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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 17, 2010 at 11:46pm

3) Could you explain that a bit more? Ch3 of your Rx? APM? Why Ch3?

 

Can you upload a photo of your board, with the RC and everything else connected?

 

Even if you fried a mux, it should still receive the RC signals.

 

My sense is that this is a connection issue. Something's plugged in wrong somewhere. We'll figure it out.

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Permalink Reply by Magellan on December 18, 2010 at 2:11pm

Thanks for the reply!

 

I chose channel 3 because I know it maps to the throttle stick. I placed the test probe where channel three from the RX plugs into the arducopter. I chose this spot because it lets me know the signal is making it out of the receiver. Here's a picture:

For the test I connected the ground pin on the bus pirate to a ground pin on the receiver. Using the bus pirate I was able to see a clear PWM signal and moving the throttle changed the widths of the pulses.

 

Here are the connections coming out of my receiver:

 

Here are the connections on the APM. The six signal lines along the top run into the receiver. The two along the closest edge power the receiver:

 

Here is a better picture of how I'm powering the board. Two wires run from the power lines on the ESC to the APM. The ESCs will be connected directly to the APM once I get past this issue:

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 18, 2010 at 2:37pm

Please download and run this test program, which will test your RC inputs. Set the Arduino serial monitor to 57k and ensure that your transmitter is on. Please move the sticks and see if the numbers change. Paste some results here so we can analyze.

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Permalink Reply by Magellan on December 18, 2010 at 2:43pm

No change in any of the numbers:

 

Ch0:1500 Ch1:1500 Ch2:1500 Ch3:1500 Ch4:1500 Ch5:1500 Ch6:1500 Ch7:1500

Ch0:1500 Ch1:1500 Ch2:1500 Ch3:1500 Ch4:1500 Ch5:1500 Ch6:1500 Ch7:1500

Ch0:1500 Ch1:1500 Ch2:1500 Ch3:1500 Ch4:1500 Ch5:1500 Ch6:1500 Ch7:1500

Ch0:1500 Ch1:1500 Ch2:1500 Ch3:1500 Ch4:1500 Ch5:1500 Ch6:1500 Ch7:1500

Ch0:1500 Ch1:1500 Ch2:1500 Ch3:1500 Ch4:1500 Ch5:1500 Ch6:1500 Ch7:1500

Ch0:1500 Ch1:1500 Ch2:1500 Ch3:1500 Ch4:1500 Ch5:1500 Ch6:1500 Ch7:1500

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 18, 2010 at 2:54pm

Okay, now take off the IMU shield and run the test again. Does that make any difference?

 

Also try just plugging in a few channels from your Rx with regular 3-wire female-to-female cables, and see if that makes a difference.

 

If none of that does anything, we'll drill down on your PPM encoder again and I'll ask you to reflash that again with the batchfile.

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Permalink Reply by Magellan on December 18, 2010 at 3:21pm

Using just the APM with only two channels connected gives me differing numbers! The shield is now reconnected and two additional channels and I still see the numbers vary.

 

Sounds like it was the wire I originally used to connect channels 1-4... Weird.

 

Thanks for the help! I was starting to thinkI had fried something.

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 18, 2010 at 3:28pm

Glad to hear it! As I mentioned, these things are almost always connection errors. I think we'll start working with retailers who can offer all-in-one kits with all the connectors supplied, to avoid these issues.

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Permalink Reply by Kári Davíðsson on December 18, 2010 at 2:24pm

Are you seeing this behaviour? http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/arducopterng-beta-2-hanging

Have you tried the RC1 release?

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Permalink Reply by Magellan on December 18, 2010 at 2:34pm

I am not. The configurator reads the sensor data, etc just fine for as long as it is connected. The reset button also works. I have used both the alpha 1 and the beta 2 builds. Where do I find RC1?

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