13 replies to this topic

[exmachina]

Well now we're a month out from the last limited release and blurb about CC production status. Could someone in the know please share with those that wait?
Thanks

[dankers]

Sure:

Waiting on Invensense to send me some more gyros, I chase them every couple of days.

There will be around 50 of them sold from the global store once they are reworked. However along with that, you need to know now that there is a new CC called the CC3D, because the gyros we are currently using have a lot of quality issues and they are also becoming end of life, we are moving CC to new sensors.

I am saying this now as I hate it when the commercial companies start switching products and don't say anything before hand in an attempt to sell all their old stock, it sucks. However the current CC is also a tried and tested design and some people will want that, others will want the CC3D and be on the bleeding edge.

So far not a single CC3D has flown so we are still in the testing phase but as it is just a sensor refresh I expect things will got quickly from testing to production.

[Stigoe]

Have you finalised what the new sensors will be? Are they by any chance pin-compatible with the old gyros?

[Brian]

dankers, on 13 January 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

There will be around 50 of them sold from the global store once they are reworked. However along with that, you need to know now that there is a new CC called the CC3D, because the gyros we are currently using have a lot of quality issues and they are also becoming end of life, we are moving CC to new sensors.

I am saying this now as I hate it when the commercial companies start switching products and don't say anything before hand in an attempt to sell all their old stcok, it sucks. However the current CC is also a tried and tested design and some people will want that, others will want the CC3D and be on the bleeding edge.

So far not a single CC3D has flown so we are still int he testing phase but as it is just a sensor refresh I expect things will got quickly from testing to production.

Cool!  I don't suppose you could sneak in an upgrade to a higher density STM32, could you?  I know it probably wouldn't fit, but it would be great to have a bit more ram and flash to work with.

[dankers]

Brian, on 13 January 2012 - 08:28 PM, said:

Cool!  I don't suppose you could sneak in an upgrade to a higher density STM32, could you?  I know it probably wouldn't fit, but it would be great to have a bit more ram and flash to work with.

I could make it fit but it moves the goal posts way too much, this is going to be a simple refresh and done very quickly. I do get what you mean, heck it has caused us issues as well with ram but CC is designed to do what it does well and designed to be low cost for just stabilization control in Multi Rotors and helis.

Another request was to add a mag, again it is possible but creates a lot more work and would need calibration routines, it would need people to be much more careful about how they route their wiring etc. Plus if we added a mag, might as well add a pressure sensor also.

Honestly, the Revo is what you want then, a CC with 64 pin MCU would be waste if we didn't use the extra pins and it starts to creep up to be a kinda half way good board that costs more. The CC is awesome at what it does and the Revo will be awesome at what it does, no point us turning CC in to this more expensive halfway sort mix between Revo and CC. CC was unique when it was released and even know with things like the Naza falling in to it's niche, we still kick it's butt, are open source and we use all our code code to do it

The CC3D will be a lot more awesome for the Helis guys as well, I will be spending a fair bit of time on that side of things with the CC to make it much easier to set up and use for them, it's an area we need to focus more on with the CC3D.

[dankers]

Stigoe, on 13 January 2012 - 08:24 PM, said:

Have you finalised what the new sensors will be? Are they by any chance pin-compatible with the old gyros?

Not final yet, but for sure will not be pin compatible.  However, this rev needs to fly first. Doing Allan variance testing is only one step (but a good one), flying it is also important. It will use the same sensors as the Revo and the first version of that used the MPU6000, we were not impressed with it and the accel suffers from some noise issues under vibration, it worked and flew (James has videos of it) but I think we can do much better.

However before you ask what the sensors we are testing are, let me tell you a story. A long while ago at the start of the project we did a massive amount of work on sensors, although we took a long time to release CC, before that we had a lot of hardware and we did a hell of a lot of R&D. At the time every other project that flew quads used the same sensors as MK, of course OP loves original thought, we like to do research and do our own thing rather than copy. OP was the project that really got the Invensense gyros recognized but even though testing sensors well is a lot of work and money, we were rarely credited with this work. We were open about these gyros, told people from other projects to look at them and shared how they performed. Word spread quickly, other projects benefited from our work but hey, it’s all Open Source and we work together right?

Now, a couple of years later we wanted to look at the MPU6000, we tried to get some to test with and we had a very hard time because a commercial company wanted to be the first with that component on their autopilot, they pulled all the strings they could to stop us and other projects getting them with sneaky deals, this is a very dirty way to operate. To me this just goes against the spirit of how things should be done, especially in Open Source.

This time karma did its thing (yay!) and they decided on a sensor before even testing it, so have ended up with something inferior due to their over competitive nature and tricks. Not totally unexpected for a project that has little clue and doesn't innovate at all, let alone even know what Allan variance testing is, it was just greed and marketing that caused them to rush in to new sensors and then pray they worked well. Honestly, that's just stupid; the old adage garbage in and garbage out applies to sensors, rushing to a brand new untested sensor just to say you got it first is beyond amazingly dumb. Everyone knows about Invensense now, all the projects are aware of the MPU6000 anyway, there is just no benefit to doing this but a lot of risk to it. Of course this is exactly what happens when a business is driven by marketing people that think they have some technical knowledge but alas don't. Honestly they are simply better off just cloning and taking from projects with more of a clue and then not crediting them like they are well known for.

However, this could have been really bad for us, say their marketing gamble paid off and what if the MPU6000 was great and we were going to use it? We would have a production delays as were were blocked from getting them in quantity, it would have pushed the Revo back, of course that is why they did it. They can't compete on price, quality, performance or technical skill so they have to pull stunts like this. Pathetic but man is it motivating when people try to screw you over with dirty tricks.

To avoid similar sly games in the future we keep things quiet with sensor choices and design innovations, not at all what we prefer but with predatory practices like that being played and the cloners looking to rape the project, it leaves us little choice and we have to adjust to how others with lower ethical standards behave.

[Fredator]

Well said dankers, thanks for the insight. The sheer ignorance and stupidity of some of those people is insane and reaches far beyond the world of flight controllers. I could tell you a little story about my experiences in the music business, but I would have to cry myself to sleep again... ;-)

[Rod Cole]

Dankers:

The sensor story is most interesting. Sorry to hear that you received such rotten treatment; your story makes me even more inclined to go with Open Pilot over another autopilot.

I had already placed an order for another Open Source controller that integrated the Invensense gyro and cannot get a board until sometime in Feb. I then stumbled onto your controller, and if I could get CC before I get the other one, I may cancel the other one. After comparing your incredible tuning video to what is available for the other systems, CC has a clear advantage, especially for a noob like me. While I don't completely understand everything, I am much farther along thanks to that video. As a Mac user, I really appreciate that your control program runs natively on the Mac without having to use VMWare (which I do have, BTW).

I am currently building a cheap quad to learn on and then will build a Hexa or Octa heavy lifter for use with AP; I have no interest in 3D flying, being more concerned about stability, GPS, RTH, altitude hold, ability to follow a moving object, and the ability to control a camera gimbal in the roll and pitch axes. My partner is currently flying a 700 class Heli and I fly the camera when we are shooting video. His autopilot may well be made by that unnamed company who grabbed all the MPU6000 gyros from both OS projects. We are planning on building at least two Octas this year for use with our business. I just purchased an Airtronics SD-10G to run my Multi-Rotor Helis.

I like the features of the other unit and it appears that CC has most of these but is much easier to set up. What advice can you give me since neither board is available at this time? I have signed up to be notified when CC again becomes available as the price is less than half that of the other unit and appears to use a much better processor. I plan to order a CC as soon as it becomes available but want to plan for the future as well. Do you have a timeline for development that you can share? Can you compare CC with the other system I have on order.

Feel free to answer by PM

Edited by Rod Cole, 14 January 2012 - 04:02 AM.

[exmachina]

Dankers, thanks for the prompt reply. I appreciate your background on sensors and testing. Being a believer in karma (and open source) I'll attempt to be patient.

n.b. I've cancelled my order for a product with the MPU6000. Thanks for the heads up.

[Rod Cole]

exmachina:

Sounds like we both ordered the same product! I agree with your comments.

[dankers]

Guys honestly, don't cancel things because of us, we are slow to do things and take our time to finish things well, the most important thing here is to make sure things are right.

I never ever do pre-orders for new items if that is what you did, it makes no sense as a customer, let some other sucker figure out if something is good or not, if it is a commercial company you are buying from then they will produce more for sure. Pre-orders are used so the customer pays the manufacturing costs and carries the risk rather than a company using their own funds, never quite really understood why people do it especially for something they have no idea of the quality of, it can easily go sour.

It also plays on fear of people missing out, that is another aspect I don't like about pre-orders but that is just personal opinion.

If you are newbie, please do with something tired and tested and by that I don't just mean CC, it might be worth buying one of the cheap frames and a MultiWii board from Goodluckbuy.com as something to get the feel of, they have some really good deals and MultiWii flies very well.

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I am currently building a cheap quad to learn on and then will build a Hexa or Octa heavy lifter for use with AP; I have no interest in 3D flying, being more concerned about stability, GPS, RTH, altitude hold, ability to follow a moving object, and the ability to control a camera gimbal in the roll and pitch axes.

So start with an elcheapo but also be very careful what you buy for the high-end device, there are a couple of projects I know that claim to do autopilot like features and simply do not do them well at all, right now for those features and at a fair price point, you are describing MikroKopter and especially if you want to do professional work.  DJI also have a high end platform for MultiRotors but I have no experience of that and the common feeling it that CC is more stable b ut lacks the high end autopilot features the DJI has.

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His autopilot may well be made by that unnamed company who grabbed all the MPU6000 gyros from both OS projects.

I am intrigued a bit by this, if you mean DJI then it was not who I was referring to. Their heli product from what I have seen is solid although it is not really in a price range most people can afford unless it is an income earner, apart from Rotormotion (who are in their own league with prices as well as features) DJI is the best choice for a heli autopilot.  

You must also realize that CC is not an autopilot and will not have autopilot like features for Multirotors or helis, it was designed for exceptional stabilization and to do that job extremely well. The next board from us is called the Revolution, it will have those autopilot features and I am very excited about it.

However, it is simply a case of it is done when it is done, right now the status of that on the hardware side is what we called a release candidate and I don't mean that like it is used in software, we actually hope the current hardware revision is final. However the software has some ways to go yet and combine that with trying to release things in a really useable state that is easy to set up and easy to tune then we have our work cut out.

Seriously, never wait on things OP, all I can say they will be worth the wait but the primary motivator here is quality.

[Rod Cole]

Thanks for your insight, especially regarding the marketing methodology behind pre-orders. It is more important to me that the product is right.

It was DJI I was speaking of, but I didn't want to mention any names. I am glad to hear you were not speaking of them as they seem to have great products and customer support. It is good to know they aren't using a gyro that is inadequate.

It sounds like what I really want is the Revolution, but I still plan to purchase a CC as soon as one becomes available.

[dankers]

I quite like DJI stuff, especially their camera stabilization code is very solid. I have no idea which sensors DJI use or are planning to use as they scratch the manufactures markings off the chips anyway.

For me I make a distinction that most users do not make, I am not really bothered about closed source solutions, I want something open that can be extended and also that can be educational.

The idea with OP is that we do something Open Source but try very hard to compete with the commercial solutions in terms of quality, this is extremely hard as all we have is people that do this as a hobby so I am really amazed how much we changed the field already.

[Inventions Creator]

I like the news and the OP philosophies....keep up the good work guys.  I look forward to pilot an OP someday.

Respectfully Posted,
I.C.