Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tim P on October 30, 2012 at 4:45pm

Did get a response from the store. They do not perform repairs on broken APM's. :(

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Permalink Reply by R. D. Starwalt on November 2, 2012 at 6:05am

What is broken on your APM? With the surface mount and multilayer tech used on it, rework may not be possible. It really depends on what is broken.

Got any pictures?

-=Doug

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Permalink Reply by Tim P on November 2, 2012 at 4:48pm

Board has bent pins. The 'oil pan' with the GPS has the GPS completely torn off. I thought the vendor might at least offer a replacement with a little price break. Another $200 is tough to justify...

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Permalink Reply by R. D. Starwalt on November 2, 2012 at 8:09pm

Bent pins are not a big deal to fix as long as they do not break off in the process.

The 'onboard' GPS has only 6 pins soldered. I soldered mine as I bought the kit version.

If it is only the GPS 'daughter board' has popped off, that isn't a bad repair...unless other traces in the mid layers are busted.

 

The yellow boxed pins are the self-soldered on connections. The green/pink box connector was 3DR built. I just pressed the daughterboard down onto the connector after the 6 pins were in place. The 6 pins solder onto the main board and then the daughterboard is soldered onto them.

Do you have any local friends with electronics/soldering experience?

If that connection is totally hosed, you can add an external GPS with one of those connections (white connectors).

-=Doug

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Permalink Reply by Tim P on November 3, 2012 at 3:50am

On mine, the yellow GPS is totally torn away. Are you saying I can remove the daughter board and replace the GPS with the plug in version and everything should work as before?

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Permalink Reply by R. D. Starwalt on November 3, 2012 at 7:05am

HERE is one thread.

ANOTHER thread.

If the daughterboard is removed, the magnetometer will go with it... you would also loose the logging on the flash card too. Another reason to leave it in place.

So since the original chip is gone, leave the daughterboard in place. It was a brutal way to disable the chip but effective in disabling it. ;)

-=Doug

 

 

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Permalink Reply by R. D. Starwalt on November 3, 2012 at 7:11am

Here are the connections in/out of the APM2.0 Note the external GPS connector on the right.

 

-=Doug

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Permalink Reply by R. D. Starwalt on November 8, 2012 at 5:21am

Have not heard how you are on this repair but.. I found the Wiki regarding disabling the onboard GPS and using an external unit.

HERE

-=Doug

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Permalink Reply by Tim P on November 8, 2012 at 7:05pm

Thanks. I am unwilling to risk another airplane by trying to repair the broken unit myself. I purchased another apm and it arrived today. To all, please take steps to protect your apm unit from crash damage. I thought mine was pretty well protected but it is badly broken. The store does NOT do repairs!

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