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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on July 11, 2012 at 12:43pm

Is that in manual mode? And do you also have ailerons (plugged into Output 1)?

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Permalink Reply by Andy Grose on July 11, 2012 at 12:59pm

Yes, it is in manual mode.  When I put it in Stabilize mode and move the plane around, the elevators respond correctly if the plane is pitched nose-down.  No response if pitched nose-up.

 

Dual aileron servos are plugged into a Y-cable and into Output 1 of the APM2.  Ailerons function normally.

 

If it helps, my radio setup is a Hitec Optic 6 with an Electron 6 receiver.

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Permalink Reply by Andy Grose on July 13, 2012 at 1:36pm

Quick update on this...

Since I don't have a solution to using the v-tail with APM2, I decided to disconnect the v-tail mixer and run elevator only (both elevator servos to a Y-cable).  I was able to fly the airplane yesterday afternoon without issue. We actually cut a rudder out of the bottom fin and installed a servo for independent rudder control.  It wasn't very effective in the end.  I would still like to have a working V-tail on this, so if anybody has any ideas, please share them.

 

Andy

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Permalink Reply by Fête Mobile on July 27, 2012 at 3:03pm

I'm in more or less the same position.  I am using ArduPlane in a V-tail glider.  I disabled V-tail mixing on the radio and have been using a Turnigy V-tail mixer from the outputs of the APM.  That worked for a while, despite the slow update rate of the Turnigy mixer.  I ordered a "200 step" GWS V-tail mixer which doesn't work as a V-tail mixer.  Strangely, it will mix any two channels together, except for elevator and rudder.  I can mix Elevon, Flaperon, "Throttlevator", "Rudderleron" etc. etc. but when I mix the two channels that you would normally expect from a "V-tail Mixer" (as the package describes it) it barely moves the servos at all.  I've tried it with two transmitters and 3 receivers, plus the APM, always with the same result! 

Anyhow, I recently fried my tail servos and v-tail mixer in a wiring mishap (and hope I haven't fried the APM) so now I'm left wondering what to do.  I've picked up some replacement servos, but don't want to go back to the V-tail mixer.  It seems like it shouldn't be too hard to implement V-tail demixing/mixing in the APM.  Is there a compelling reason not to do so?  I suspect there would be few customers for such a feature, but here are two!  I'm planning to give it a go. 

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Permalink Reply by Fête Mobile on March 26, 2013 at 9:47pm

Hi Andy.  I finally got around to implementing V-Tail mixing in the AP2.68 firmware.  It would be great if other folks could test it out, so if you're still wanting to do V-tail mixing, you can find information on the thread I started:

http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/v-tail-mixing-in-firmware

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