Mikrokopter MK Firmware 0.88 online now


Macsgrafs

Active Member
Don't fret Ross. They all walk around in public wearing pants!

You know what, without getting into the whole American Anglish thang, and the fact that they cannot spell properly :dejection:, I have often wondered what word they use to describe cutting a channel in a plank of wood. We would say "rout", but they would get confused, thinking we were giving road directions for what we would call a "route".

hahahaha yep, it sounds the same only spelt different (John Coffee) ;)
pavement = sidewalk
that's a typical example. mind you I like the way the guys in the states say "Teeter totter"...you have to listen to the famous RC heli builder Bob & he says that perfect, always gets a laugh out of my Mrs ;)

Ross
 


MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
two quick observations

it seems like the basic flight control behavior has matured in that the kopter is more mellow to fly and the camera mount is also less jittery. Either I or the FC have switched to decaf and no one's told us!

I've been flying a lot lately and more on windy days so maybe this is a reflection of the calm air outside today. Maybe that's it. Others can chime in on this and we'll see what there is to it.

My altitude control is screwed up though since the update so I've disabled it and will sort it out tonight.

Bart

Yesterday I found the same thing. Generally the v0.88 was a troublefree update but, and whether it was because of the unusually hot weather I don't know, the Altitude Hold was completely screwed on both MK Octo and AD-8HLE/AV200. The AD-8 even had a ground strike because after the AH effectively turned off the motors completely it took that much time to spool them up manually to lift capability again. Fortunately lift power was restored a few inches above the ground and the strike caused no damage.

Total bull****. The trouble is, I have never had an Altitude Hold issue and consequently never had to mess with MKTool Altitude parameters. That means I don't know squat about any of them. I faffed around with the computer, stabbing in the dark, because with no internet connection in the field the MK Wiki is of even less bloody use than it normally is, but did not happen upon the correct parameters to change.

Both MR's fly well but the AH is way off and the AD-8 even displayed what I assume is 'toilet bowling' where it does a circular pendulum swing about a central point. It was not constant, it came and went.

The previous 'no-problems' configuration was with v0.86 and a stack of MK flat battery holders underneath the hub with an SLR2 mount at the bottom. Now it is v0.88 with an AV200. More weight!

What are the MKTool parameters to pay attention to for the AH and GPS PH?
 

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
MBF,

in altitude hold i've only screwed with the setting that tells the FC what power to reduce to to descend back to target altitude. with GPS, everything is stock with mine but i have the GPS gain on a slider on the radio and I adjust it for wind conditions. if anyone is trying to use the GPS p/h feature without being able to adjust the gain for different conditions, i think the toilet bowl effect is unavoidable.
 

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
MBF,

in altitude hold i've only screwed with the setting that tells the FC what power to reduce to to descend back to target altitude. with GPS, everything is stock with mine but i have the GPS gain on a slider on the radio and I adjust it for wind conditions. if anyone is trying to use the GPS p/h feature without being able to adjust the gain for different conditions, i think the toilet bowl effect is unavoidable.

Hi Bart,

I went out today and did just that. Found the point at which activating AH caused it to start ascending and then backed it off about 10 points. I did this with a 'camera weight' onboard since that is how it will always be. It made a huge difference to both MR's and AH is pretty stable now.

There wasn't much toilet stuff going on today but, which GPS gain do you have on a pot? I mean, which page - since GPS shows up in a couple of places.
 

ZAxis

Member
MBF,

in altitude hold i've only screwed with the setting that tells the FC what power to reduce to to descend back to target altitude. with GPS, everything is stock with mine but i have the GPS gain on a slider on the radio and I adjust it for wind conditions. if anyone is trying to use the GPS p/h feature without being able to adjust the gain for different conditions, i think the toilet bowl effect is unavoidable.

Bart,
Interesting observation on the inevitability of toilet bowling unless you adjust the gain. In still conditions our Y6 has been pretty steady on PH but in wind it has been toilet bowling so we'll give your suggestion of linking a slider control to the gain a go. A question to ask is, do you alter the gain on the ground or in the air ?

andy
 

Malcr001

Member
Is there ever a list of bugs holger has fixed or is it mostly all pointless features all the time? Really I just wish they focused on elminating all the bugs causing FOD's and MK's dropping like a brick. Its my biggest fear as Ive had it happen to me several times. Luckily they were all only a couple of meters off the ground. The only feature that attracted my attention in the new firmware was the added functionality for failsafe.
 

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
Is there ever a list of bugs holger has fixed or is it mostly all pointless features all the time? Really I just wish they focused on elminating all the bugs causing FOD's and MK's dropping like a brick. Its my biggest fear as Ive had it happen to me several times. Luckily they were all only a couple of meters off the ground. The only feature that attracted my attention in the new firmware was the added functionality for failsafe.

I've never seen a list of bugs that were fixed beyond maybe a passing mention in what passes for release notes with each new version and then only if it was severe and it affected everyone.

In the two plus years I've been flying MKs I've only ever had two crashes that I could not pinpoint the cause of and might have been software related, the rest of them were either dumb thumb on my part or something really stupid like installing a discharged battery instead of the freshly charged one.

Just lucky I guess...

I've found the latest version to be one of the best I've used, then again I'm flying mostly vanilla kit configurations so I would expect them to fly well, it was only when I started using other frame/motor/prop combos that things didn't work quite so well for me.

Ken
 

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Bart,
Interesting observation on the inevitability of toilet bowling unless you adjust the gain. In still conditions our Y6 has been pretty steady on PH but in wind it has been toilet bowling so we'll give your suggestion of linking a slider control to the gain a go. A question to ask is, do you alter the gain on the ground or in the air ?

andy


Andy,

when the gain is too high the FC will yank the kopter around and it can knock the camera mount out of whack. so start the gain lower than necessary and just inch it up until it can handle itself in the wind. once the gain is on the slider you can adjust it all you want in the air but make sure it isn't accidentally set too high before you switch PH on.

GPS PH can only work well if the pilot flies it into PH rather than just flips the switch and lets if fend for itself. when you see the spot it's circling around, control inputs to help it get there will make PH much more useable.

Bart
 

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Forgot to mention, in the wiki it says to reinitialize the EEPROM after doing a major firmware update. Has anyone done that? It requires all settings to be done again.
 


RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
As a part of every MK firmware upgrade I do I reload the firmware on ALL of the boards in the stack and zero everything back to default. After that I redo both the accelerometer and compass calibrations, both my Hexa and FPV quad fly great and have WKM like GPS position hold. I had a GoPro under the Hexa the other day at the field and with a moderate gusty wind it held position both horizontally and vertically as though there was no wind, the video from the GoPro is rock steady.

Two things I've found to work well with MK, do each firmware upgrade as if you had just finished building the multi, and the lighter you can make the takeoff weight the better the flight controller works. I definitely do not get rock solid hold on large heavy frames the way I do with the basic MK configuration even when I do a lot of parameter tweaking. The two stacks I currently have flying are both near default settings and I see no reason to change anything, I don't think either one could fly any better.

I tried my spare set of electronics on the Cinestar both with .82 and the most recent .88 and while there was a HUGE difference with the newer firmware it still doesn't fly as well as it does with a WKM on either version of MK firmware. With a fair amount of parameter changes I got it to fly almost as well as my Hexa but it couldn't match the A/H and P/H of the WKM regardless of what I did with it. The only good thing was I could use 14 inch props and it didn't try to wobble itself into the ground the way the WKM does with the same setup.

Ken
 

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
Forgot to mention, in the wiki it says to reinitialize the EEPROM after doing a major firmware update. Has anyone done that? It requires all settings to be done again.

The firmware upgrade notes for 0.88 said an initialization is not necessary from 0.86 - so I didn't. The only issue that has cropped up is this AH business and that appears to have been settled by increasing the minimum gas. It is entirely possible that the WC'ing was due to flipping the GPS switch before manually stopping and hovering (my normal practice) in slightly windy conditions. This may have induced the circular pendulum effect due the the heavy camera and mount underneath as it grappled to keep hold of the GPS position.

Another fine day today so I will verify all this later.
 

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