Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rui Manuel Cravo Marques on June 23, 2011 at 5:33pm

Not beeing an expert, by what you describe, seems to me the IMU is not comunicating with APM. That happened to me some days ago after a somehow violent flight. Seems that some of my weldings were not 100% even if they looked like.I would advise you to recheck all the weldings, and if any of them is in short circuit. Even if they look ok, re weld some of them (the ones from the connectors).

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Permalink Reply by Joe on June 23, 2011 at 6:17pm

Thanks for the suggestion.  I re-soldered every pin, but it did not fix the problem.

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Permalink Reply by Helitrasher on June 24, 2011 at 3:39am

Sounds like corrupted firmware, just reload via ARDUINO

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on June 24, 2011 at 7:06am

Keep the Mission Planner terminal open and the USB connected and post what it shows when you reboot with the slider switch in flight mode. There is a lot of diagnostic info coming over that port before MAVLink kicks in.

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Permalink Reply by Joe on June 24, 2011 at 3:35pm

Between last night and today I don't believe I did anything differently, but for some reason it is working now. 

 

LED A still would not come on unless the motor signals were plugged in after the APM was booted.  Is this the standard?  I could not find this in the manual and I do not remember reading it.  I read 'If you've kept the four-wire connector from APM to the power disconnected for safety, now is the time to connect it.'  Is this referencing the signal wires?

 

First few flights have been a new success!  It looks like I have a new leaf blower as tree droppings were flying everywhere.

 

Thanks for the help!

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Permalink Reply by Limebear (Rob) on June 25, 2011 at 11:28am

Yes, its the four wire signal cable to the ESCs that's soldered to the Power Distribution Board on a standard AC2, and plugs into the four lowest numbered outputs of the APM board (nearest the edge of the R/A connectors)

Rob

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Permalink Reply by Rui Manuel Cravo Marques on June 26, 2011 at 1:04am

Hello again. As I told you before, same happened to me and I rebuild the weldings thinking it could be that (since my problem solved with that), well, yesterday it happened again after a crash against a kitchen stool where 2 motors got stalled. The APM went crazy again with the symptoms described here (not booting properlly, leds not going thru the sequence, etc.), so I went recheking the weldings and everything ok, I pressed the boards together but still nothing, so I was loosing my faith, I unplugged everything, left the building to cool off, and after a couple of hours, plugged everything again and it was working again. I believe now that it has nothing to do with bad contacts or weldings (since it was working fine). Maybe after a surcharge or current feedback from the motors the IMU seems to go crazy, and maybe 1 component stays charged or with reverse polaryzation (I'm not an electronics expert) and it needs to loose the charge. This happend to me the first time when my quad flipped over and damaged a motor, and the second time now when it crashed againt the stool. So, something to do with motors getting stopped suddendly by force, I believe.

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on June 26, 2011 at 8:15am

Whenever you have problems like this, it's possible that a crash has corrupted the EEPROM. Do a CLI reset/clear and then set it up again

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Permalink Reply by Joe on June 26, 2011 at 9:35am

The four-wire connector can be left attached the entire time correct? 

 

"If you've kept the four-wire connector from APM to the power disconnected for safety..."  The "If" got me because I did not keep it disconnected for safety, I had the batteries removed instead.

 

Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Limebear (Rob) on June 27, 2011 at 1:47am

The yellow safety advice boxes that are scattered around the manual use beautifully ambiguous English, but their intention is to say leave the 4-wire cable disconnected at all times except when you need it connected.

The danger time is when the APM is rebooting, which is for example immediately after you plug in the USB cable, even if the board is already powered.

Rob

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Permalink Reply by Joe on June 27, 2011 at 5:55am

Yeah, I definitely paid attention to those as I have read too many posts about stitches and staples haha.  'Plug it back in only for functions tha require the ESCs...' which obviously encompasses flying.  I did not derive that we should plug in the ESCs only after the board had booted from those warnings, my bad.  Thanks for straightening that out.

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