Performance issues while using LED ring

[theseankelly]

Hey All

I've got a crazyflie 2.0. When I fly with the LED ring add-on, I'm perceiving some performance issues. The copter seems a little bit sluggish and slow to respond -- it feels more pronounced than what I might expect from weight alone.

Furthermore, there were a few cases where the copter got a second or so behind what I was doing with the controller -- thrust was delayed, etc.

Is the code driving the LED ring in contention with the main controller/stabilizer? Is it possible driving the LEDs is simply starving the flight controller or the SysLink handler?

Sean

[chad]

Hi Sean,

I have a Crazyflie 2 with a LED ring and I haven't noticed any significant performance hits from the ring with the exception of a slight change in dynamics due to the weight increase. It's been some time since I've flown with it though so maybe I should try it out again to be sure.

I don't think there's an appreciable strain on the MCU to handle the LED ring task. Some time ago, I replicated Bitcraze's Neopixel ring hack on my Crazyflie 1.0 and even that didn't have an issue with the extra work. It was a little worse on flight time though as the Crazyflie 1 doesn't have nearly the payload capacity as the 2.0. That second link (Arnaud's Bitcraze blog post) describes the LED driver they used in the CF1 and I believe it isn't significantly different for the CF2. An interesting read even if most it is over my head!

In any case, I'll try to fly my Crazyflie 2 with the ring tonight or tomorrow and see if I notice a big difference in performance like what you saw.