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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 22, 2011 at 11:35pm

You're ahead of me! I haven't finished that part of the manual yet ;-)

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Permalink Reply by john seaman on December 22, 2011 at 11:48pm

OK, found it.  Poking around with the DVM a little, J1 needs to be jumpered if the ESC BEC is going to power the board.

I know the documentation is a little lean at this point, but for $199 it would be nice to at least throw in the jumper itself so the board can be used "as shipped". Gotta find one of those small a$$ jumpers now...

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 22, 2011 at 11:55pm

I think all the boards shipped this week (ie, after last week's batch) had those pins both soldered and jumpered. Perils of being first...I'm sure the store will send you some jumpers if you ask.

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Permalink Reply by john seaman on December 23, 2011 at 12:00am

No worries, don't have one handy so the soldering iron is powering up now.  :-)

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Permalink Reply by tuckerobie on December 23, 2011 at 4:38pm

Mine did ship with the jumpers.

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Permalink Reply by Tiaan Roux on December 25, 2011 at 12:54pm

Hi Chris

I am busy setting up my APM2. I understand you are still updating the manuals or I missed the info somewhere? I am new to APM so I would rather ask than assume.

Just want to find out how the powering of the board works w.r.t. using a separate power source. How would I go about using a 2 cell 2100 mah Lipo as a source to power APM directly as the APM2 instructions refer back to APM1 instructions and that involves the SJ1 solder jumper? Preferably I would like to power both APM2 and my servos off the 2S and leave my motor supply separate on a 3S. I have a 3A 5v switching UBEC that I can use with the 2S and my APM2 also shipped with the above mentioned jumpers and connectors..

Thanks.

ps. Great work on APM2!

Regards, Tiaan

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 25, 2011 at 1:58pm

Tiaan: You can't use a battery directly. It must go through a power regulator such as an ESC.  So just use your UBEC (connected through a spare Output pin) and make sure the jumper is on, and you'll be fine. 

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Permalink Reply by Tiaan Roux on December 25, 2011 at 2:14pm

Thanks Chris. Ok so just to double quadruple check confirm, 2S Lipo > standalone UBEC > spare output pin, plus jumper on JP1. Then seperately ESC (no BEC) connects to 3S Lipo and throttle/output 3 for normal motor control only.?Have no desire to fry anything on the first connection. :)

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 25, 2011 at 3:03pm

Yes, just make sure you don't have the red wires connecting from your PDB/ESCs and the APM2 in that configuration (it wouldn't fry your board, but you've have current conflict, which would drain your batteries fast) 

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Permalink Reply by Tiaan Roux on December 25, 2011 at 3:08pm

Thanks Chris. Appreciate the help. :)