New GPS from CUAV

Wont be available until next week, but looks promising.

I can’t say that I care for the Automatic Crash Enabler Button being integrated with the GPS module. I fly in the rain sometimes. Water gets in those and shorts 'em out.

That Automatic Crash Enabler Feature has caused more problems in PX4-based hardware than it ever solved. I would give huge kudos to the first manufacturer that removes that “feature” completely from the hardware.

I think the ACE saved more fingers than the number of crashes it caused. However if you don’t need ACE all you have to do is to set it up for your likes. There are a number of parameter which gives you total control over the behavior.

It is just my opinion. But since the beginnings of powered flight, flying or working on any sort of aircraft has always been an exercise in checklists and procedure, and pilot training. The system already had a Master Switch in the form of arming the controls. All the button did was add a point of failure to the hardware that is akin to having to get out of your Jet Ranger and push the Master Enable Button in the engine compartment before the starter will work.

All it accomplished is that a circuit failure can cause an in-air shutdown, which required even more code to monitor that. Which is far more dangerous than an untrained pilot who can’t follow proper startup procedure and checklists to bring an aircraft to life.

The fact that it kills the IO on the hardware level, which is your redundant system that still provides basic flight control in helicopters and airplanes in the event the main control loop goes down in flight, is bad design.

Again, just my opinion.

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Chris,
Your opinion is well founded and respected. I think the best way to overcome is to introduce an option to not configure but disable the switch at all…

The 1st time I had to reach thru the props on a multirotor to push the button was the last time I used the safety switch… Not an original thought I know as I have seen others express the same sentiment.

Well, it can easily be disabled in the parameters. I like having it on my larger planes and my electric helis. On the gasser, it seems irrelevant.

When it became apparent a circuit failure can cause an in-air shutdown (and crash) tridge wrote the code to fast-reboot if the thing fails (providing that option is selected). tridge had me test some experimental code to try to resolve the problem. And I think it is resolved now.

But what I don’t like is the fact that this system shuts down the hardware I/O. I refuse to install the switch on helicopters as the usual point of failure is the contacts in the switch. BUT, water getting into the contacts in the board, even without a switch installed, can short it.

Leonard said he has been stressing the point, and teaching people to use the throttle hold (motor interlock in ArduPilot) on multicopters so they are more like helicopters. And do away with the stick arming procedure, which is the most common cause of accidental start with electric multicopters.

Properly set up, the arming (via switch) + throttle hold is far safer than those safety switches.

Any information on whether there will be UAVCAN support in the future?