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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on January 4, 2013 at 7:37pm

Have you been through the Troubleshooting Guide here? That covers all the usual setup errors that can cause this.

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Permalink Reply by Jimmy robson on January 4, 2013 at 7:51pm

yes i have thanks for the reply, i just tried booting the board back through usb too check the settings now more errrs, the board wont pop up in device mananger or open a port, the board still powers and i can connect via radio to MP even though its powered on USB, but i cant load usb, tried resetttign and nothing.

 

just not my day

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on January 4, 2013 at 7:58pm

Please contact tech support from the store you bought it from.

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Permalink Reply by Jimmy robson on January 4, 2013 at 8:03pm

its an rc timer board so i doubt they will be in the office,

 

Just hit reset, reloaded the arudino drivers and BAM, go tthe apm loaded via usb,

 

Now just have the problem of esc's that dont arm, pheww.

also i tested the output and with the apm armed and throttle rising i go from 2.8v to 4.6 v steadily, so theres output voltage just no esc's

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on January 4, 2013 at 8:11pm

I wish you'd said it was a RCTimer board at the start. That's a clone and we don't support it.

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Permalink Reply by Drone Savant on January 6, 2013 at 6:27pm

"That's a clone and we don't support it." Who is *we* again? Jimmy don't worry you CAN come to the DIYDrones community for support. What you can not do is email support at the 3drobotics company for help. 

One of the developers was nice enough to *support* you a little bit but pointing out that you can go here for extra help - http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1752761 

Chris is wearing his 3drobotics hat while here on these forums. Although the company supports clones in the Open Source sense (http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/05/19/cloned-open-source-hardware...) they do not *support* the hardware from a technical support standpoint. 

It can be confusing when someone on the forums says "WE" don't support that. 

 

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Permalink Reply by Drone Savant on January 6, 2013 at 6:39pm

So Jimmy contrary to popular belief the troubleshooting steps for your RCTimer board are no different than any other APM board that you may have purchased. That board can come from China or from Mexico and the troubleshooting process is the same. 

We should be able to help you narrow down the problem regardless of where you purchased the board. 

Have you tried using a servo on the output ports instead of an ESC? You could try using the APM Dancing Servos Demo and see if the outputs actually work at all - http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/DevTools/Arduino/ArduPilotMega_d... I *think* this program still works with the newer boards, if not there should be an equivalent around somewhere. 

You should expect behavior as follows: 

If that does not work your outputs may be fried or your PPM encoder could be aggravated as well. 

Chris has pointed out in another thread that the PPM encoder update mechanism on the RCTimer board may be broken. I would pick up a USBAsp - http://www.ebay.com/itm/USBASP-USBISP-AVR-Programmer-ATMEL-ATMEGA8-... and perhaps attempt to put *known* good PPM encoder firmware onto the PPM encoder chip. (you should try the USB DFU method first, I have not personally confirmed it does not work, going on Chris there)

Good luck. Feel free to Private Message me if you get stuck... don't be discouraged by those folks that like to act as if they can not help you. (It is a myth that they can always help you JUST because you purchased from them btw). 

Also I assume you have already done an ESC -> Straight to RX test on the throttle channel (props off of course)

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Permalink Reply by Tony Coppock on May 14, 2013 at 9:48am

Hello DS,

I was curious what program you would use with that USBasp? avrdude? winavr? studio 6?

I have confirmed that I do not have my bootloader and want to load one and then update my PPM hex to the latest one.

Thanks in advance for your input!

Tony

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Permalink Reply by Drone Savant on May 14, 2013 at 9:51am

I usually rock avrdude with USBAsp. If you are an Arduino user you can cheat and use the avrdude package bundled within. 

Best of luck! If you get stuck you can send it to me and I'll gladly give it a shot for ya. 

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Permalink Reply by Tony Coppock on May 14, 2013 at 10:48am

Ok, I'll download Studio 6 then as avrdude comes with that.

Thanks !

I'll report back whether I get it to work or not.

Permalink Reply by Wilfred Swinkels on May 14, 2013 at 11:59am

Hi Drone,

reading your posts, I'm guessing your are the (my) go to guy with technical questions.

here goes 

I had a ESC which gave 8.5V on the 5 V line....so I fried the APM2.5 board

There seems to be no communication on the USB port.

I exhanged the atmega32U3 and flashed it via ISP including bootloader

still no comms with USB. I can flash the 2560 via ISP ...but when updating via usb the green bar gets to the M of Marooned and then

communication error - no connection.

nothing is hot didnt see any magic smoke ...no craterered black tiles ...

checked diodes fuses etc...

do you have a hint where to look ...the schematic is not very clear on how the usb communication runs to the 2560 via 32u2 ...

don't spare any technical jibberish ...i can follow :-)

Thanks, Wilfred

Permalink Reply by Drone Savant on May 15, 2013 at 9:37pm

Wilfred Swinkels I wish I could say I had looked at an APM that closely in the past 6 months or so. I am getting a bit rusty in non stm32 based gear. I did however do something similar in the past & wound up that I had fried something inside the 2560 itself. 

I started to repair it, but I wound up changing my mind (and bought my first DJI product) in the end. =] 

I *wish* I was your man, alas this time perhaps Camen is your goto woman? 

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