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Permalink Reply by Tom Brecka on May 6, 2012 at 3:20pm

This sounds like what I am getting in my plane setup. Since new firmware update my ESC does not see any PWM signal and therefore beeps every 2 seconds and I have no throttle control. The blue LED on the Ardupilot board flashes very fast which I believe indicated a bad servo signal. I have since ordered a new Ardupilot board from Sparkfun, thinking I have a bad MUX chip on my old version 1.0 board. And yes when I calibrate the radio I have readings of all my channels in the GCS software.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Adams on May 6, 2012 at 6:50pm

Here's a quick video. Sorry for the link and quality, I'm doing this from my iPad.

As you can see, I can arm the APM, but the ESCs are not responding. I can calibrate them correctly and spin up the motors using the method here: http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/AC2_ESC

It worked prior to me updating the firmware. I was led to updating the firmware after I flashed er9x and was not able to arm the APM. At this point the only thing that does not seem to work correctly, and is new, is the APM firmware.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuVwFtQdxG8

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Adams on May 7, 2012 at 6:53pm

Has anyone seen this before? Didn't have a chance to fiddle with it today. In going to try again tomorrow. Hopefully someone can give me some insight. 

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Permalink Reply by Vernon Barry on May 8, 2012 at 8:02am

On APM2.0, because you must hit the reset after powering via BEC, it often is the wrong timing with the ESCs trying to go into their programming mode and they don't accept any input. So yes, I have seen this before and what it takes is 3 or 4 tries of disconnecting a reconnecting the battery and pressing reset to get everything "in sync".

The solution is dificult but EXTREMELY effective, flash the ESCs with a hacked firmware which eliminates all of the problems because then the ESCs no longer go into program mode, nor do they require calibration and they are more responsive. Again, it's dificult because you must cut a hole in the heatshrink to access the programming pads, either solder or make a pressure contact system connected to the AVR programmer, and then flash each one, but once it's done-never have a problem again.

http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/flashing-3dr-escs-or-rc-timer-esc...

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Permalink Reply by CyberCrash on May 8, 2012 at 2:05am

Hello,

I had the same problem with the new APM2.

Just try to change or reverse the remote inputs until it works.

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Adams on May 10, 2012 at 5:19pm

Finally got around to messing with my copter and solved all my problems. I reloaded the f/w and recalibrated the radio. As soon as I finished this I was able to arm and fly my copter.

Not sure what was going on before, but glad its fixed. Thanks for all the help.

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