A2 2.2 Upgrade Guinea Pig

[Old Man]

I have not tried the Pixhawk yet and my experience with the APM-Arducopter system is limited to only one machine but my opinion of that system to date is quite favorable. I have yet to hear overwhelmingly great things yet about them from the large multicopter users but those flying medium and small multirotors are quite pleased with what they have. Mine is a blast to fly. No disrespect intended Mr. Lefebvre, but I view the 17lb craft as being in the medium size group.

DJI has more units on the market than anyone else so it's logical they have more problems. However, the number of user complaints involving the A2 seems very disproportionate to the number of units they could possibly have sold by this period in time, indicating the percentage of units with issues is probably quite high. Unfortunately the Chinese business model focuses almost completely on grabbing the cash while ignoring the customer after they have made the purchase. They appear to be more concerned with the one time sale than the long term customer base. This has been a consistent regional hobby market practice since ARF's and RC gas engine copies first started rolling out of the region, and has not once, to my knowledge, deviated from that path. The only way it will change is if people stop buying their products, but as that happens they (eastern manufacturers) first focus on undercutting their established independent vendors by low balling product pricing to new vendors as an incentive to get the new vendors to try and excite the dying market. I've seen and experienced this pattern too many times to count.

3d Robotics has the right idea with using Mexico as a manufacturing/assembly location. They have to use relatively cheap labor to compete on the national market but at least that labor and manufacturing facility is close enough to home to maintain control.

 

[Droider]

@Oldman bang on..

Maybe Mikrokopter is worth another look, I am sure they will have been working towards the day when DJI sinks to the bottom of the pole.

Still NOTHING official from DJI about the mythical A22.2B FW. there are a couple of reports of success over on the rumour mill ay RC groups but I take out on there with a pinch of salt anyhow. May be the DJI support guys on here can explain exactly what is going on. Here in the UK there are more muted reports of A2s1000's raining down with distributors refusing to buy them anymore. Obviously they aint going to come on here and sate that so maybe you should all take this with a pinch of salt. Well those in denial at least. Ill be following this up.

In the meantime has ANYONE on here got any information or official method statement of how to install the mythical 2.2B?

Dave

 

[Robwik]

The Pixhawk probably is the better of the bunch, but it has a bit of a steeper learning curve. (But really, it is up to the user to learn by Reading and testing carefully).

However, there seem to have been some crashes. Of course, it could have been user error/hardware malfunction, and extreme testing of a alpha/beta firmware. I've been following drones-discuss every day for some months, so I know there are new functions added, and they sometimes have bugs that are later fixed. It is constantly evolving, and that is a good thing, and I like to praise every developer who tirelessly work on the Project and giving back to the Community, you included R_Lefebvre. But for the non-developer end user, it is a bit more difficult to find the "sweet spot" firmware and settings. Should one go for Stable, or has 3.2RC's evolved enough and is considered better due to the new functions for instance?

I will soon test my F550 with the Pixhawk, and when I have learned how it works, I will probably move it to a S800. I look very much forward to Pixhawks evolvement.

P.s. Very nice video, and really cool GCS

How exactly is it unmature? I have 5 of them going, and they all just work. I have one machine that I use for mapping that has more than 5 hours of airtime, and 50+ km in full hand-off auto mode flight, without a single issue.

Another one is flying a 17lb AUW 600 size helicopter with a Nex. Another is on a 450 heli, capable of acrobatics, and Tx-off RTL.

The system does require a higher level of knowledge for the user, but I don't think it's fair to call it unmature.

 

[surfab]

this has just been released from dji


A2 Firmware V2.3 Release

---

Hi,The A2 firmware V2.2 turned on airport flight restrictions by default, causing some users to experience "stick lost" when flying near an airport.
Firmware V2.3 has been released to deactivate this feature. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Thanks for your support.

 

[soler]

And to the people that experienced the problems, were you flying near an airport? Interesting to know if this is true or a typical excuse out of China

this has just been released from dji


A2 Firmware V2.3 Release

---

Hi,The A2 firmware V2.2 turned on airport flight restrictions by default, causing some users to experience "stick lost" when flying near an airport.
Firmware V2.3 has been released to deactivate this feature. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Thanks for your support.

 

[surfab]

funny you say that,non of my issues where near an airport, in fact the most consistent flights iv had is in a height restricted zone bordering an airport...

 

[surfab]

so it doesnt explain any of the issues I have had, I just hope they have fixed it and that is their cover up. Im still not sure that i even want to test fly it...

 

[soler]

One small step for DJI, admitting there was a problem, just didn't fix the right problem....

More open communication from DJI on the problems and fixes they make are appreciated

 

[R_Lefebvre]

The Pixhawk probably is the better of the bunch, but it has a bit of a steeper learning curve. (But really, it is up to the user to learn by Reading and testing carefully).

However, there seem to have been some crashes. Of course, it could have been user error/hardware malfunction, and extreme testing of a alpha/beta firmware. I've been following drones-discuss every day for some months, so I know there are new functions added, and they sometimes have bugs that are later fixed. It is constantly evolving, and that is a good thing, and I like to praise every developer who tirelessly work on the Project and giving back to the Community, you included R_Lefebvre. But for the non-developer end user, it is a bit more difficult to find the "sweet spot" firmware and settings. Should one go for Stable, or has 3.2RC's evolved enough and is considered better due to the new functions for instance?

I will soon test my F550 with the Pixhawk, and when I have learned how it works, I will probably move it to a S800. I look very much forward to Pixhawks evolvement.

P.s. Very nice video, and really cool GCS

You should never use RC's unless you know exactly what you are doing. We get users on RCG just loading whatever code all willy-nilly and I don't like it, but nothing I can do to stop it. Then on the otherhand, we have the Chinese producing Phantom-like quadcopters, RTF, using our code with known bugs and they don't tell their users how they can update.

I'm not sure if Arducopter will ever be as "polished" as DJI's, because they come from completely different perspectives. We want users to be educated on how these things work, and give them the tools so that they can help themselves. Not hide everything behind a slick interface that makes everything simple, but hides problems. The comparison between Android and iOS is again relevant. When Android crashes, you often get kicked to an ugly screen with some error codes. Apple fans say their phones never crash. They just sometimes reboot automatically... The latter appears better to a casual user, but the former helps solve problems.

Anyway, didn't want to turn this into a comparison thread, just somebody mentioned Pixhawk. I disagree that it's not mature. It does have flaws, but everything does. We try to handle them properly though. It's not as easy to plug-and-play as the closed source systems, and I doubt it ever will be. For people who have trouble finding the time to learn how to use it, you end up having to pick your poison.

No disrespect intended Mr. Lefebvre, but I view the 17lb craft as being in the medium size group.

Ha, no problem. Facts is facts, some of you guys have some big machines.

I have a contract to integrate a Pixhawk into a 40 kg helicopter... I probably won't be able to show that for a long while. But I'm building a 700 size gasser.

 

[Droider]

for those that are not on rc groups this has just been released from dji


A2 Firmware V2.3 Release

---

Hi,The A2 firmware V2.2 turned on airport flight restrictions by default, causing some users to experience "stick lost" when flying near an airport.
Firmware V2.3 has been released to deactivate this feature. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Thanks for your support.

GREAT!!

Now that totally rules out the A2 for commercial work. What about us guys who have permissions to fly in and around airports!

Dave

 

[R_Lefebvre]

As I posted on RCG, I'd like to discuss that issue:

This is an interesting post, and I'd like to discuss it in an hard-ware agnostic fashion.

I've been pushing for a feature like this in our software, but there's a lot of resistance. Some for the reasons you state, but mostly because people have this "fight the power, man!" sentiment about personal drones.

We have to figure out something that works, or governments WILL force it on us, and probably in a way we don't like. So how could this be handled? I had thought that allowing flight to 100 or 200 feet to within 1 mile of the airport would be pretty reasonable. But I can see that in some cases, that would still prevent valid operations.

We can't just have a check-box for "disable airport restrictions" because then all the idiots would just do it.

Anybody have any good ideas? How can we do what we need to do to be responsible, while still allowing professionals to do what they have permission to do?

 

[Robwik]

You should never use RC's unless you know exactly what you are doing. We get users on RCG just loading whatever code all willy-nilly and I don't like it, but nothing I can do to stop it. Then on the otherhand, we have the Chinese producing Phantom-like quadcopters, RTF, using our code with known bugs and they don't tell their users how they can update..

Yes, that Phantom-clone might sell. Bet a lot of beginners compare DJI's and the clone, and choose the clone for the bargain price. A good thing it might do is make people new in this hobby to open their eyes for Arducopter. But it is worrying that the seller don't give information on how to update etc...

I'm not sure if Arducopter will ever be as "polished" as DJI's, because they come from completely different perspectives. We want users to be educated on how these things work, and give them the tools so that they can help themselves. Not hide everything behind a slick interface that makes everything simple, but hides problems.

I was interested in APM right from the beginning, but I chose the Naza because it was more newbie friendly. After that I moved to ZeroUAV. Now I have a Pixhawk and I try to read and learn on forums. And I pre-ordered the Pixhawk with all what you wrote in my mind. To have an advanced flight controller with many options, constantly evolving and getting better. And, also for me to learn more about how things work.

Anyway, didn't want to turn this into a comparison thread, just somebody mentioned Pixhawk. I disagree that it's not mature. It does have flaws, but everything does.

Sorry, I did not mean to step on toes here. No FC/software is perfect, I know very well from experience. And I know Pixhawk is quite newly released, so it needs some time to sort some quirks out. Perhaps I should have chosen "maturing" instead of "immature", sorry! I think that with 3.2 it will be awesome.

 

[Old Man]

As I posted on RCG, I'd like to discuss that issue:

This is an interesting post, and I'd like to discuss it in an hard-ware agnostic fashion.

I've been pushing for a feature like this in our software, but there's a lot of resistance. Some for the reasons you state, but mostly because people have this "fight the power, man!" sentiment about personal drones.

We have to figure out something that works, or governments WILL force it on us, and probably in a way we don't like. So how could this be handled? I had thought that allowing flight to 100 or 200 feet to within 1 mile of the airport would be pretty reasonable. But I can see that in some cases, that would still prevent valid operations.

We can't just have a check-box for "disable airport restrictions" because then all the idiots would just do it.

Anybody have any good ideas? How can we do what we need to do to be responsible, while still allowing professionals to do what they have permission to do?

As one that has been flying RC for well over 40 years and also a commercial pilot/flight instructor I get to experience both sides of this issue, and it's a doozy. An attitude much too prevalent in RC, and even more so with FPV and aerial photo folks is they have a right to do anything they want to if it makes them happy. Somehow they manage to relate Constitutional freedoms into aviation and recreational activities.

OTH, we also need to look at full scale aviation regulations as they apply to full scale operations, be that in an ATA (airport traffic area), federal airway, or just toolin' around. The regs state that no pilot may fly any closer than 500' to any person or structure in a lightly populated area. If anyone complains about a pilot flying too close I guarantee the NTSB would rule it was a densely populated area if there was only i person/square mile. That aside that separation increases in densely populated areas. At no time can a pilot fly lower that would allow a safe landing is a power unit failed. The only real expemptions to all that is when landing and taking off, and pilots can act as necessary for the safe operation of their aircraft during those activities. helicopters enjoy some special exemption in all of this since they can hover just about anywhere but just can't touch the ground unless they have permission to land there, have an emergency, or it's a noted LZ.

Now let's toss in the AMA/FAA 400' rule with 3-5 miles of an airport. Things start getting complicated. First, nobody has a right to fly model aircraft. Essentially we are permitted to fly RC aircraft because the feds/FAA owns all the airspace in the U.S. from the moment you leave the ground up to 60,000'. That they haven't publisjed any rules specfic to our hobby has been pretty much until recently been something not needed. That has all changed with all the people that want to fly their toys up into the stratosphere to see how high they can go or to take pictures and videos of stuff far, far away. So we're going to get some rules and what we get will likely be impacted by what we are doing now to proactively limit ourselves.

To shorten this whole thing, perhaps a 400' limit within 5 miles of an airport will be about the best one can do. However, there will also need to be some way to limit where that restriction occurs. There are far too many locations listed as "airports" that are extremely light in use. If someone was to use the coordinates of every airport on the sectional charts there would be a lot of places nothing would be flying, full scale, or our stuff with flight controllers. That situation is a good reason why there can't be a zero flight resptriction within a given distance of an airport, not to mention people like first responders and groups that do disaster work that require aerial access just about anywhere. Then again, perhaps a special over ride code Renewable periodically with new code numbers) could be issued to people that could prove their association with such groups to remove FC flight restrictions.

 

[Tahoe Ed]

Old Man, I completely agree with you. I live in the flight path of McCarren International in Las Vegas. I could easily fly at the altitude of an in coming 737 or 767. That would be a disaster. There have to be some restrictions, especially as the sport grows and RTF craft are available with little or no experience. I agree that some kind of certification to allow for special operations would be advisable. Thanks for your insights.

 

[Quinton]

GREAT!!

Now that totally rules out the A2 for commercial work. What about us guys who have permissions to fly in and around airports!

Dave

I can't believe they actually sneaked it into v2.2 without even mentioning it?
http://download.dji-innovations.com/downloads/a2/en/A2_product_release_notes_en.pdf

They could have left professionals in a very dangerous predicament, not even knowing this feature was added.

Whats next a Wookong update with the same?

 

[surfab]

I can't believe they actually sneaked it into v2.2 without even mentioning it?
http://download.dji-innovations.com/downloads/a2/en/A2_product_release_notes_en.pdf

They could have left professionals in a very dangerous predicament, not even knowing this feature was added.

Whats next a Wookong update with the same?

I dont think the airport restrictions were meant to be there. and to me it just sounds like a bit of a cover up story so they don't look so bad. and for droider they have made sure their is no airport restrictions so you are fine. not that I would want to use it for commercial use after all this carry on anyway...

 

[Droider]

I dont think the airport restrictions were meant to be there. and to me it just sounds like a bit of a cover up story so they don't look so bad. and for droider they have made sure their is no airport restrictions so you are fine. not that I would want to use it for commercial use after all this carry on anyway...

They certainly need to do something to regain some sort of confidence in A2 users. Restrictions need to be addressed and if it needs a new pro only FC so be it. Unless DJI get their act together regulation will kill them.
Dave

 

[Droider]

SO

Have the restriction been lifted OR are they still in place and rather than the sticks not responding what happens if the restrictions are in place?

Dave

 

[surfab]

there are NO airport restrictions on the a2

 

[Bartman]

any reports on flying the new firmware? mine's parked under a table until the gimbal is replaced or rebuilt by DJI.

Bart