Hi All, I am very new to the Pixhawk and I am setting up my first Multicopter. I have calibrated the ESC's and every thing else seems to work OK. I did a calibration as when I moved the throttle some would spin while others would lag a bit before they started.
I calibrated according to the instructions on Arducopter but the motors would now only start to spin at about 60% throttle. I went back and then did a manual calibration and checked each motor to ensure it was working fine. All was good until I armed the board and ran up the throttle - same no motor turned before 60%. but now they all start at the same time. - so I think the calibration is good.
I have set the Throttle minimum in the parameters to 12 and saved it , I have also re calibrated my throttle and that is good.
My set up is
Taranis and X8R connected via the SBUS.
Afro speedies and Multi Star motors.
Is there something that I am missing?
Thanks in advance.
Replies
Get used to the prop breakage ;-)
It's a strange one as my setup is identical -- Taranis, X8R, Multistar, Afro's and works perfectly. Out of interest, which port are you plugging the receiver into the Pixhawk -- 'SB' or 'RC'? Mine's the latter.
Does the radio calibration page in Mission Planner give you a reasonable representation of your throttle stick's range?
It could be a rogue setting somewhere in the Pixhawk and, whilst I would hate for you to have to set everything up again, have you tried resetting to factory defaults?
Hi Matt,
I am in RC - All set up right.
I have to admit I have thought of doing a re load of the firmware and factory defaults. A pain but no more so than what I have now.
I will let you know how I go.
I have my set up on a Tarot 680, what is your frame and how is it going?
Cheers.
I'm using the 680's little brother, the 650 quad.
It's a nice frame however I've been a little disappointed with the realestate available to mount the various components neatly. The ESC's, for example, won't fit on the middle deck should you wish to utilise the collapsable functionality of the frame. I've since decided to go for functionality over form so it's a little Frankensteinish in terms of looks :-)
I'd imagine the 680 has plenty more room available to house the gear properly.
Having said that, it's a nicely balanced quad that I'm enjoying to learn on. It's surprisingly resilient as I've only broken a landing skid on its second flight when I got a little cocky, lost orientation, and crashed whilst trying to correct a drift. Oops :)
Well I found the problem.
As they say only change one thing at a time. I got to thinking after I reloaded the firmware ( had to go to an earlier version to get it to load) and nothing changed - May be it is something with how the radio is talking through the SBUS.
MMMM I did set up those custom switches and switches for channels 6,7 and 8 last night.
So I got into the Taranis and deleted everything except the mode switches ( love the latest version by the way - Logical switches not Custom switches now)
And..... you guessed it - works great from low throttle up. Don't you just hate it when you spend the whole day chasing one thing only to find that it was something different.
But the reason I got the Pixhawk is to learn and experience a challenge with great product - otherwise I would buy a DJI.
Thanks for your input as it helped me delete some of the options.
I bought an extra set of plates to make my 680 a triple deck with a anti Vibe mount on top of the top plate. Looks more like the enterprise than a standard Hex.
Great amount of room and easy to work on.
Thanks again Matt - may all of your landings be intentional.
Cheers.
Whenever you're calibrating radio/ESC's, make sure your props are removed.
Try removing the SBUS cable and plugging an ESC control cable directly to your receiver's channel 3. Re-do the calibration process and then control the throttle to the motor.
Does it behave as it should (ie minimal acceleration on a small movement of the throttle stick) or are you still seeing ~60% throttle required to make it spin?
Hi Matt,
Yes I have the blades off the frame. I understand what can happen and the pain that can be suffered. I hate it when I break a prop! LOL
But seriously, Yes I did a full manual calibration with Rx on Ch3, and the motors worked just beautifully. I would recheck each one as I calibrated it by disconnecting the power and restarting the TX and RX from off and run up the motor. worked every time.
Then when I put everything back on the board and powered it up - it set fine and armed as it should then the motors would not spin until 60% (approx.). I tried many re power ups with different batteries etc. Same every time.
It seems that the board has a setting that is not starting the motor until power is high. This was not the case before I did the ESC Calibration.
My first calibration was through the board as an all in one calibration - so all were done together.
So I am still at a loss as to what the problem is.