ESC arming issue (Turnigy Plush 40)
Received my purple yesterday, just in time for Xmas ;) Connected it all to my quad and it all seems to work (radio input, sensors, xbee).
What I can't get to work right now is the arming of the ESCs. I can arm the APM and verified outputs 1-4 with a servo (raw/radio view shows 1-4 output going up when adding throttle). But because the ESCs do not arm the motors do not spin up.
When powering the system up the ESC play the short melody. This is normally followed by a beep for each cell and then a long beep. However this part does not happen right now. Once in a blue moon, ESC number 4 arms and spins.
I calibrated all 4 ESC manually and they arm properly when connected directly to the receiver. Also tried to calibrate them with a trim offset to make sure they take a higher signal as 0 throttle. The calibration through the APM does not seem to work. The light do the dance on the initial power-up. But the ESCs do not seem to get the high throttle signal on the second power-up.
Could it be that my ESCs do not like the signal from the APM? It worked with APM1, KK and multiwii...
For now I'm out of ideas. Any input is appreciated.
Thanks, Andreas
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Andreas on -
So far no good. I really wanted this fix to work. But I'm still seeing the same problem that the ESCs do not arm. The workaround of powering the board first and then the ESCs still works. I had to do several rounds of erasing/resetting/uploading until my APM was working again.
@Vishal, did your ESCs arm or were you just happy to get over that leveling issue?
I always calibrate my ESCs manually. The new APM way never worked, but I'm guessing it's related to the ESCs bad state. Would this be the correct sequence?
1) Full throttle
2) Power ESCs / APM, wait for lights
3) Power off
4) Power ESCs / APM, wait for lights
5) Zero throttle
6) Power off
Done
-
Permalink Reply by Vishal on -
Last night I gave it a quick try and the esc's didn't arm. But, I haven't gone through the recalibration yet. So I want to do that and try again. I'll post back once I've had a chance to do that.
-
3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on -
Yes, that is the correct arming sequence. The manual describes it all here. Please remember that you must calibrate your RC first, too.
Unfortunately nobody on the dev team can replicate the problems you guys are having with the ESCs. It's worked fine on every ESC type we've tested. Andreas, what kind of ESCs are you using?
-
Permalink Reply by Andreas on
-
Turnigy Plush 40 v3.1
Did you run 2.2 b4 through the logic analyzer to see if that pulse is gone now? Mark ordered an analyzer too and we can try to capture the output at that time.
However as posted earlier I do have one 3.1 plush in my collection that acts differently:
"I found this work-around because I noticed that one out of 7 Turnigy Plus 40 ESCs always armed, none of the others did. The version printed on the ESC is the same (3.1), but the capacitors between the power connection are parallel to the wires instead of perpendicular. This is the only ESC in my collection that arms properly if plugged into the receiver AFTER being powered up."
-
Permalink Reply by Vishal on
-
Still no luck on the arming. But, to buy new esc's wouldn't cost that much. I'm willing to do so but just want to make sure that whichever ones I get will work. Chris are you using the Plush esc's? If so, what version do you have?
-
3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on -
Vishal: we use the official Jdrones and 3DR ESCs.
-
Permalink Reply by david.wiens on
-
can I have your esc's if you get new ones?
-
Permalink Reply by Vishal on
-
LOL, you would! I may end up making a second quad and use the current esc's with the old board since it works fine.
-
3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on -
Yes, this is the new output pattern at startup, which is what we intended. The pin is held high by a pull-up resistor at startup, then goes low once active PWM control commences.
I don't have any Turnigy Plus 40 v3.1 ESCs I can test, I'm afraid. There are so many different ESCs out there with so many different firmware revisions, there will always be some that act funky. We'll try to support as many as possible, but there are limits to how many different kinds we can test.
-
Permalink Reply by Andreas on
-
Lovely graph! Did the APM1 also hold the pin up? If so, then there should be no reason whatsoever for the ESCs to act differently on the APM2. If it was low on the APM1 until the PWM starts, then maybe that is the difference. In which case it could not be solved through software.
Maybe the patch worked but my build is not the correct one...
-
Permalink Reply by Ellison Chan on -
Well, I haven't read all the posts, but sounds like these Plush ESCs wants to get PWM from the receiver before at the time their powered up. Since you are powering the APM2 from the ESC's power, the APM2 will always power up slight after the ESCs. It may be that timing between when the APM2 powers up and the time it actually sends PWM is too long.
On my APM1, I enabled the regulator jumper for external power, and plug my battery directly into the APM. If you try this for the APM2, this could solve the problem by enabling the APM to startup earlier relative to the ESCs. If that feature is still available on the APM2
-
Permalink Reply by Martin Szymanski on
-
Don't place LIPO battery voltage to the ESC's while configuring your build. When there are beeps it is important to NOT have propellers connected. Just being safe:-)
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
-
ArduCopter User Group
1355 members
-
ArduRover User Group
206 members
-
Documentation Editors
52 members
-
ArduPlane User Group
719 members
-
Andropilot Users Group
203 members
Advertisement
© 2013 Created by Chris Anderson.
Powered by
