Successful test flight! Follow up questions

I had a successful test flight of my Thundertiger Soaring Star 2m electric glider this afternoon, using 3DR Pixhawk and Plane 3.0.3.

First off, a big thanks to all the developers of this awesome software!

The glider was pretty well trimmed before the test and after launch was flying ok hands off in manual mode. Switching to FBWA had no discernible change in trim and no amount of cranking the aileron/elevator stick would put the model into an unstable condition. The only other mode I had setup for testing was Circle which also performed well although did seem to drift.

I used FBWA mode for the landing which appeared to work well. After landing the Pixhawk was producing a low-high-high tone which repeated on about a 15 sec cycle. The main led indicator was solid green. I also found that the left aileron had very reduced travel when moving the stick but the right operated at normal travel.

I don’t have telemetry installed and when I connected my laptop MP refused to connect, giving a timeout. Arming/disarming has solved this for me in the past but didn’t work this time, so I wasn’t able to obtain the status at the time. After a restart of the Pixhawk the left aileron performed normally.

Can anyone tell me what the tone was trying to tell me?

Thanks,

Dave

Congrats, yes, it’s pretty solid and even more so once the PID’s are dialed in as the defaults are very conservative.

Circle will drift as it only maintains altitude and bank angle in that mode, it does not use GPS position. Loiter is the one you want to try which if working well is pretty amazing, we’ve had a plane loitering in 50km/h winds which is something to see.

Not sure what the tones mean but you can put the log through the basic analyzer in MP which will give an idea if anything was untoward (Flight Data > Dataflash logs > Analyze Log).

Telemetry is indispensable though as it allows both status observation and tuning. We regularly fly over 10km (6mi) away with full control using the RFD900 radios.

edit: Check this out: 3drobotics.com/pixhawk/ the tones are there to listen to.
or here: planner.ardupilot.com/wiki/commo … ick-start/

Thanks for the links Graham. The log analyser failed on my actual flight logs, complaining of an UNKN entry.

Checking the log in Notepad I found pages of lines of the type “UNKN, 200” and “UNKN, 201” These appeared throughout the log. There were FMT, 200 and FMT, 201 messages at the start of the log though.

The log starts off with lots of FMT and PARM lines, then the UNKN entries start appearing. I’ve listed the first part of the log below with most of the UNKNs deleted. The log is some 48Mb so haven’t tried to attach it. I suspect the FMT 200 and 201 relate to the GPS but that the MP Analyser doesn’t recognise them?

Dave

PARM, MIS_TOTAL, 0.000000
PARM, MIS_RESTART, 0.000000
PARM, RALLY_TOTAL, 0.000000
PARM, RALLY_LIMIT_KM, 5.000000
MSG, ArduPlane V3.0.3 (8c5226a1)
MSG, PX4: 63b22a4a NuttX: 65cd7f85
MSG, PX4v2 00240027 34324708 38383538
STRT, 7, 0
MODE, 11678, Manual, 0
MSG, Failsafe - Short event on,
MODE, 11678, Circle, 1
MSG, flight mode = 1
FMT, 200, 12, UBX1, IBHBB, TimeMS,Instance,noisePerMS,jamInd,aPower
FMT, 201, 12, UBX2, IBbBbB, TimeMS,Instance,ofsI,magI,ofsQ,magQ
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201

MSG, Failsafe - Long event on,
MSG, flight mode = 11
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201

MSG, Failsafe - Long event on,
MSG, flight mode = 11
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201

UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201
MSG, init home
MSG, gps alt: 63460
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201
MSG, MSG FS OFF 982
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201

PARM, COMPASS_LEARN, 0.000000
PARM, COMPASS_OFS_X, -56.30407
PARM, COMPASS_OFS_Y, -47.31398
PARM, COMPASS_OFS_Z, -124.6549
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201

MSG, Initialising APM…
MSG, Initialising APM…
MSG, Initialising APM…
MSG, Initialising APM…
MSG, Initialising APM…
MSG, Initialising APM…
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201

MSG, Beginning INS calibration; do not move plane
MSG, Initialising APM…
MSG, Initialising APM…
MSG, Calibrating barometer
MSG, barometer calibration complete
MSG, NO airspeed
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201
MSG, MSG FS OFF 982
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201

MSG, Throttle armed!
ARM, 657060, 1, 0
ATT, 657063, 9.81, -0.86, 80.16, 0.15, 0.03
EKF1, 657063, 8.88, 0.71, 77.31, 0.057159, -0.111179, 0.020364, 1.277923, 1.001778, -0.032542, -0.01, 0.02, 0.00
EKF2, 657063, 50, 6, 253, 0.00, 0.00, 635, 239, 88, 56, 47, 124
EKF3, 657063, -0.01, -0.13, -0.04, -1.30, -1.13, -0.03, -157, 315, -629, 0.00
EKF4, 657063, 0.03, 0.34, 0.00, 1.03, 2.08, 4.19, 0.00, 1, 0, 0, 0
AHR2, 657063, 8.88, 0.71, 77.31, 633.5100, -39.3675656, 175.3290336
IMU, 657063, 0.002562, 0.002117, 0.000463, -0.006284, -1.653533, -9.699601
IMU2, 657063, -0.001402, 0.001014, -0.007165, -0.063317, -1.602304, -9.599995
ATT, 657082, 9.83, -0.84, 80.17, 0.15, 0.03
EKF1, 657083, 8.86, 0.68, 77.34, 0.076276, -0.095633, 0.020756, 1.309138, 1.029845, -0.031255, -0.01, 0.02, 0.00
EKF2, 657083, 50, 6, 253, 0.00, 0.00, 635, 239, 88, 56, 47, 124
EKF3, 657083, -0.01, -0.13, -0.04, -1.30, -1.13, -0.03, -157, 315, -623, 0.00
EKF4, 657083, 0.03, 0.34, 0.00, 1.03, 2.08, 4.15, 0.00, 1, 0, 0, 1
AHR2, 657083, 8.86, 0.68, 77.34, 633.5100, -39.3675653, 175.3290339
IMU, 657083, 0.000590, 0.002287, 0.000604, 0.000433, -1.683405, -9.696857
IMU2, 657083, -0.004928, -0.000951, -0.007007, -0.036966, -1.602806, -9.614245
UNKN, 200
UNKN, 201
ATT, 657102, 9.84, -0.83, 80.19, 0.15, 0.03
EKF1, 657102, 8.84, 0.65, 77.36, 0.094554, -0.080743, 0.020971, 1.339499, 1.056927, -0.029981, -0.01, 0.02, 0.00
EKF2, 657102, 50, 6, 253, 0.00, 0.00, 635, 239, 88, 56, 47, 124
EKF3, 657102, -0.01, -0.13, -0.04, -1.30, -1.13, -0.03, -157, 315, -623, 0.00

I downloaded Notepad++ and was able to delete all of the UNKN lines from the log, after which MP Analyser completed and returned this:

Log File C:/Program Files/Mission Planner/logs/2014-07-06 13-38-34-edited.log
Size (kb) 49236.8203125
No of lines 680487
Duration 0:23:37
Vehicletype ArduPlane
Firmware Version V3.0.3
Firmware Hash 8c5226a1
Hardware Type PX4
Free Mem 65535
Skipped Lines 0

Test: Brownout = PASS -
Test: Compass = FAIL - Large change in mag_field (495.21%)
Max mag field length (1017.52) > recommended (550.00)

Test: Dupe Log Data = PASS -
Test: Empty = PASS -
Test: Event/Failsafe = PASS -
Test: GPS = WARN - Min satellites: 7, Max HDop: 9.03
Test: Parameters = PASS -
Test: PM = NA -
Test: Pitch/Roll = NA -
Test: Underpowered = NA -
Test: VCC = PASS -

Re the UNKN entries, of course it’s not MP that’s not recognising them as they were written in there by Arduplane. I don’t see why MP analyser couldn’t ignore unknown entries and continue processing though.

I think the analyzer is fairly new and not yet polished, I’ve seen it report bad GPS and HDOP directly after booting and before enough satellites were found. After that there was no problem. Don’t know why you get the UNKN entries.

The mag field change could be of concern though although it might be another false positive, I don’t know, best to look through the log and see if you seeing large changes with throttle?

That mag field has given me endless grief, I eventually had to move my external compass out onto the wing devising a special wiring harness and then STILL had compass issues so I started using the internal compass which has been OK so far but it’s not ideal. I also live in an area of the world which for some reason has quite a weak magnetic field which is part of the problem.