Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by robincfey on July 23, 2012 at 3:01am

any luck yet??? im currently doing the same thing as you , already im having issues setting up ardupilot mega how do you have yours setup??? wiring etc .... and can u send your param file????

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Permalink Reply by Ted Van Slyck on October 4, 2012 at 12:45pm

Any luck getting solid PID's guys? I just set up my EPP FPV with an APM 2 and would love a good starting point, but I'll post mine if no one else does. 

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Permalink Reply by blinder11011 on November 1, 2012 at 1:14am

good luck

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Permalink Reply by Leo Hogg on November 2, 2012 at 2:50am

I dont suppose you have made the same mistake as me BUT, I used the powerful little canopy magnets as supplied and installed the Ardupilot about 2” away. Its tracking was like me cycling home from the pub.

 

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Permalink Reply by Steven G on November 15, 2012 at 6:32pm

I did the same on my EZ. I think the strong magnets, even the ones on the motor, will affect the sensitive magnetometer on the APM 2. Near as I can tell, for fixed wing, the compass plays a minor role. It may be better to unenable the compass.

BR,

Steven

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Andrew Tridgell on November 19, 2012 at 1:19pm

Hi Steven,

What role the compass plays depends on the configuration. The main options are MAG_ENABLE and COMPASS_USE. If MAG_ENABLE is set to 1 and COMPASS_USE is set to 1 then the primary yaw source will be the compass. In that case strong magnets in the plane will make a difference, although if you have COMPASS_LEARN set to 1 then the APM will learn to cope with those magnets quite well in most cases, by learning the compass offsets.

If you are worried about the magnets then what I'd recommend you do is initially fly with MAG_ENABLE set to 1 but COMPASS_USE set to 0. That tells the APM to log the magnetometer data, but not use it for navigation. The GPS will be used for heading instead. Then look at your tlog in Mission Planner and graph the 'mag_field'. If your magnetic field is reasonably constant during a flight then it is safe to turn on the compass. If it varies a lot, then it is better to use the GPS.

Note that you cannot use the GPS for heading at very low speeds, so you can't use it for takeoff.

I'm planning to change the COMPASS_USE to take a 3rd value '2' which will mean "auto". Once that is implemented it will automatically switch between using the GPS and the compass depending on your speed and how much magnetic field variation the compass is seeing.

Cheers, Tridge

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Permalink Reply by Steven G on November 19, 2012 at 1:30pm

Thank u Trdge. Auto sounds like the ticket. The software is fantastic but understanding all the nuances is quite a challenge. Thanks again for ur dedication. I guess there will always b one last thing to implement.
BR,
Steven

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Brown on March 18, 2013 at 6:37am

Having just purchased an EPPFPV and APM2.5 was wondering if anyone has a param file for this set up to get me going...

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Permalink Reply by Ted Van Slyck on March 18, 2013 at 8:30am

Sorry mine is long gone, but it was easy to tune. Reinforce the horizontal stab, mine ripped off several times from normal landings.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Brown on March 19, 2013 at 2:13am

Thanks for the advice, I am certainly doing some common sense "modifications" to the stock plane to beef it up a bit.

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