G'day all,
I have to say that updates to FC and ESCs are a hot topic of conversation.  There are hundreds of tutorials online about how to flash this and how to update that but there are none, at least that I can find, about WHY.

I have a question for the group, including you @oscarliang

I can understand updating if something isn't working, ie. your motors aren't spinning up the same when armed, or your OSD is flickering or the like but.....   If your quad is flying great, then why do you update?  

There are no wrong answers here.  I'm guilty of it myself.

It seems that in our thirst to be "the first to use" or "but it's the latest and greatest" we give ourselves hours of frustration by updating to the latest firmware/software only to find that something didn't work and now nothing works. (proceed to pulling hair out and swearing in our native tongue). 

Hours of flying time is now wasted searching forums and You Tube videos trying to find out if someone else has the exact same problem with the exact same FC or RSC set-up.
Are we glutton for punishment?

Thanks in advance for your comments

Cheers
Aussie In AZ

"If your quad is flying great, then why do you update?"

I don't.
If i do, then because i read the release notes very carefully and found something that's really important to me (like betaflight 3.0's rc smoothing and notch filters).

Even the quad i build right now is getting betaflight 3.0.1, because with the old fc i can't use dshot anyway. My 3D quad is still on 2.5.4 and will stay there until Boris or anyone realizes the changes that i keep suggesting.

I know what you mean. What's even worse imho, when things aren't backwards-compatible - for example my kissFC configurator on my smartphone got auto-updated, now if i plug in my kissFC with old firmware, it resets everything lol...

There is merit in the "If it ain't broke don't fix it" theory, but with some updates having major improvements to performance and features I find myself updating when something significant comes along that will be worth the hassle of setting up the fc again.

One thing I would recommend is to not update betaflight as soon as releases come out, but to wait the week or two later until the 5+ subsequent patches have made it through to a slightly more polished version.

I have never really had any issues when updating software however, the amount of cli dumps and screenshots might help with that. I might also just be lucky with that side of things

for me it is more like "it flies? don't touch it"
once it is broken on a tree or something you will pick it apart... then you can upgrade...

but if it works... don't break it
unless there is a critical bug fixed like flip of death or smth..

Good to know for a beginner. Tyvm! Everyone

Thanks for your input.

I think there is a little part of our brains that doesn't like to miss out so when an update comes along, it's a natural instinct to want to update.  Maybe there is something in that update that I need.  For the most of us though, there probably isn't. So, like the comments above show, updating is not all that it's cracked up to be.  Heck, I'm still running Mavericks on my Mac cause it does everything I need and it works well for me.  Sure there are some cool features that Yosemite and El Capitan have but I probably would't use them anyway.

For me, at the moment anyway, updates are for fixing something that's not doing what I want it to or should do.  (on my main quad at least  )

Aussie

(07-Mar-2017, 02:19 AM)Aussie In AZ Wrote: Thanks for your input.

I think there is a little part of our brains that doesn't like to miss out so when an update comes along, it's a natural instinct to want to update.  Maybe there is something in that update that I need.  For the most of us though, there probably isn't. So, like the comments above show, updating is not all that it's cracked up to be.  Heck, I'm still running Mavericks on my Mac cause it does everything I need and it works well for me.  Sure there are some cool features that Yosemite and El Capitan have but I probably would't use them anyway.

For me, at the moment anyway, updates are for fixing something that's not doing what I want it to or should do.  (on my main quad at least  )

Aussie

OS X Sierra is the latest version. I just had to

(07-Mar-2017, 02:19 AM)Aussie In AZ Wrote: I think there is a little part of our brains that doesn't like to miss out so when an update comes along, it's a natural instinct to want to update. 

FOMO. Fear of Missing Out.
Hate it, but it rules my life.

There's also the 'if you fall too far behind it'll be painful when you *do* want/need to catch up' school of thought...

Once I have a new build flying well I tend to resist the temptation to upgrade. I've seen too many people take something that they were really happy with end up in lots of pain after a 'must have the latest and greatest'.

I'm a firm believer in the good old 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' maxim.

(10-Mar-2017, 01:24 PM)unseen Wrote: I'm a firm believer in the good old 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' maxim.

I agree but unfortunately there is also the momentary lack of concentration problem due to pop-ups on some platforms.

"There is a newer firmware for your XYZ, Click here to update now" buttons have got me in the past.

Luckily Betaflight doesn't have pop-ups but I guess the temptation to be "up to date" could be removed by using Cleanflight instead.  Correct me if I am wrong but as I read it, Cleanflight only has stable version releases where as Beatflight has the most up to date, albeit with bugs at times.

It would be good to hear from some people who like to be at the cutting edge of updates knowing full well they might have troubles.

Aussie

Actually, as of release 2.0, Cleanflight is now exactly the same as Betaflight!

Dominic scrapped the code at release 1.14.2 of Cleanflight after publishing two previous versions (1.14.0 and 1.14.1) which were full of horrible bugs and were actually causing quads to crash.

I don't think anyone really knows what direction Cleanflight will take in the future. Painless360 chatted with him about it, but the answers didn't make me any wiser.

Since the 3.0 release of Betaflight, it's actually been very stable and the current 3.1.6 release is rock solid.

I've been a victim of the "latest and greatest" syndrome when Tarot released the 1.4 firmware upgrade for the ZYX-M FC. I was about the first one to download it, and first flight basically cost me a $1,500.00 quad. It's been 8 months and it's still all they talk about ZYX-M thread. Worst part was that when you flashed the FW, it also upgraded the GPS module and when you realized the FW was crap and went back to 1.04, you couldn't do the same for the GPS and it was useless. Tarot made a killing on GPS units though. Looking back, it was actually kinda funny watching my quad flying on it's own at full throttle for 5 minutes chasing an imaginary home point that didn't exist..............and yes before you ask, I had like 3 different failsafe functions set up and it just ignored them all.

Ouch!

It's one thing burying your mini quad in the mud after an ill advised upgrade but significantly more painful when it happens on a big camera ship.

Was there nothing left to salvage?

(10-Mar-2017, 03:09 PM)unseen Wrote: Ouch!

It's one thing burying your mini quad in the mud after an ill advised upgrade but significantly more painful when it happens on a big camera ship.

Was there nothing left to salvage?

Yes, but not a lot.  Frame, landing gear and gimbal were a write-off, but I just looked at it as an excuse to upgrade.

After battling with ESCs with a dodgy firmware from the factory and flight controllers which ship with "current" firmware I now strongly believe in flashing everything during the build process to the versions of software/firmware that are considered stable by the community.

Two reasons:
1. It can really suck having to remove ESCs and wire directly to the processor to flash them with a Bootloader to allow easier future flashing. Also if you haven't flashed the parts on the bench you won't necessarily know if it's able to be flashed in-frame (obscured jumpers or something).
2. You're building with a known point of reference, not something that you think or are pretty sure is right. eMax ESCs and their every so slightly tweaked BLHeli for example. Yes it's BLHeli, but damn they don't behave like everyone else BLHeli. For a beginer this makes things very very hard, as all the guides and help online is always based on things being a "vanilla" version of the various firmwares.

Once it's flying to your satisfaction I'm pretty sure messing with stuff isn't worth the risk. As I buy older (cheaper) stuff and just paddock fly getting that last bit of performance from the latest firmware doesn't help. Why try to be on the newest BLHeli with DoubleShot when realistically my ESCs hardware combo hit peak development with Oneshot125 and subsequent updates from that point are minor improvements if there's any at all.