ArduPilot APM 2.5 FC on Droidworx

[dazzab]

Has anyone here tried flying a Droidworx with the ArduPilot APM 2.5 or PX4 flight controller?

I'm about to move up to a Droidworx from 3D Robotics gear for use in aerial video. I think the ArduPilot project has a lot going for it and that it won't be long before it surpasses commercial offerings. The only other FC I've been considering is the Wookong-M and I have no issue with the price given it's a commercial product and they are very expensive to develop and bring to market. But.... I do think their pricing model for adding waypoints is a bit insulting to say the least.

So I'd like to at least give the APM 2.5 a go before moving on to commercial FCs and I thought I'd check here to see if anyone else has done this. Hopefully I'll get some good feedback so I don't have to forge in to the unknown by myself and put a very expensive copter at risk.

Cheers.

 

[dazzab]

Hmmm, no feedback? Oh well, my two build threads have posts on how I went with the APM. In spite of knowing the developers and having flown with Arducopter and the APM for 8 months with smaller 3DR copters I just couldn't get stable flight on a Droidworx SkyJib Lite Coax. Although I'm sure it's possible, I don't have the time or money to continue on with the APM so I've ordered the proven DJI Woking to use with it. It's a real shame and not a decision I made lightly but at the end of the day I want to use this as a video platform and I just can't afford to test the APM any longer.
I would still be VERY interested to hear from anyone using the APM for larger copters being used as video platforms. I haven't been able to find one user or a video showing the results of using the APM on a Mikrocopter or Droidworx. I Droidworx about the APM and they didn't have any info either. So I did give it a good try but unfortunately no luck.

 

[StillHappy]

Sorry I couldn't help with the apm2.5 on large multi's, but im glad you posted you couldn't get the SJ lite stable with it. I was considering arduino, might have saved me some headaches.

 

[Kilby]

dazzab, did you try looking for someone using APM on a large frame over at DIY Drones? If anyone has done it, I'm sure one of those guys have.

If you find an example, please post about it here. I am pretty curious about this myself. The future of APM could be an exciting one if they get it able to control larger airframes.

-Terry

 

[dazzab]

dazzab, did you try looking for someone using APM on a large frame over at DIY Drones? If anyone has done it, I'm sure one of those guys have.

If you find an example, please post about it here. I am pretty curious about this myself. The future of APM could be an exciting one if they get it able to control larger airframes.

-Terry

Yes. I'm quite active on that site and I know a couple of the developers as well. Have a read of my build threads for more info. Bottom line they say it can be done and that they have flown large copters with the APM but their advice didn't work for me in spite of using the APM on two 3DR copters that I own for some time.

 

[StillHappy]

I still might go ahead with an apm 2.5. because blulock gps, waypoints, sonar, camera lock, and cell phone!!! It would be cool to see a sky jib stable with those features and the flight modes.

 

[jimovonz]

I use the APM 2.5 on a large multi used for videography, however I do not know how much of what I have done is comparable to your project. I have a scratch built quad that is 1.1m diagonally between motor centres. AUW in its current configuration is 5.25Kg (Panasonic HDC TM700 + Gimbal + 4S 16000mAh). Max thrust has been measured at 13.6Kg with 16x8" props so I have plenty of headroom for additional payload if required. I get an easy 15 min air time typically in 15-20knot winds. I can get over 20min just maintaining a hover in no wind. The APM/Arducopter controller has certainly not been a plug n play experience and the information you require is not always found in one place however I have not had any great difficulty setting up my rig to perform satisfactorily. Right from the initial setup with default parameters, I have been impressed with the performance of the controller. It quickly got even better with the appropriate tuning. In particular I like having access to the code, being a developer myself. I have a few ideas for features relating to aerial video that I would like to implement myself... I am happy to share more details of my experience if anyone is interested.

 

[StillHappy]

Jim, At 1.1 m that's bigger than the standard skyjib according to the specs. So you say the apm 2.5 gives you smooth stable flight? Right on. You obviously have the ublock gps but do you have the sonar or cell phone on it? and if so how well does it work?. I've been watching ardiuno FC for awhile but have been afraid to pull the card out.

 

[StillHappy]

thx jim

 

[Bowley]

Steadidrone supply RTF systems using APM 2.5 from their small quad's up to large Octo's, Might be worth speaking to them.

 

[dazzab]

I use the APM 2.5 on a large multi used for videography, however I do not know how much of what I have done is comparable to your project. I have a scratch built quad that is 1.1m diagonally between motor centres. AUW in its current configuration is 5.25Kg (Panasonic HDC TM700 + Gimbal + 4S 16000mAh). Max thrust has been measured at 13.6Kg with 16x8" props so I have plenty of headroom for additional payload if required. I get an easy 15 min air time typically in 15-20knot winds. I can get over 20min just maintaining a hover in no wind. The APM/Arducopter controller has certainly not been a plug n play experience and the information you require is not always found in one place however I have not had any great difficulty setting up my rig to perform satisfactorily. Right from the initial setup with default parameters, I have been impressed with the performance of the controller. It quickly got even better with the appropriate tuning. In particular I like having access to the code, being a developer myself. I have a few ideas for features relating to aerial video that I would like to implement myself... I am happy to share more details of my experience if anyone is interested.

I'd be most interested in seeing the PIDs of your configuration if you wouldn't mind posting them. I'm very familiar and experienced with the APM and know one of the developers personally. I really struggled getting any performance out of it at all. After flying my small 3DR copters around today and watching how stable and full featured they are (both flying with APMs) I _might_ have another go of tuning the SkyJib when I get back from holiday in a month. Although I have already ordered a Wookong for the SkyJib and a NAZA for the CX.

 

[jimovonz]

@stillhapy: Sorry, no sonar or cellphone(?)

@dazzab: I am happy to share my settings. Please find my most recent param file attached. Please note that I have only ever used stabilize, alt-hold and loiter modes and the settings relating to the other modes are still at the default values and are untested with my current configuration.

 

[dazzab]

@stillhapy: Sorry, no sonar or cellphone(?)

@dazzab: I am happy to share my settings. Please find my most recent param file attached. Please note that I have only ever used stabilize, alt-hold and loiter modes and the settings relating to the other modes are still at the default values and are untested with my current configuration.

Thanks, that confirmed something for me. The recommendation for RATE_RLL_P is 0.15 and the developer recommends turning it down to 0.10 at least. When I did the Dave C tuning procedure I came up with much higher setting in the range of 0.200+ which seemed odd. I note yours is 0.250. So next time I try I'll up the rates a bit. Thanks for your help.

 

[ovdt]

Thanks for the settings. It's very hard to find PID settings as a reference for medium / heavy multirotors.

@stillhapy: Sorry, no sonar or cellphone(?)

@dazzab: I am happy to share my settings. Please find my most recent param file attached. Please note that I have only ever used stabilize, alt-hold and loiter modes and the settings relating to the other modes are still at the default values and are untested with my current configuration.

 

[dazzab]

Back from holidays and back at it. Thanks to several other users I've had some success. While the following video ends with a crash which I've yet to determine the cause of, as you can see the APM 2.5 flight controller and the new 3.0.1 version of Arducopter software is doing a pretty good job. Thanks to Bluerex for the great video of the test flight:

 

[Efliernz]

any idea why it suddenly hated you ?

Pete

 

[dazzab]

any idea why it suddenly hated you ?
Pete

That video shows (in this order)

Me trying out inputs in different directions to see how it reacts then
Switching to Alt-Hold mode to see if it's stable enough to use auto flight modes of the APM then
Switching to Loiter mode to see how stable it is

The above looked so good I switched it to Auto-Land which is a mode I've just tried recently with other copters and blows me away how good it is. So it goes nuts at the end of the Auto-Land, I wasn't giving any input at the time.

It's too early to tell what went wrong. I've posted the log at DIYDrones and typically a developer will have a look and give feedback. So I'm waiting for that.

 

[jrlederer]

I, too, have faith in the Ardupilot 2.5 hardware, and I am coming from having piloted a plethora of machines using a large variety of leading flight controllers available, from DJI, Microcopter, Autoquad 6, OpenPilot Revolution, to Paris and such DIY Arduino boards all the way to ZeroUAV, etc... As for APM 2.5, Once you get the PID tuning (headache) system understood and are able to do basic tuning well, I'd have to agree with you and say it is absolutely impressive how much capability can be had for such a relatively small investment. This is especially true in the area of GCS options; comprehensive portable GCS can be had for a small (optional, but appropriate) donation via Android playstore in the orm of software for either phones or tablets called DroidPlanner and AndroPilot (two separate but competitve software packages) that eliminate the need to bring laptop to perform any/all functions desired. I have yet to commit any of my larger octos to being controlled via APM...but just not YET. The time will come soon and I will post the resulting data from those flights, if anyone's interested.

Have a nice day!

 

[dazzab]

Unfortunately my APM/Pixhawk adventures have come to an end. After many crashes and poor experiences across six different copters the final straw was a developer essentially calling me stupid and having a rant at me. I'm sure he will show up here to continue that and defend his POV but I'm going to ignore it. His comments and the entire incident is there for all to see on their support forums for people to make up their own minds if interested in such petty things. Please don't ask me to comment on it further.

Without a doubt the APM/Pixhawk/Arducopter project has a lot going for it and is very impressive. If your goal is to have a reliable commercial rig that supports professional use then I'd go with the advice of those here who have actually done that. 99% of them use commercial professional products. As many good things as open source developement/developers bring to the arena, they also bring some very serious issues as well. In a commercial environment that can become a large problem. For anyone who goes down that path I hope you have a better experience than I did. I did learn a lot so it wasn't a total waste of time. I can't shoot commercially until after I'm certified by CASA here in Australia anyway which won't happen until around June.

Most of you know that I'd prefer to avoid DJI but the nice thing about photography is that the results speak for themselves. The results that impress me all come from users of rigs with a Wookong FC. So that's what I'll put on my SkyJib and move on. No more endless hours of reading through forums, no more endless tuning and testing and most importantly I'll finally get some results at the end of the day for my efforts. I'm so looking forward to heading out with my fellow SkyJib user Bluerex and doing some fun projects. His Droidworx XM4 flys like it's on wires. I'm really excited about it all.

I'm also going to try a SuperX on a Droidworx XM6 hex that I haven't been able to get stable enough for video with a Pixhawk. There's a lot of good feedback about that FC and I'm very impressed with the quick support I've had with them so far from Sydney. I bought a Stella gimbal from them last week and it's really impressive. I noticed Nic is flying his Droidworx CX-600 with one and the results were quite impressive. He's not far from where I am so I might catch up with him at some point.

So all the APM/Pixhawk gear goes to fund the change over. I'll save heaps not paying for FedEx from 3DR and waiting weeks/months for them to ship things. I already have a Wookong that I bought in case things didn't go well and the SuperX will be here tomorrow. I'll probably need some more assistance with that so it's great you guys are here and so willing to help out. Keep up the great work.

 

[JMMC]

Back from holidays and back at it. Thanks to several other users I've had some success. While the following video ends with a crash which I've yet to determine the cause of, as you can see the APM 2.5 flight controller and the new 3.0.1 version of Arducopter software is doing a pretty good job. Thanks to Bluerex for the great video of the test flight:

Hi Dazzab, Nice flight!. I have the same quad. Would you be able to share your settings or gains that you used in the APM for this flight test video?. Thanks.