Upgrade and recovery between versions of Arducopter

Sorry for a potentially very novice question … I currently have a Pixhawk cube black with 4.0.3 on a sophisticated heavy-lift drone (many sensors etc…), I want to upgrade (flash) to the latest version of Arducopter 4.1.3, but I want to be able to return to 4.0.3 if I need to. When I flash does it only change the SD card, or some internal Pixhawk memory? If it’s only the SD card that changes, I can easily put a new card in the Pixhawk when I upgrade and replace it with the old one if I need to go back. I saved the Mission Planner configuration file so that’s not an issue. Can I go back and forth between Arducopter versions without a problem? Thank you.

You need to download and save the parameters of your 4.0.3 version. If you later want to go back (I advise you to not go back!!) you must upload this file.

After doing that backup, you should simply upgrade the firmware, all parameter conversions are upgraded automaticaly.

So… in summary:

  • parameter upgrades are done automatically when you upgrade the firmware.
  • parameter downgrades are not done automatically. You need to have saved a backup of the old parameters and you need to manually upload it, after downgrading the firmware.

This is also how most of any software in the world works.

Thank you. It makes sense. I upgraded.