Trouble reading inputs from receiver
Hello,
I just purchased an ardupilot mega and soldered input and output pins, but I am having trouble reading receiver inputs. I uploaded the sample program from Sparkfun found here ( Example Firmware ). Currently only input0 is being read correctly.
With nothing plugged in:
All inputs read 1500
After plugging a receiver output to input0:
input0 is read correctly and some of the other inputs change to 1000
When receiver outputs are plugged into inputs 0-7:
No change and nothing appears to be read.
Any ideas? Is this a soldering mistake or a bug on the board? Also, at one point, only input4 was working and all others stopped working. I'm not sure why that could have happened.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
- rusty
Replies to This Discussion
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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on -
Not that I know of, I'm afraid.
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Permalink Reply by Earl on -
Should I send the ArduPilotMega back to Sparkfun for replacement as that's where I bought it ? I would like to get it sent and back this week!
Earl
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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on -
Correct. If you've got a bad board, send it back to the company you bought it from.We're not making these boards, Sparkfun is.
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Permalink Reply by Dave Whittington on -
I am having lots of problems with my ArduPilotMega (and shield IMU?) boards. I got them soldered by an expert friend last night and tried the miniUSB input on the shield and was able to program it right away (just the ArduPilotMega_demo.pde). Thought everything was maybe fine but then hooked up my receiver and servos and ESC - just like I did for the ArduPilot. However, the ESC would not power it up.
(1) If I separate the boards and power from an ESC, I get a dim PWR red light but the servos move as if in MANUAL mode. (no other lights and the demo program doesn't work - no change in servo movement depending on Ch5/6 input).
(2) If I connect my older FDTI cable (and remove the ESC power), all the lights seem bright red/blue and I can download the test program but I see no printout change whatsoever if I change Chan5 or Chan6 and the servos don't move even though I have left the receiver hooked up.
(3) If I connect the shield back on and use the miniUSB, I get lights and can program but can't power via the ESC and the servos don't move.
Is something "busted"? Is it time to return the ArduPilotMega board to Sparkfun? Could it be the Multiplex chip? I had success with the older Ardupilot board but not here.
Thanks for any help or advice
Dave
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Permalink Reply by Dave Whittington on
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It looks like my problem discussed above was all due the blob of solder at SJ1 was missing. I am still retesting everything obviously but at least the ESC can power everything now. Maybe some others will run into this? Just a simple mistake at Sparkfun.
Dave
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Permalink Reply by Dave Whittington on
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Comment by Dave Whittington just now
Delete Comment OK,
Now my problem is I keep getting the not-in-sync error when I try to download a sketch. When I first tried the miniusb two days ago, it worked the first time on COM4. Yesterday, in trying to debug the ESC not powering the boards issue (which turned out to be the SP1 solder blob), I used the FDTI cable that was required for Ardupilot (not MEGA) and that worked fine on COM3. Now I put the boards back together again and I can't get downloading to work - I looked at the arduino troubleshooting page but nothing helps. I don't know which RESET button to push but I tried them all except the one on the CPU (not IMU) board since I can't get at it. I have rebooted my PC, unplugged the minusb and tried it all
Help! (Again!)
Dave
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Permalink Reply by Dave Whittington on
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Me again,
Sorry for altering the course of this thread - I will stop since I started a new discussion of some of the issues of starting up with Mega+Shield. Just for your interest (if any), I worked back into being able to download by first separating the boards, download checking by using my old FDTI cable and Ardupilot (not Mega). With that working, I utilized that same FDTI cable to download the Mega_demo program into the single board ArduPilotMega and that worked fine. Now I added the IMU++ shield back on and first checked with the serial monitor that I was hooked up fine to the stack at 57600 baud. THEN, I tried downloading and it WORKED - yea!
The only issue here is that the program runs differently in that it appears to restart from the top every two seconds or so. I added a simple printout to the Setup portion of the program and you see that about every three lines of channel printout - what's up with that? If I take off the miniUSB cable and power with the ESC (don't have a motor connected!!!), it runs correctly, I think.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Whiteford on -
Looks like my board was one of the bad batch as well.
I have emailed Sparkfun for a RMA and will hopefully be getting it replaced.
Original Order details:
Ordered on 2010-06-03
Shipped on 2010-06-04
chris.
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Permalink Reply by Earl on
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I got my RMA last week and sent it off. No word or new board yet.
My order and ship date was 5/7/2010. one on the very first !
Earl
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AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on -
Earl,
I purchased one ArduPilot Mega on 4/28 and the other on 5/13 and they both work. Seems like the misprogramming of the Atmeg 328 was random.
Regards,
TCIII
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