[Naga]

I have recently purchased a King Kong 300 Hex from HobbyKing which according to the tracking has just arrived in my country and should be delivered soon.

HobbyKing state that the Hex which comes with a CC3D has been tuned by the King Kong team but obviously I am going to have to set up the Rx and Tx.

I don't know what version of OP/LP it will come with but I am hoping to upgrade to the current version of LP.

However, I don't want to lose the settings that have already been applied as I am sure the King Kong team have done a better job of tuning the CC3D for that Hex than I will be capable of as I am not that good a pilot.

I have been flying OP on several quads for a few years but this will be my first experience of LP.

Is it possible to upgrade to the current version of LP without losing all the settings?

Thanks.

[iahawk]

Run through the setup wizard in LP and use stock settings directly from that.

It flies fine on stock LP settings for a hex

[Naga]

Thanks for reply, but I would like to keep the setting the KingKong team came up with rather than generic setting.

So again; is it possible to upgrade and keep the current settings?

[TheOtherCliff]

I would really recommend that you keep the current firmware version and settings until you fly it a while and get used to it.

I would guess that it will come with an old version of OpenPilot, not LibrePilot.  Ask them what version since you are waiting anyway.

It will fly with LP defaults, but setting it up will take some learning and a couple days, so play with it as it is for a while.

And no, there generally isn't a way to upgrade from one version to another.  You have to start over.

[Naga]

Hi TheOtherCliff

Thanks for your reply.

That is what I thought may be the situation. It was my intention to keep the current settings since they have spent time setting the Hex up but I was hoping to migrate them over to LP.

I am pretty familiar with the old OP interface, have set up several quads using OP and was even able to successfully troubleshoot for people on the old RCGroups CC3D thread on many occasions. However I was hoping there would be a way of migrating with the settings that I was not aware of hence my post.

I have the last two versions of OP (v13 and v14) stashed away so it hopefully it will have firmware from one of those on it.

I am currently planning a new quad with unusual requirements for controlling a sound system and lights as well as rotating parts with a servo; making a Hasbro Star Wars Jedi Fighter toy fly and animating the attached R2D2 with sounds and movement of its little head. I am also planning a Bicopter using HK RotorBits components.

I already did the Star Wars Imperial Speedster with a CC3D Atom and OP v13.

As a result of these builds I have been reading through all the documentation for LP again over the last few days to refamiliarise myself with the firmware.

What an amazing piece of software you guys have developed! So flexible and capable.

You guys are the best, thanks for all the hard work you have put in, it is so appreciated!

[TheOtherCliff]

IIRC there were two OP versions in 2015.  Three or more if you count the versions before the final bug fix versions.

IIRC the first 2015 OP version was the last OP version to support CC3D.

[Naga]

Cliff

I was looking at what I had installed on my PC today; a bit out with the version numbers above but I was doing it from memory.

I currently have v14.10 and 15.02 and 15.05 OP versions installed on my PC with 13.06.exe backed up on my server but not installed. 15.05 was installed on a Revolution with an additional OPLink board. I was lucky there, got one of the first clones to be released so it has the power LED in the right position and seems very well made, not like the ones with the coloured output pins around today.

So regarding the 300 Hex, it is now at the Royal Mail Depot awaiting me to pay the import duty (no problem, need taxes) and their £8 blood money for collecting the tax. In fact 3 parcels to collect so they will be squeezing £24 out of me just to collect the tax that is due. Oh lucky days.

Anyway, I should be able to sort out what version of OP/LP the Hex has installed and will post the results here for anyone else who recently bought one and needs that info.

Thanks again for your support and best wishes.

[TheOtherCliff]

I would bet OpenPilot 15.02 on the CC3D.

[Naga]

Actually close, but no cigar unfortunately. Well not a usable version anyway. Good guess however.

I opened the Hex CC3 with all flavoures of GCS from OP 14.x, OP 15.02 02, and both LP 15.09 and 16.09. None of them.

Each gave an initial message that the firmware does not match reporting:

Firmware version: 20150405 15:40 (bf68cc84-e70bb517)


However, on the Firmware Tab, each report:

Bootloader v3
Firmware tag: RELEASE 15.02.01
Firmware date: 2015-04-05-15:40
Git commit hash: bf68cc84
Firmware CRC: 0

So it looks like, just to make life difficult they used something else, 15.02.01, a Next Branch perhaps?


Running OP 15.02.02 with the Hex plugged in:

The Flight Data page is responding to the Hex which is reporting flight data. All the board is Green except INPUT which is orange. The OSD correctly responds to movement of the Hex except the 3D model in the lower window is reversed and moves in the wrong direction on all axes.

The Config Page for Hardware shows it is set for PWM+NoOneShot

The Vehicle Page shows set for HexcopterX but all three Mix Level sliders are at 100% where I would expect 50%.

Input Page shows an Rx has been used and calibrated as different values present for Min, Neutral and Max.

Flight Mode Switch Settings show Stabilized1-3 referring to Bank 1-3 resectively.

Output Page shows Bank (Channels) 1-4 set for 490 Hz PWM with all six motors having slightly different neutrals set at around 1173 with one noticeable lower at 1157 (dodgy unreliable motor?)

On the Stabiization Page Bank 1 has "Insane" level settings with Attitude at 130, Rate at 600 and Rate Yaw at 550. PIDs are not stock for Hex X settings.

Bear in mind that this would be invoked using Attitude, Attitude and Axis Lock for the Flight Mode Switch! Ouch!

Bank 2 is set for "Snappy" again with none stock PIDs.

Bank 3 is set for "Moderate" with stock PIDs but would be invoked by the Flight Mode Switch set for Rate, Rate and Rate for Roll, Pitch and Yaw; again not a sensible combination.

Advanced show different settings for each Bank.

So it looks like it has been setup and "Tuned" but using a GCS station which is not a standard Release Version.

I suspect that in going from GCS 15.02.01 that they used and openening it with Release version 15.02.02 has caused some reversal of the Stabilzation Banks and the models inputs.

How is anyone supposed to set up their Tx/Rx using this?

So, what do you recommend doing Cliff?

[TheOtherCliff]

15.02 and 15.05 are the release versions, then bugs were found, and that is why there are 15.02.0x 15.05.0x etc.

Standard release procedure says that all the 15.02 versions are compatible so use the latest one to get the most bug fixes.

[Naga]

So I go ahead and use 15.02.02 and just ignore the warning message even though the firmware is 15.02.01?

What if I save a uav, burn the 15.02.02 firmware on the board then import the uav back again?

Sorry to be obtuse. These things are dangerous and I don't want the mismatch in the firmware to cause a possible fly away or other possible problem.

There does seem to be a mismatch insomuch as some things are certainly reversed when I connect to the board with 15.02.01.

Several of us have bought this Hex while it was on the recent HobbyKing sale, I probably won't be the only one doing this.

[mr_w]

Why not just start from zero with either 16.09 or next. It seems that you at least understand where things are configured and how they should look. I would not bet on HK for doing the good job with "tuning".

[iahawk]

I agree with mr_w

It seems you’re making things very difficult for yourself in the setup of this hex.

As I said earlier. I started from scratch and flashed new firmware and used stock settings and it flies fine. I’ve read nothing but negative comments about the stock setup it comes with out of the box.

[Naga]

I am now thinking along the same lines.

The Attitude settings seem stock and I doubt I will be flying with "Insane" settings at any time in the near future if ever! I am not that good a pilot and probably never will be, don't race and I am capable of setting it up as I want, especially now I know how it was setup by the KingKing team.

Now I have had a nose around I can see that the mild stabilised setting are just stock and where they made changes. I have also made screen captures of each of the pages.

Would the PIDS from 15.02.01 be valid in 16.09?

Thanks for all your support.

[TheOtherCliff]

I would use the closest matching GCS version to save the factory UAV file permanently to my PC, for future reference at least.  FYI, it is a human readable text file.  Maybe make screen captures of the important configuration pages too.

There does seem to be a mismatch insomuch as some things are certainly reversed when I connect to the board with 15.02.01.

I don't recall that and it sounds dangerous.  I would at least have to verify what is going on there.  From what I recall, 15.02.02 should act just like 15.02.01, but without a bug or two.  If that is true, you should use a GCS version that matches the firmware or just install LP.

Anybody remember what the differences were in the 15.02.0x versions?  I recall that 15.02.0x was the last version of OP to support CC3D.  CC3D was removed in 15.05.

Would the PIDS from 15.02.01 be valid in 16.09?

I recall that is the time that some minor changes were made, and lately another minor change to the D term.  I don't recall enough about that to say more than to look at the changes in the default PIDs to help you guess.

...on the other hand...

This is a new guy, so instead of flying in the next day or two (with a supposedly known working configuration) he will have to learn more about configuration before getting to fly, and there may be some pitfalls for those who don't follow the instructions exactly but think they are following them.

I recall an issue with the default hex mixer, maybe that got fixed in 16.09?

The KingKong factory settings may have better PIDs.  I like flying it as it is and then some rainy weekend install the latest LP.  You get to feel how both setups fly.