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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on August 12, 2011 at 11:53am

Gotcha. Those older APM boards don't need to be powered via the RC rail. It sounds like there's something funky about those servo programmers you're using as a RC stand-in. How are they powered? 

 

Also, I'm clear I'm following. Are you saying the Ch 1 and 2 inputs are being read, but not 3? Or that the 1 and 2 outputs are working? BTW, none of the outputs should give meaningful values until you'd done a radio setup (ready the inputs)

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Permalink Reply by worrell.dennis on August 12, 2011 at 12:17pm

At the moment I've got the three programmers plugged into IN0, IN1, and IN7, a 5V power supply plugged into OUT2 like it shows in the wiki under RC setup. Here's a screenshot from APM planner after I ran the RC setup, moving all 3 programmers.

 

http://i.imgur.com/ukB0b.jpg

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on August 12, 2011 at 12:38pm

The first two channels look normal. You're wondering why the mode switch channel (In7 on that old board; In8 now) input isn't showing?

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Permalink Reply by worrell.dennis on August 12, 2011 at 12:42pm

That's correct. It won't show any change during the radio setup or the terminal PWM test for any input pins IN2 through IN7. IN7 was just the one I tested for that screenshot. I've tested all three programmers on the two working pins, IN0 and IN1, so I know all three are good.

 

Edit: The programmers can be powered with 5V batteries, or can draw power from the RC rail like I have been doing. I've tested both ways and haven't noticed any difference.

 

Thanks for the quick replies!

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on August 12, 2011 at 12:50pm

Not sure. When we updated the board to APM 1.4 we changed to a new power system to avoid inputs getting blown, and haven't heard of problems like these since. There's aren't many of those old 1.0 boards still out there (I don't even have one myself anymore), so I'm afraid I can't even try to replicate. Do you have a 1.4 board you can use instead?

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Permalink Reply by worrell.dennis on August 16, 2011 at 1:33pm

I don't have a 1.4 board at the moment but I'm starting to think that getting one will be my best option. I know this board's been crashed at least twice by the person I'm borrowing it from so it's very possible something is broken.

Thanks for the advice! I'm sure I'll be back begging for help sooner rather than later...

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Permalink Reply by elad o on April 19, 2012 at 8:24am

sorry to bring this up but i'm having a similar problem only that in my case its the 1.4 version and channels 5-7 showing 1500+- and channel 8 showing 1088 and not moving everything was fine before i switched to turnigy 9x from dx6i and now

i cant switch modes and looks like it stop responding did you happen to find a solution to your problem?

Attachments:

• apm problem.jpg, 232 KB

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by John Arne Birkeland on April 20, 2012 at 12:18am

elad o: If you have a programmer, try updating the PPM Encoder firmware. http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/Encoder

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