NOTE: Solved, Lessons learned, this is here for reference.
Hi folks, another smokeshow. And now I want to give up. so pissed.
You will have to forgive me, nothing against any of you, or chris, or the project, but this is just WRONG.
After reading about the various results folks had with beta 40 and 41, I waited until many folks claimed that 42 was the answer.
I opened the planner and hit update. It updated itself to 1.0.66 but would only offer beta 40 firmare, so I wnt about it the hard way and installed firmware 42 into my APM via Arduino.
Next I connected up to my copter on which not a single wire was changed and connected it to the planner. Then reset to factory and waited for the reboot, then tried to configure my radio, I plugged in my lipo and my rx came on, but the planner would not configure my radio from the setup tab, so I clicked on terminal, switched the switch forward, setup the radio on the terminal, then went back to setup, but it told me to connect first, so I switched the switch back and connected, no problem, went to the setup tab and clicked reset APM to to defaults, and the smokeshow began, I was stunned, and could not belive what was happening on the bench, I scrambled to take out the USB cable, the motors spun up still smoking, I then disconnected the lipo, looking at my smokin pile of crap.
Now at this point i dont care why this happend, only that it has happend to me again, and again, I have lost more motors to this exact behaviour of the APM. I have a box full of motors cooked by APM and have never had another problem with any moter. I have 16 UAVs and only those with an APM fry motors for no reason.
When I sat down today at the bench it was with the crazy hopes that after all the money and effort, 42 would get me in the air. all I can say is &^%$*&$^&*$^!
There is no excuse for this, why do I have to fear for my aircraft every time I plug an APM into a USB socket. Its just not right. My 30$ HK board does not do this, my 100$ AueroQuads dont do it, my 500$ mikrocopter never did it, but every one of my $400 APM rigs has done it at least once, even though I am religious about plugging the USB in first, then the lipo and removing USB first, but especially since I would only do it on a reinstall so I can setup the radio and calibrate ESCs.
My head is hung low, and my shoulders are slumped and it feels like my dog just died.
This crap probably ruined my last APM too :(
Franco goes fetal crying like a little baby.
F
Replies
When I do maintenance/testing on the APM board I always disconnect the ESC from the APM and I use a 4.8V RX pack to power the APM board, it provides enough power to power the RX too.
I would just like to thank everyone for the helpful advice and wise ground rules to follow. I am now happily flying my AC2 w APM 2560 and another with AMP1280. I am now happily running my AC2 as a replacement for my Mikrokopter.
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There are a few things more you can do to avoid motor smoke :
1) use protected ESCs, some chinese ESCs in the 40-50$ range seems to be quite well protected against PWM anormal signals. (I'm using Hobbywing Pentium 40A opto).
Unfortunately, there is no 20A or 30A opto ESCs available on the market, except very expensive ones.
They don't need to be opto to be protected against PWM anormal signals, but the opto option add a serious protection level, fully isolating low power (APM +5V) and high power (motor power).
2) use the lipo voltage connector to connect the BEC, so that you can disconnect motor power when doing upgrades or APM tests without unpowering the APM board and receiver and without need to disconnect the APM pwm outputs. If you do that, use good Lipo voltage connectors, i feel that most of the time cheap connectors are used on Lipo batteries. This could translate to a disaster if there are bad contacts during flight.
3) remove the USB fuse, it is not really a safety measure, but i've found that it does avoid a lot of USB crashes when connecting. If you do that, you will not be able to power the board anymore through USB, but i've found that it is not really a problem, as most of the time you need power on the receiver side to test pwm inputs after upgrading so you will most of the time power the board through the Lipo + BEC.
4) a couple more safety measures can be taken, like using opto ESCs (starting at about 50$) and use fuses on each motors.
I did implement those 4 solutions, and i've never had a problem after updating perhaps about 30 or more different ACM2 versions. A couple times i even did forget to disconnect motor power and nothing bad did happen during upgrade thanks to the smart ESC firmware.
Never had a motor smoking (hopefully because they are more than 140 $ each and it's an hexa frame...), never had a smoked ESC after many hours of testing on ground. Now i'm testing in my hands, and still no problems.
When i did begin multicopter activity, i was afraid to smoke ESCs and motors because there are so many complaints about those problems inside forums. But if you are using correct hardware and follow product recommandations you should not have any problems.
Last, do not put propellers that could produce to much current at full throttle. Always stay behind the max motor current recommanded by the manufacturer. Use a wattmeter to check this and you should be ok for many monthes or years with the same motors.
Hi Franco, I just hooked a scope up to one of my APM out puts and watched as I hit the" reset to default" button in the planner. The PWM signal went to 5 V steady for a while and then 0 V and did this a couple of times. A good ESC will ignore invalid PWM signals and not run. And some do unpredictable thing like fry motors. It's all in the software of the ESC. They may not have considered it getting any thing but correct PWM signals and kept the firmware simple. Its not the APM's fault. It cannot send current to the motor, only tell the esc what to do. The esc should be smart enough to not fry a motor by not providing proper phasing of the outputs. It should either run or not run and nothing else. I suspect that some do not.
Franco, my apologies but I am in no way trying to offend you or something. I still think you are very experience and way more than I am. But accidents do happen even to well experienced guys (i think) like the blade strike on the other post. But it is good that you post this so everybody will be reminded of the danger. I guess you are right wiki must say something like that, I too was the victim of that only after asking around then I realized what I made. Well I myself came from a crash testing new firmware but its the fault of the one holding the controller...ME haha..waiting for cam mount replacement :D
Disclaimer: I am a noob pls take extra care if you follow what I said haha
Hi Franco,
I looked back through your posts, and I don't see any pictures or detailed descriptions of your equipment.
You seem to be pushing too much power on the 5V bus, but it's hard to tell.
Do you have more info on your setup?
I'm probably one of the biggest hacks around, and mine is working fantastically.
Let us know. Thanks.
JC
Franco, I think there is a few flaws in your way of dealing with the quad/apm. I am in no way of saying you are not experience in fact I take it you are more experience than I am. With all the boards / quad you have.
1. v42 via planner is available if you have the v67 (now 68) planner. Cris and Michael mentioned this already due to the migration of SVN to GiT repository
2. I myself had a smoked motor but that was my mistake and from what I read on your description you had a connected battery when you switching back and forth from CLI to fly mode. Same mistake I had. This is a NO NO. try not to connect battery when still connecting via CLI or Mission planner. Only after you connect and ready to do the test either on CLI or Mission planner. Or the other option is noted on WIKI as a big warning that says to remove ESC connection from APM for safety, both for prop strike or unwanted current on ESC for safety.
This is the problem with our hobby specially on DIYs there are a lot of factors to consider and the important thing is to treat this as a hazard and extra care must be taken. I myself learnd this the hard way. Had a few crash, burnt motor broken blades but the real most important thing is that we dont give up and learn from our mistakes. Even the guy that wanted to gave up last time was helped by a lot of members and he didnt give up now he is flying well (i think).
Good Luck and hope you get things sorted out