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AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on February 18, 2010 at 5:32pm

Jeff,

Have you adjusted variables in the Ardupilot header file (easystar.h in version 2.4) to reflect your present hardware?

//Hardware Configuration
//0-1
#define SHIELD_VERSION 1 // Old (red) shield versions is 0, the new (blue) shield version is 1 (S/B set to 1)

//1-7
#define GPS_PROTOCOL 2 // 0 = NMEA, 1=SIRF, 2=uBlox, Choose protocol (S/B SIRF for EM-406; you probably have it set to 2)

Just a thought.

Regards,
TCIII

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Doug Weibel on February 18, 2010 at 5:48pm

Check the two items Thomas mentions first for the gps problem. If that is not the issue let us know.

If you have no 3 position switch on your transmitter, but do have mixing and two available switches then set the mixing up so that when you have a servo plugged in to the channel you will use for the control channel you have one combination of switches that gives you 45 degree left rotation on the servo, on combination that gives you a centered position, and one combination that gives you a 45 degree right rotation. Or, you can just set up a channel with a single switch so that it gives you 45 degrees left and 45 degrees right and just use two modes instead of three.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on February 18, 2010 at 6:01pm

Thomas and Doug,

Thanks a lot for the prompt advice, I will give those suggestions a try!

I will let you know the results, and most likely have more questions as this project progresses!

Cheers.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on February 19, 2010 at 10:25am

We have started to diagnose our issues, and it seems one of our problems is the connectivity of the header pins to the board. After going through and resoldering the pins we seemed to have fixed the randomness of the LED blinking.

I seemed to have been a little too careful with my initial solder job and did not allow it to flow enough into the sleeves within the board.

On to the next problem...

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Mark Colwell on February 19, 2010 at 10:59am

Fixing intermittent solder connections are fun! Be careful to not fill up female header pins, I did that to my AdaFruit Xbee shield on the small header. I had to remove it with solder wick before I could plug in Xbee

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on February 19, 2010 at 11:51am

Alright, I have reprogrammed the Ardupilot board and changed the GPS protocol from ublox, to SIRF mode. (I have the EM-406 GPS). I now get rapid blinking upon starup, and then solid blue after about 10 seconds, so the GPS side of things to be working (judging only by the LEDs).

I can't seem to find a procedure on how exactly to operate the ardupilot, but from trial and error, it seems that I need to power up with the bind plug in, let it go through a cycle, and then remove the bind plug to stop the cycling.

On a different note, the reset button on the V2 shield expansion board does not seem to have any effect on the system. Can someone tell me what and when the reset button is supposed to be used?

As for the reciever, I have mixed two channels to get three postions (full left, middle, full right) and according to the indication LEDS on the boards, the modes are working. When the system is in manual mode, everything operates as expected. However, in both fly-by-wire mode and full autopilot mode, moving the sticks does not do anything. Gain levels are set at 0.5.

Nonetheless, while in autopilot mode the control surfaces react in the general way I expect them to while just holding, and tilting the plane outside! We are making progress!

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