No Battery Failsafe?

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.

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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! :slight_smile:

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.

Release Candidates be like…

And Just like that…

+1.

FWIW I worked for MS when Win9x was in beta.

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@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 too had a few question on FS and Smart RTL, and received some information in this thread:
https://discuss.ardupilot.org/t/copter-3-6-0-rc1-available-for-beta-testing/28285/9

Joe

lol me too…I was an unpaid beta tester :laughing:

Joe:

I did a straight upgrade too.

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…

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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’d say this issue is about much more than just fixing a button, but your reply is exactly the kind of head’s up I’m talking about.

Had I known from the start that MP would be behind on the power curve I wouldn’t have wasted 3 hours or more of my day chasing my tail.

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.

So who would your rather have doing the testing?

He’s will not use anything that is not fully tested and working perfectly… yet using windows ? A paradox :slight_smile:

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I never said that. I have flown several AC rc candidates and this is the first time I have encountered such a glaring and potentially dangerous disconnect between AC and MP. The bottom line here is, if I cannot put any confidence in what MP is telling me, how can I put any confidence in what I tell MP to do? And, by extension, if I cannot “trust” what I tell MP to do, how can I trust that AC will do what I told MP to have AC do?

And while we are on the subject, out of all of the people who have downloaded and installed AC3.6rc1, how many have complained about this particular issue? Its danged few because only a few of us are willing to do our due diligence and look at EVERTHING before we fly.

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@OldGazer
I do understand your frustration but MP and AP are two projects and it’s normal that in some point in time they diverge and then come back.
We are talking here about testing the beta versions and not everything will be working. If you are not willing to accept the fact, it’s your choice not to test the beta and wait for the final release.
The devs are doing a great job and there are plenty of new features in these release that make me eager to try it right away but if anything bad happens it’s my call in the end and the risk I wilingly accept.
You found a missing crucial feature in MP not in ArduCopter so please report it there and don’t just pick it up with the devs.

The childish GUI representation of parameters have several times caused serious configuration errors, this is one time it works as expected, not showing items that are not there.
If you needed full GUI for everything,most likely, you can’t even find most new features and flight modes in it at an early stage.

I get that, and some one has already posted a comment to MP about it.

I know these things take time to get right, and the Devs on both projects are doing a stellar job, but I was really surprised by the fact that apparently no one saw this particular issue before rc-1 went live.

By the same token, if this was a known issue, then why didn’t some one at least post an "Oh, by the way, you cannot use MP to change Battery Monitor and Battery Failsafe settings, but you can change their parameters manually. The new parameters are: (insert list here).

So using a non-Windows platform gives you the right to be condescending and disrespectful?

If so, you may want to reconsider being a beta tester, or fly release candidates. There’s a reason they are called that :wink:

Master is tested all the time, but obviously hiccups are not impossible.