I bought an APM 2.6 from 3DRobotics 2 weeks ago. I finally got around to putting it in a hexacopter.
I have a question regarding the connections of it because it seems to be dead and not working.
I have Hobbywing 30A ESC's.
So when connecting everything is this the correct way?
Battery to Power Module, power module to distribution board, distribution board to ESC's, ESC's to motors.
Then the Power module has the little connector that plugs into the PM port on the APM 2.6.
Then the little 3 pin connectors from each ESC goes to the outputs on the APM 2.6 in the correct order.
The receiver gets jumper cables from outputs 1-4 and a few other for misc switches to the APM 2.6 inputs.
Is this the correct way? Because doing it this way seems to have burned the APM 2.6 up and it won't turn on anymore.
Do the little 3 pin connectors from the ESC need to be changed to only 1 or 2 pins?
I'm kind of confused because on the Wiki I read all this stuff about servos but I'm not using servos, just ESC's to motors.
Replies
The little connectors with three thin wires (servo plugs) should have a black, red in the middle and white. Sometimes they are brown, red and orange. The black and red provide your power while the other one is how the autopilot controls the motor. Whatever you do, make sure the center always goes in the center pin of the APM otherwise bad stuff happens. It really doesnt matter if you guess wrong, stuff just wont work and you will have to flip it around, eg you put in the black end and need to swap with the white end.
All 3 bits from the servo connector are required to be plugged into the APM. The black wire should be on the outside or edge. The white or signal wire should be the closest towards the center.
Go thru the wiki im pretty sure theres a nice build wiki with many of diagrams and pics.
I have a quadcopter with this same setup and it works fine with no problems.
I am just trying to figure out why it blew the APM? The PM should be handling the voltage to the APM and even before I had PM I didn't have any issues. I just have read that you don't want to double power the APM via the Power Module and the ESC's or something.
When you didn't have the power module did you attach JP1 ? Make sure JP1 is disconnected if it was connected that could have caused the damage. The esc's provide no power to the APM, the APM should be receiving power from your power module, you said it worked before you had the power module so I assume you had JP1 connected, which bridges the ESC power with the power module power (bridges input and output)
Does the apm light up at all? ( try first ONLY esc, (no power module connected to the PM slot) then try only the Power Module Port.
I've never not had a PM on this particular APM. JP1 has never been shunted. The APM does not light up at all even with 1 APM. 3DRobotics overnighted me a new APM and I will send the defective one back anyways. I called them yesterday after posting this.