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Permalink Reply by Asaak on May 7, 2012 at 5:42am

Same here! I want to set-up the APM2.0 board. I plugged the mini-usb to the apm2.0 so I can start mission planner and start the configuration. However When I plug rc receiver to the inputs, nothing happens. It seems that it is not receiving any voltage so, Should I connect the motor connector ( which is the one carrying the voltage from the ESC ) to the output channel of motor??? I didn't touch the factory configuration regarding power supply for the APM.

thanks!

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Permalink Reply by James on May 7, 2012 at 5:59am

the danger is with the usb bootloader, as it can (and does) ocasionally send an out of range signal to the motor output pins.

 

it seems a bit off that after reading the warning a dozen times in the manual not to connect USB and main power at the same time, that one of the first things you need to do is to test motors and for that you need to connect USB and main power at the same time.

 

there are two real dangers:

• one or more motors may spin up (very dangerous if they have props on) 
• one or more mators may "shudder" violently back and forth emitting smoke (a huge pain if you burn a motor out)

so, ocasionally we do need to connect both lipo and USB - my solution is to disconnect the ESC signal leads while i have both usb and lipo connected.  if you also need to test motors i think the correct procedure would be to take the props off, connect USB, connect lipo and finally connect the ESC leads - just touch them to the pins first and if any of the motors do anything strange disconnect straight away.

 

regards,

 

james

 

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Permalink Reply by Alex on May 7, 2012 at 5:10pm

after reading the warning a dozen times in the manual not to connect USB and main power at the same time

Where in the manual does it say this?  Maybe I don't have the correct manual.  This is the only manual I know of: http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/ArduCopter

It never mentions a warning about the USB + Lipo power at the same time.  I wonder what is the correct way to connect to the APM2 while in the airframe to change parameters.

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Permalink Reply by James on May 8, 2012 at 1:49am

ok, reading through again the warning is to not have the ESC signal cables attached while the LiPo is plugged in, though the warning about usb does appear somewhere.

 

interestingly these warnings dont seem so common in the APM2 sections.

 

 

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