Release Notes for Version 1.4
Copyright © 2014 Bdale Garbee and Keith Packard
Version 1.4 is a major release. It includes support for our new
TeleGPS product, new features and bug fixes in in the flight
software for all our boards and the AltosUI ground station
AltOS new features:
-
Add support for TeleGPS boards.
-
Make the beeper tone configurable, making it
possible to distinguish between two Altus Metrum
products in the same ebay.
-
Make the firing time for extra pyro channels
configurable, allowing longer (or shorter) than the
default 50ms. Only relevant for TeleMega at this
time.
AltOS fixes:
-
Replace the dit dit dit tones at startup with the
current battery voltage, measured in tenths of a
volt. This lets you check the battery voltage
without needing telemetry, which is especially
useful on EasyMini.
-
Change state beeping to "Farnsworth spacing", which
means they’re quite a bit faster than before, and so
they take less time to send.
-
Fix bug preventing the selection of the Flight
State After mode in pyro configuration.
-
Fix bug where erasing flights would reset the flight
number to 2 on TeleMega and TeleMetrum v2.
-
Fix u-Blox GPS driver to mark course and speed data
as being present.
AltosUI new features:
-
Add zooming and new content types (terrain and road
maps) to map view. Change map storage format from
PNG to Jpeg, which saves a huge amount of disk
space. You will need to re-download all of your
pre-loaded map images.
-
Add a distance measuring device to the maps
view. Select this by using any button other than the
left one, or by pressing shift or control on the
keyboard while using the left button.
-
Add new Ignitor tab to the flight monitor display
for TeleMega’s extra ignitors.
-
Add additional ignitor firing marks and voltages to
the graph so you can see when the ignitors fired,
along with the ignitor voltages.
-
Add GPS course, ground speed and climb rate as
optional graph elements.
AltosUI fixes:
-
When flashing new firmware, re-try opening the
device as sometimes it takes a while for the
underlying operating system to recognize that the
device has rebooted in preparation for the flashing
operation.
-
Hide Tilt Angle in ascent tab for devices that don’t
have a gyro.
-
Increase the width of data lines in the graphs to
make them easier to read.
-
Filter out speed and acceleration spikes caused by
ejection charge firing when computing the maximum
values. This provides a more accurate reading of
those maximums.
-
Fix EasyMini voltage displays. Early EasyMini
prototypes used a 3.0V regulator, and AltosUI still
used that value as the basis of the
computation. Production EasyMini boards have always
shipped with a 3.3V regulator. Also, purple EasyMini
boards sensed the battery voltage past the blocking
diode, resulting in a drop of about 150mV from the
true battery voltage. Compensate for that when
displaying the value.
-
Display error message when trying to configure
maximum flight log size while the flight computer
still has flight data stored.
-
Handle TeleMetrum and TeleMini eeprom files
generated with pre-1.0 firmware. Those ancient
versions didn’t report the log format, so just use
the product name instead.
-
New application designed for use with TeleGPS boards.
-
Shares code with AltosUI, mostly just trimmed down
to focus on TeleGPS-related functions.
Documentation changes:
-
Re-create the drill template images; they should
print correctly from Firefox at least. Ship these as
individual PDF files so they’re easy to print.
-
Add a description of the Apogee Lockout setting,
which prevents the apogee charge from firing for a
configurable amount of time after boost.