mission planner and the error was the compass offset too large.

I did the calibration dance in multiple ways and locations. No less than 50 times!! In the process I figured out how to set my laptop up for wireless telemetry so there wasn’t even a computer near me in the field. Even with 3000 data points, Mission planner kept balking about the Z axis (yellow). I painted it multiple times with the white cursor, but to no avail.

So in frustration to just see if I could get it to work, I disabled compass check in the pre-arm safety check.

Then a new error was showing up for the first time. High GPS HDOP. Even with 9 satellites! So no starting up in Loiter for me.

I got it running and sure enough it slowly started to act like a drunken sailor. The toilet bowl effect, slowly swirling in hover. Also even in loiter mode (after starting in STD, I switched) it would drift.

Landings were less than graceful with the compass and GPS issues.

Next steps are to talk to 3drobotics support again and see if there is a custom firmware they used that I should upload. Im also assuming they had factory parameters, I’ll be surprised if they calibrated every unit manually!

In the process of all my learning, I was flashing like a madman. PXU, APM, V1, V2 … So if there is anything in the Iris+ besides the main firmware I’m sure I buggered it up.

They offered to warranty and get it all back for me, which is awesome. However I’m off to Africa in 12 days and I was planning to take the Iris+. I may buy a 2nd unit to get something by end of next week. Therefore there will probably be 1 Iris+, slightly used up for grabs in a couple of weeks…

Hopefully I have hit enough keywords to help with some searches.

kevin

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Interesting about your 3.2.RC10 compass issues. I had the same problem with a new Y6B kit and gave up in the end, going back to 3.1.5.
I reported it over here: viewtopic.php?f=100&t=7872&start=10#p23671
No replies, so I thought I would try raising awareness on the Google group, but that was “only for PixHawk developers” so I gave up trying to report it, as I must be imaging the problem… Oh hang on, perhaps I’m not :wink:

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Kevin,

Please be careful with Iris in Africa… I not sure if it was the pitch of the motors but she was very disturbing to the lions… they became hyper interested in it so I grounded her for the time I was there. I didn’t want to risk it or the lions if it went down and they got there first. the battery could really be an issue if punctured by them.

Lou

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Oh that is teasing me! I plan to focus on elephants and hooved animals. I didn’t see many lions last time in Botswana. I’ll try to avoid close-ups and be respectful of the animals, but it will be very tempting. If you have any videos, please PM me.

My only issue is the damn thing is 2 inches too big for carry-on. So I will need to check it. ugh.

thanks
Kevin

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I never took it out by Ellies as they hate bees… Gnu could give a crap about it.

Where are you headed in Bots ? Love it there… Took Iris to Kenya in the 3DR case, no issues at all traveling with her.

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I have the same issue with the IRIS+ when I got it , I used for one week , I have issue with LOCK inside the House ( Flashing BLue ) , So I though I will upgrade my firmware from MISSION PLANNER, now the IRIS+ Don’t work
need help
How can we return IRIS to factory Condition

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Hi Ghazi,

I don’t think you can get a blue lock inside the house unless it doesn’t have a roof! GPS needs sky.

But that is probably too late now. Call 3DR robotics to get the problem resolved.

hope this helps.

Kevin