ArduCopter Traditional Heli (was: "600-size heli")
I have just bought the ArduPilot Mega 2560 Full Kit... plus the Triple Axis Magnetometer HMC5883L. I should have it built over the weekend.. then i'm off to a my mates machine shop, and i'll make the splitter plate for the lower frame onto which i am going to fit the Ardupilot. the magnetometer i'll put on the tail as suggested. I am going to use my X-cell Razor 600E. For those that dont know its around the 50 size nitro heli.
Do i need to buy any other sensors i.e. the Sonar... i can fly a helicopter all day long but this is my first time flying one with stabilisation so any tips would be gratefully appreciated.
If this works well then i am going to try and use it on my x-cell gasser. i can get up to 20 minute flights with this. But i think for the time being a battery 600 is the way to go.
i'll post some pictures when i have it all together.
Tags: helicopter, instructions
Replies to This Discussion
-
DeveloperPermalink Reply by R_Lefebvre on -
IMO, ditch the ext. gyro. I would in fact like to just remove support for that entirely. It's completely unnecessary as the internal gyro code is working very well now, and the ext. gyro stuff just confuses people.
-
Permalink Reply by Kranston Kincaid on -
Guys, I know there is probably a post out there somewhere but I have been up all through the night reading and an getting nowhere. So here is the problem. I received the APM 2.5 yesterday, plugged it in and was able to download the firmware and everything worked for about 5 mins. GREAT. Unplugged it, went to grab a few parts from the store and when I try to connect it to the computer now, Windows doesn't recognized the USB device. I have tried 5 different cables as one post suggested. NO LUCK. I have check the solder joint around the USB connector. LOOKS GREAT. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the Mission planner and drivers. I have tried 5 different computers. STILL NO LUCK. What is going on? When I plug the APM in the alive LED is on and occasionally the blue light labeled C will come on. Even the GPS will have a solid red light with a blue blinking but that's it. When it did connect, the HUD in the Mission Planner said disarm and did not report any data. Does anyone have any suggestions or a place to point me. I'm a little bummed that this thing is seems to be a brick.
-
Permalink Reply by Jeff Smith on -
Look in your divice manager and see what port (if any?) the APM is connecting to, make sure that it is set correctly in mission planner. I have a pair of APM's that like to come up on different ports between them (one is port 5, the other port 6). Maybe it changed ports with the firmware change?
P.s. do you know where to land the Optical Flow sensor on the new board?
-
Permalink Reply by Kranston Kincaid on
-
Thanks, but its not giving it a port. It was on 8 then 9. However Windows is saying the device is unrecognized. Doesn't even show that it is a ArduMega at all. The device doesn't have an ID. Not sure what to do. Seems like a hardware issue.
As for the additional sensor, I'm sure it's the I2C input. (the small connector on the opposite end of the GPS port)
-
Permalink Reply by Kranston Kincaid on
-
So I plugged the USB in a little angled and I'm back up. Problem now, what does disarmed on the Mission Planner mean? How do I get it to show the responses of the APM.
-
Permalink Reply by Jeff Smith on
-
Disarmed is just the status of the APM, if you wanted to arm it you would give full negative throttle and right rudder for 4 seconds. Not part of your problem...
Bummer on the bunk USB port. I think that issue is fairly common on all these tiny boards with tiny USB connectors :-/ Good argument for going tith the 3DR radio stuff though ;-)
The I2C is for the external Mag, the Optical flow connects to SPI somewhere... I think
-
Permalink Reply by Kranston Kincaid on
-
Back to the same ole issue. I guess I am just going to return this one. Argh. So much for my Drone
-
DeveloperPermalink Reply by Randy on -
maybe you just need a new mini usb cable instead of a new APM board?
-
Permalink Reply by Jeff Smith on
-
Little progress report here.
I spent this weekend soldering on the APM 2.5 in preparation for install in the 600. Most of it went quick, but some of it was a real pain... Some notes for future users.
1- The external compass requires the cutting of a trace between solder pads that are about 6mm inboard of the 5883L chip. It is labeled "MAG" in the Eagle files, but failed to be printed on the board.
2- You will need the PX4 connector for the external mag as they "updated" the connector and now it has only 4 pins (THAT ARE IN A DIFFERENT ORDER THAN THEY WERE!). I pulled the connector and went through hole with my extension cable, but a heads up for others. As an amendment to 2.0 one would have thought they might have made a NOTE somewhere???
3- If you want an Optical Flow sensor the *ONLY* way I found was to solder straight to the bits of exposed pads around the Data Flash chip. It's the only place to pull/push 3.3v SPI without wigging out the MPU-6000. If you even touch the MOSI of the 6000 with a probe the capacitance is enough to scramble the SPI. The Mega SPI/ISP (5v) pins will not work with the OF sensor, neither will the SPI/ISP (5v) for the 32-U2...
Hopefully I am missing something with the OF sensor... can't imagine 3DR forgot to give us a (3.3v) place to plug it in AGAIN???
-
DeveloperPermalink Reply by Randy on -
Jeff,
Maybe you put the note re the OF sensor on the OF wiki as well..but i'll reply here just in case that wasn't you. So I hope that we can use the little gps port on the front right of the 2.5 board for the OF sensor. It says "SPI" although i'm slighlty unsure which of the two SPI ports it refers to.
As you say, if it's the wrong SPI bus (i.e the one one shared with the MPU6000) and the pins are on the wrong side of the 3v<->5v level converter like they were on the APM2 then we will have trouble. Note: the 3v<->5v converter is required because the 2560 runs at 5v while the mpu6000 runs at 3.3v.
Jordi & Co are aware of the SPI & level converter issues so it's possible they fixed them in 2.5.
-
Permalink Reply by Jeff Smith on
-
Randy, that was me on the Wiki, just figured people would end up there is they googled or went to the APM wiki as opposed to the forum.
The ports at right front are for the GPS, the "SPI" is labled for the ISP/SPI binhind them for the Atmega32U2 and are 5v, I did try them though :-)
In the Eagle files it shows 2 of the pins I'm using going to TX3-I and TX3-O, but it looks like they just via to nowhere, but I think maybe they were for the OF?
Be nice to know what's up for sure though...
-
DeveloperPermalink Reply by R_Lefebvre on -
Cutting of a trace to disable the mag? I thought there was supposed to be a jumper? That's what the announcement said anyway.
Social Networking
Top Content
Contests
Season Two of the Trust Time Trial (T3) Contest has now begun. The fourth round is an accuracy round for multicopters, which requires contestants to fly a cube. The deadline is April 14th.A list of all T3 contests is here.
Groups
-
Andropilot Users Group
203 members
-
ArduCopter User Group
1355 members
-
Moderators
24 members
-
ArduRover User Group
207 members
-
Japan ArduCopter Group
58 members
Advertisement
© 2013 Created by Chris Anderson.
Powered by
