It looks like i'm the first to get to review this firmware. After several problematic flights with 4.6 (for me) my ship was deemed to unpredictable and therefore to dangerous to fly. I was having erratic random pitching/rolling motions that would surprise me a few times a flight. The Altitude Hold was unusable and the GPS would also try to correct with erratic motions. Of course I was communicating with hoverfly about these issues and months later here we are with 4.8.

I'm flying a cinestar 8 with 360 camera gimbal. Today's test flight was without the gimbal (for obvious reasons). I'm using an external magnetometer which can be twisted into a new position for accurate GPS corrections. I calibrated the mag at the field and confirmed on the OSD it was reading accurately. I set it on the grass and armed it. I like the new beeping for when the board is armed. It is a very good and safe idea. I brought it into a manual hover and noticed it was a little loose (low gain). I cranked up the gain while flying which was much higher than before just under the oscillation point. It was very crisp and precise as it has been in the past. I flew a couple laps around the field and everything was normal. I next tried Auto-Leveling. The AL gain was turned up to the same as the manual gain as the 4.8 directions indicated. I banged the sticks around to confirm it was working very solid. Everything normal there. I next tried the GPS Hold. I'm getting scared! There was a 5-6 MPH breeze so the ship clearly wanted to drift downwind as it should with AL ON. I activated GPS HOLD and IT WORKED SUPERBLY! For a second there I thought I was flying a Mikrokopter it worked so well. Zero circling and very tight holding tolerance. The ship even sounded different. I could hear those motors correcting super fast. I've never heard them make corrections that fast before ever! I would estimate it kept in a 10 foot diameter circle (at the worst) with a light breeze. It hardly ever drifted more than a 2 feet off point. I was amazed! RTH was spot on as well. In the past every time I would activate the GPS HOLD it would always drift about 30 feet away and then hold. Not this time. Slewing was very good. I noticed that the time from when the sicks becoming centered to the time the GPS function kicks in is much shorter now. I like it!

Now lets talk about the Altitude Hold. With GPS HOLD ON I activated the AH. First thing I noticed was the corrections were much quicker and precise. No more 20 feet up then 20 feet down stuff like before. I put my throttle exactly at mid-stick and noticed it wanted to climb slowly. I lowered the stick just below center and it maintained altitude like it was sitting on top of a pole. I then went full stick (up) and watched it climb to around 200ft. I then dropped the stick (full low) and it descended quite fast so I raised it to 1/4 stick and it descended much slower and smooth. The only issue I saw was when I locked the altitude in (mid stick) it would act like the ship was at the end of a bungee coord. It would go up and down several times over a range of 10-15 feet over correcting its altitude and would eventually dampen out. It would hunt for maybe 7-10 seconds. This movement seemed to be a function of how fast it was climbing or descending so slower climbs and descents would not hunt.
FANTASTIC JOB ON THIS FIRMWARE. THANK YOU FOR THE HARD WORK!

I tested today and my words are: wooowww! It's amazing how everything now works as promised. Altitude hold fantastic, position hold is so good that it seems to be stuck on a pole. The return to home is very good, and returns with an optimal speed.
The team hoverfly is very responsible. Always attentive to improve what was already good and always taking my doubts when possible.

With this kind of performance I have very high hopes for the next firmware release. Mainly the Auto Landing feature. With the GPS and Altitude Hold performing this good I can easily see the ship performing a RTH and Auto Land.

I flew yesterday evening on my Cinestar 8 with out the gimbal attached and the new firmware. Once again It flew so good it scares me! I keep waiting for something to go wrong. In a 26 minute flight without ever touching the ground except for takeoff and landing (Yes 26 minutes) I kept playing with the GPS and altitude hold. Half the flight was FPV. I put it into position hold with altitude hold and went full stick on the throttle. It flew to just over 100 meters altitude and then I went mid stick to hold altitude. I hovered there for 9-10 minutes while people came by and looked at my FPV monitor. I would pan the ship around and try to lock in on a visual target and see how much the ship deviates. It was keeping such a perfect position it looked like I was viewing through a stationary camera. By the way i'm using Frsky telemetry to monitor the amps and know when to land. I went full down stick and I would say it descended at 1 meter per second. Locking in the altitude didn't produce much oscillation this time. When it does oscillate it goes away in a few seconds. I locked it in at 3 meters and stood right by it to see if it wants to drift off position. At the worst it holds within a 2 meter radius and + or - 1 meter altitude. However most of the time it stays within one meter both laterally and vertically which is awesome! I landed the ship several times with PH ON. I even took off with PH ON to see what happens. Its very nice!

Hi,I've got the green pro Hoverfly board. With firmware 4.0 and older, both servos for gimbal stabilization work normally. With any firmware over 4.0 the tilt servo does not work. I cant do the tilt calibration because one the servo does not get the signal. I've done all other calibrations, even if I connect other servo, it still does work. The problem appears to be in the newer firmware, because there is no corect signal to the tilt servo with any firmware version above 4.0. What could be the problem? configuration is X8

Originally Posted by marrio31

Hi,I've got the green pro Hoverfly board. With firmware 4.0 and older, both servos for gimbal stabilization work normally. With any firmware over 4.0 the tilt servo does not work. I cant do the tilt calibration because one the servo does not get the signal. I've done all other calibrations, even if I connect other servo, it still does work. The problem appears to be in the newer firmware, because there is no corect signal to the tilt servo with any firmware version above 4.0. What could be the problem? configuration is X8

Hi ,
I have an X8 with a green Pro board and didn't have any pb to get the Tilt working fine. So, for sure it's not the firmware.
Alain

Originally Posted by marrio31

Hi,I've got the green pro Hoverfly board. With firmware 4.0 and older, both servos for gimbal stabilization work normally. With any firmware over 4.0 the tilt servo does not work. I cant do the tilt calibration because one the servo does not get the signal. I've done all other calibrations, even if I connect other servo, it still does work. The problem appears to be in the newer firmware, because there is no corect signal to the tilt servo with any firmware version above 4.0. What could be the problem? configuration is X8

I have the same problem, but with the roll, and mine is black HFP & GPS.
I sent a tiket to HF and one I have no answer
As in black HFP roll connector is in the tilt position of the green, the problem must be the new firm, I guess.

I helped set up another guys green board this week with the latest firmware. No problem at all with setting up either tilt or roll on his octo. I havent seen it flying yet or any footage from it so dont know how it went.
On my own black boards both have set up perfectly as well. Footage looks good too.

So i've been having a problem thats been plaguing me since 4.6. The rear arm would drop and come back up like there was a motor dropout. With all the problems on 4.6 I didn't know what was causing what. After having the same problem with 4.8 I started trouble shooting. I replaced the ESC. As soon as I flew it did the same thing but this time there was smoke coming from the motor. The motor cooked. The ship was still flying just fine. I landed and inspected the dead motor and took off again. I flew around the field with and inop motor and it flew nearly as well as if it was working. The only thing I noticed was it seemed a little looser on the pitch axis (the axis the dead motor is on). Once again great job on the firmware.

Will the new uBlox GPS work with V4.8? I need a new GPS after a crash? http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...998&aff=464928

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We have ordered a few of that antenna to test with - we'll make a post when we have more information on its compatibility.

Originally Posted by hoverben

We have ordered a few of that antenna to test with - we'll make a post when we have more information on its compatibility.

I found another GPS that looks like it would work at a lower price than HK. Will this one work or will you guys have to test it first? http://www.uavobjects.com/index.php?...roller=product
http://www.rctimer.com/index.php?gOo...3&productname=


Looks like the competation for making high wuality low cost GPS modules it really heating up.

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