Installed rc1 this morning and ran into a couple of issues.
First off what the heck happened to the battery failsafe? The low voltage and remaining current capacity settings are greyed out.
I read the release notes and the “new and improved” fail safe is supposed to have “two stages of actions,” so my question is where are they, what are they and how do you turn them on?
Another issue is the Battery Monitor setup is busted.
I’m using a generic battery monitor, so I have to choose “Other,” OK fine. But… I can’t specify a measured voltage, or enter a new Amps per volt for the current because the new setting won’t save.
I’d really like to test this new firmware, but these battery issues are big deal breakers.
Another issue is the nagging “Set BATT_AMP_PERVOLT failed” error message. I know the name was changed to BATT_AMP_PRVOLT, so what’s the deal? Is this a Mission Planner issue?
It is still simple and solve some problem that we get before … it just moves from FS_ to BATT_ … not a big deal… This is just a GCS not updated for new firmware.
@lordneeko, in fact, I just point out the full parameter page to learn about the parameters. For the release, we should update the wiki page on battery. I don’t think we have a way to split the wiki between the version
@OldGazer maybe try QGroundControl instead. I set up a heli the other day with 3.6-rc1 and no problems with the battery settings. It shows which parameters are missing that were in the old firmware
But just go to Parameters, select “other”, type in “batt” in the search box and all the new params are there, and can set any of them to whatever you want.
Well, I really hate to say this, but even though I’m using a dedicated test bed, I’m not flying any version of 3.6 until someone sorts out this fail safe snafu.
It’s really not unheard of for a piece of support equipment to now be updated at the same time as a system’s software update. Definately understand the frustration though.
That being said, PRs to Misson Planner are welcome!
Doesn’t any one have the fore thought to keep the MP Dev’s in the loop?
Am I the only person on the planet who had a “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” moment when they saw that MP and AC3.6rc-1 don’t play nice?
Somebody screwed the pooch big time here and trying to throw the MP Dev’s under the bus isn’t the right thing to do…
The bottom line is with the current version of MP, battery monitoring and battery failsafe configuration functionalities are broken and IMNSHO for all intents an purposes this renders AC3.6-rc1 UNSAFE TO FLY.
@OldGazer; I did a straight upgrade from 3.5 and things worked well in flight- all 14 of them-, but I didn’t do any setup and didn’t look at all the Configuration screens in MP. I did download the Beta MP before upgrade to Beta 3.6, so maybe different issues present ( and there are some as MP hasn’t caught up yet.). I will check the Beta MP tonight and see what I get on the Beta MP.
I’m REAL picky and a little OCD, so if something doesn’t look right, I don’t fly until its fixed.
At first I was thinking that battery monitor stuff was caused by data corruption so I blasted the Pix with Plane, and then blasted it with AC3.6rc-1 and still no joy.
I get it that the issue appears to be on the MP side of the house, but truthfully, that’s still no excuse. At the very least someone on the Dev team should have given us a bit more of a head’s up than “Its beta.”
I mean fer cryin’ out loud, this isn’t about a button being in the wrong place, or a typo in the docs, this is about a safety feature, and in my mind when you don’t put safety first the next action you take may be your last…
It is just about fixing some button on mission planner …
The parameters are working as well as the failsafe… and normally your old parameter have been converted. Having a nice GUI to configure your drone is not a safety feature … all parameters are accessible through the parameter list …
This is exactly why we are doing RC release , we miss to update some components and will probably change some other for the final release. So I will ask to add a disclamer on the announcements : expect GUI to not be exactly working on 3.6 for some time …
I decided I better this to make sure it works after reading the thread.
Tested with my gas heli - flew it for 55 minutes with the generator disconnected without charging the flight systems battery, which the system monitors. It did a proper RTL and land when it hit failsafe (voltage monitoring only). And refuses to arm unless the flight systems battery is at minimum 7.7 volts. So as far as I can tell it works fine.
My settings carried forward to the new params when I dropped 3.6-rc1 in it. Nothing needed adjustment or setting from what I had with 3.5.
AFAIK the parameter values get migrated to the new version, the failsafes are still there and are active, but are not displayed in the FS GUI of MP.
That is the reason so many people are flying it without any issues. Only the people that take a closer look at it , see that the parameters are missing from the GUI.
