Tricopter LR – Firmware (Triflight, iNav)?

[oxivanisher]

Hi David

I just saw (and directly ordered ^^) the Tricopter LR. But i read that the firmware is still in development and will probably not support RTH and such features. Is there a specific reason not to use iNav or work with them if there is something that needs to be added for your tricopters?

BR,
Marc

[jihlein]

Here’s my 2 cents worth on flight firmware…..

The KakuteF4V2, when coded per the silkscreen, won’t support tricopters due to the way the timer banks are physically wired to the output pins. To over come this:

Betaflight – Use resource mapping to swap M4 and LED pins
dRonin – The dRonin target for the KakuteF4V2 swaps these two pins
iNav – currently won’t work with tricopters on the KakuteF4V2, no resource mapping, default output pin setup not usable for tricopters

I’m not sure at what rev Betaflight incorporated return to home (or if it even did), but if it did, I’m pretty sure that version doesn’t include the triflight routines. Could be wrong here as I don’t follow Betaflight development closely. Would require merge of triflight, or simply go with out triflight.

I’m putting the finishing touches on a new version of dRonin for the KakuteF4V2. It will include support for either HMC5883 or HMC5983 external magnetometers. Once that’s in place, dRonin will support return to home, but not waypoint navigation (yet, but no timeline). It also has the triflight algorithms.

I believe it’s a straight forward change to the KakuteF4V2 target in iNav to swap M4 and LED pins, and make it tricopter compatible. I’m not 100% sure, but the LED string function may be lost in that change. Also there are no triflight algorithms. It’s then yet another “non-standard” build target, and I doubt here be much enthusiasm for making the require change mainstream. I’m going to look into this change time permitting, but I’m not going to consider adding triflight. I’ve played with iNav on another tricopter, and can say the RTH works quite well.

I’m of the opinion that given the intent of the Tricopter LR, the triflight routines are not 100% necessary, but your mileage may vary here. My iNav equipped Fortis Titan tricopter flies just fine without them. It’s on par with the RCE V4 copter.

Given all the above, I have Tricopter LR inbound, and will configure it with dRonin and GPS so that it’s RTH capable. At some point I’ll make the iNAV mods and try that firmware also, even though I’m not real excited about maintaining another off mainstream target configuration.

All that’s probably worth more than 2 cents….. 🙂

[Kevin_Erik]

LR order submitted !

John… we should work together on a build and use the same parts. This will help the development as well as provide a means to double check results / methods.

Kevin

[jihlein]

FWIW, I have this GPS:

And this Video TX:

On hand for the build. Still need to decide on camera. I will be using 3650 3s HV lipos for power. Everything else will be stock, although I may change the component layout some when I see it in person.

[Kevin_Erik]

Sorry FWIW?

Anyways, that Amazon link to the GPS shows it not being carried. (may have issues getting this in Germany) The VTX is avalible and should be had via the .DE site i think.

[jihlein]

FWIW = For what its worth 🙂

[Kevin_Erik]

Sorry, having a hard time with acronyms while drinking. Holidays ya know.

[swissfreek]

My Tricopter LR just got here this morning (4 days to the western US! Clearly Chicago ISC has figured out whatever garbage was going on a couple years ago when David’s stuff would take weeks to get to me…).

ANYWAY. So now I’m getting back into tricopters. I plan to fly it on Multistar 3S 5200s I’ve got laying around. I bought the stock electronics pack. It’ll be on 1.3 for video and using a Micro Eagle and CrossFire, not that that should change anything for anyone else. Probably going to start with dRonin since it looks like that’s what’s actively being developed Tricopter-wise these days (go figure).

I’m no coder, but I fly iNav, BF, and I’ve got experience with dRonin (I used to be in the thread when the jihlein first started developing it, but then life got in the way). Back then I did manage to build my own targets from GitHub, so I at least have that skill, too. Willing to help you guys out if you want someone else to test stuff.

[jihlein]

Here’s a hex and dfu file for the KakuteF4V2 that from an output perspective, will support tricopters. I checked the outputs with a logic analyzer, have M1/2/3 set for DShot 300, and LED (S4) set for 330 Hz pwm. Outputs look correct.

It appears that iNav does not natively support tricopter mixing any longer, you will have to set up a custom mix table.

Until I can finish wiring up a frame, that’s all the info I can offer. Test carefully.

Attachments:

1. 

   iNavOutputs.png
   

1. inav_2.1.0_KAKUTEF4V2.zip

[swissfreek]

Hey, that’s awesome! I saw there were updates to your repo yesterday, figured something was coming. I’ll give this a shot once I finish wiring up my LR.

Still trying to get my compiler running again so I can build your dRonin repo, too, but as always the install in Terminal is totally kicking my ass and throwing weird errors. But once I get that going in the next couple days I’ll start testing those builds, too. I’m partial to iNav, but I’ll fly whichever one works better…

[swissfreek]

I was able to get iNav to load and arm on the LR. The tail responds like it should. I’m traveling for work so I haven’t had a chance to fly it yet, but so far so good. Will probably get it in the air Tuesday afternoon, weather permitting.

[jihlein]

@swissfreek, I’ve been fighting with the OSX build process, to no avail. I completely removed my repository, and xcode, and then re-installed all the tools. Same problem persists, all flight code builds just fine, but the GCS build crashes. It’s got to be related to an OSX update, as I can build both the Next and myDronin branches in Windows and Linux, but neither on OSX.

Unfortunately, I’m lost too for the time being when it comes to debugging this……

[swissfreek]

Well, I guess it’s mildly reassuring that it’s not just my incompetence that’s causing me problems (something new and exciting!).

I have a friend that is pretty knowledgable on this stuff and has past history with dRonin, so when I hang out with him this weekend I’ll take my laptop and see if he can make any sense out of my issues, if we have time.

[oxivanisher]

My LR is almost done, but I am not so sure on how to connect the servo and if it is the same for dRonin and iNav as for the baby tri? Can someone shed some light on it?

[Kevin_Erik]

You should look at the latest build videos for the Tri-Baby as they both use the same PDB / FC. That’s until Mr J releases the next dRonin update. It is possible that the layout may change to accommodate things such as GPS and shark-lasers.

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