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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 18, 2009 at 8:48pm

Yes, you will get real time telemetery via FTDI (ox Xbee) when the GPS is plugged in. You just can't send data the other way, back to ArduPilot.

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Permalink Reply by Duane Tompkins on December 23, 2009 at 8:50am

If I add a connection lead to my battery input on the ardupilot board, will the voltage be read even if I keep the power coming from the servos? I like the board being powered from the servo's but I need a way to have realtime telemetry passed back to my remote control station before I kill my lipo and I'm hoping this could be my solution. Thanks

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 23, 2009 at 8:58am

yes

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Permalink Reply by Duane Tompkins on December 23, 2009 at 8:58am

Also here is some pictures updating my project

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Permalink Reply by Duane Tompkins on January 1, 2010 at 8:21pm

Has anyone else had the ardupilot board show battery voltage as 3.7 volts instead of the 12.6 volts the 3s lipo is actually putting out? Maybe I missed a step but through the remote telemetry the ardu is only showing 3.7v for my battery. My setup is:

8000mah 3s lipo to dc bus leads from bus to +- on ardupilot battery input. My jumper is still set to servo because I'm using the 5v regulated from my phidget rc pulse board.

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Permalink Reply by Duane Tompkins on January 24, 2010 at 11:01am

Ok I found the answer to my above question is that unless the battery jumper is changed the voltage will only show what is being fed through the servo cables.

The next problem I'm am banging my head on is setting up a custom way to produce a kml file from the data I'm getting through the virtual serial port from the robot. My software is a WPF window done in vb.net using visual studio 10. I want to integrate a bing map or google map that pulls the lat and long from the serail port. So far the only way I know how to do it is run hyperterminal and capture the data to a text file. This doesn't work because when I try to open the text file programmatically, I get an exception thrown because the file is being used by hyperterminal. Any Help?????????? I would just use the labview groundstation but i obviously am using a ground vehicle and don't need altitude nor a plane image. I also don't really want to leave the groundstation open while it parses the data from the ardupilot. Thanks

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AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on January 24, 2010 at 11:33am

Duane,

One of the Arduino analog inputs has been designated by Jordi for measuring the motor LiPo battery irrespective of how the Ardupilot board is being powered. On the Shield board in the upper left hand corner there is a connection for an analog signal on A5. That is where a wire from the motor battery + terminal should be attached. There is a voltage divider on the Shield A5 input that scales the 3S LiPo battery for the Arduino to read. On some of the Shield boards there was an incorrect resistor installed in the voltage divide circuit and would cause erroneous voltage readings.

As for powering the Ardupilot board, the board normally comes setup for being powered though the servo power provided by the R/C receiver. If you want to power the Ardupilot board externally, then, as you have found, you must change the jumper on the Ardupilot board to the "battery" position. In any case there must be a common ground between the Ardupilot board and the motor LiPo battery to be able to mease that voltage no matter how you power the Ardupilot board.

If you are going to power the Ardupilot externally, I would not use a LiPo battery any bigger than 2S to help prevent from overheating the onboard regulator.

Just a thought.

Regards,
TCIII

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Permalink Reply by Duane Tompkins on February 2, 2010 at 8:36am

Are there any vb.net windows presentation foundation guru's that can help me get the data from the serial connection from the ardupilot, parse it and then turn it into a custom kml file?? I've hit road blocks on this part of my project. Thanks

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