I think I have cooked my second Ardupilot. It worked perfectly on the GUI. Then I fitted the power module and the backplane on the GPS. Now the GPS does not light up, the HUD says bad compass health and it will not arm. Help please !
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Original Power module or clone?
Think we ned a bit more info to be able to help
I am not sure how I would know that. It is marked Power Mode V1. If the red wire (of the output wires is thought of as number 1) 2 = 0v: 3= 4.79v: 4=4.05v 5=5.31: 6=5.31v.
Tests on MP with USB power only, Suggest that compass is bad. and a pre arm message says mag check.
No LED on the GPS unit.
I have never seen a pic of the underside of the back soldering. I had joined the four pieces to each of the four sides of the GPS board and each of the four pieces to each other. In effect all four outer sides of the GPS board have become common.
Best wishes
Peter.
I have never seen a pic of the underside of the back soldering. I had joined the four pieces to each of the four sides of the GPS board and each of the four pieces to each other. In effect all four outer sides of the GPS board have become common.
I do not understand this at all ... can you post picture of this ...
Where did you order the power unit from ?
Kind regards
Attached two pics. The source for the power mod and the GPS was Gadgets Infinite via Ebay.
I have fitted a GPS from Witespy (Ready to Fly Quads) This provides a 3D GPS fix but bad compass health. I have tried to recalibrate the compass but the calibration process fails to accumulate references.
Hope this helps
Peter
Power Module.jpg
GPS + backplane.jpg
UPDATE.
With the replacement GPS unit (no backplane) and updated firmware the unit checks out but the compass reads north as west nor west. In every other respect the APM 2.5 seems normal.
How should I proceed from here?
Peter
Further Update
3 minutes later without having disconnecting the USB power to the APM 2.5 the system failed again with bad compass health. Very strange as the displayed alignment was correct.
So hard for a novice to understand. What are your thoughts.
Peter
One hour later. I traced the fault on the original GPS. The red wire (centre) on the GPS plug (GPS end) had somehow backed out of its moulding. When carefully reinserted and re-fitted all was well except that todays satellites prevented arming. I disabled that arm check and all seems well.
The only remaining doubt now lies with the soldering of the GPS screen (not currently fitted) and the power module (which I am thinking was never the problem)
But I am wondering what you think.
Would it be safer to snip the red wire on three of my four ESC's and forget all about the Power Module?
In that case do I fit the Jumper to J1?
Have you done all the calibration steps after powering up the module?
Without the power module you will not be able to set up failsafes or monitor low battery voltage with the unit.
What i'll suggest is not to cut the red wire, but to simple remove it from the plug and test if it's more stable. It might be that the power module gives out the wrong voltage and therefor makes the APM unstable. Test with esc power and see if it goes better.
Looks like the power module is a clone. The GPS shield is a 100% a clone. There is no picture of the APM but I suspect it might be a clone as well and there are several threads in the forum where people have strange results and erratic behavior with clones.
If you power the APM through either in input or output rail via the PWM plug from the ESC, J1 needs to be connected.
If you have a multimeter, test the power output of the power module. Check the required voltage on http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/apm25board_overview/
Hope this helps
That's great. Many thanks for all of that.
Best wishes
Peter