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APM 2.6 Bad Compass Health

Posted by Shane on May 2, 2014 at 2:56pm

Hi all.

I'm new to this forum so I hope I'm posting in the right area.

I purchased a APM 2.6 plus ublox GPS/compass unit from 3DR.

I connected to Mission Planner and uploaded the firmware for APM:copter. All looked fine.

Next morning the unit would no longer connect to Mission Planner, but I was able to upload new firmware. To cut a long story short, it was the 3.3 volt regulator that had blown. I hooked a new regulator up externally and supplied the 3.3 volt power directly to pin 1 on the i2c connector.

This fixed all issues except I'm getting "bad compass health" and in the CLI i'm getting a compass init failure.

The weird thing is, I can do a compass calibration and that seems to work fine.

I measured 3.3 volts of power getting into the compass and the GPS has a 3D lock.

Could anyone please tell me if I can tell if my compass is faulty or the APM board. All other internal devices seem to work. Gyro barometer etc. Before the regulator fix, I was getting dataflash errors and no connection in Mission Planner, so my fix seemed to work.

Any help would be most welcome.

Thanks. 

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Tags: compass, regulator, voltage
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Replies

  • Admin
    Thomas J Coyle III May 8, 2014 at 11:31am

    @Shane,

    Have you attempted to contact 3DR customer service at help@3drobotics.com to see if they can help you with your APM/compass issues?

    It is my understanding that the compass in the GPS/Compass module is powered by the 5vdc supplied to the GPS and is converted to 3.3vdc for use by the compass. This might mean that there is an issue with the compass cable connection to the APM I2C connector?

    Regards,

    TCIII ArduRover2 Developer

    • Shane > Thomas J Coyle III May 8, 2014 at 11:35am

      Thanks Thomas for your reply.

      I did test the i2c cable with a multimeter and the weird thing is I can do compass calibration. I turn the compass it it moves around so it looks normal (but I have nothing to compare it to)

      I have emailed support and are waiting for a reply.

      • Shane > Shane May 9, 2014 at 5:14pm

        ...A little less than helpful response.

        Hello Shane,

        Thank you for contacting 3D Robotics Customer support.

        I hope you are having a great day,

        Unfortunately at the time we are unable to fulfill your RMA approval, it has been brought to our attention that at this time we are unable to ship our products outside the continental US and Canada. We are currently in the process of evaluating our export shipping processes, so we are currently not shipping any products outside of the US and Canada.

        We expect that this process will be resolved quickly, but we have no definite dates at this time as to when shipping will resume to countries outside the US and Canada

        Feel free to follow us on Facebook with the keyword 3D Robotics for further notice on this matter.

        If you'd like to be notified by email when we resume shipments to your country, please let us know.

        We're sorry for any inconvenience this represents.

        Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

        Thank You,

        Nathaly
        Bilingual Customer Support Representative
        (Service in English and Spanish) 

        I've ordered from another supplier. Lesson learned.

  • Nick Caldwell May 5, 2014 at 6:13pm

    I hope someone responds...i'm having the same exact problem

    • Shane > Nick Caldwell May 6, 2014 at 5:46am

      Hi Nick.

       

      Did you have a blown regulator? If so, how did you fix it? and was the compass issue AFTER the regulator fault?

       

      Shane.

      • Nick Caldwell > Shane May 6, 2014 at 6:27pm

        i haven't fixed my problem, i am hoping someone catches on to this post and tells us both how to fix it.  I imagine it's a blown 3.3....but why?  I am pretty sure i didn't do anything wrong, just plugged in all my stuff, what could go wrong there??  It worked for a while, then it was showing bad compass health on and off for a while.....now it seems like it's on the entire time.  

        • Nick Caldwell > Nick Caldwell May 6, 2014 at 6:27pm

          sorry i'm not of any help....i just wanted to tag along and hope someone else can give us answers

          • Shane > Nick Caldwell May 7, 2014 at 12:04am

            No problem.

            If you had a blown regulator, I would say you'd have bad gyro health as well.

            I've ordered another unit. Will let you know how it goes.

            Shane.

            • Shane > Shane May 8, 2014 at 1:51am

              The new unit came in.

              Did NOTHING but plugged into the USB port, uploaded firmware and tested compass.

              FAIL!

              3DR stuff is absolute RUBBISH!

              • Nick Caldwell > Shane May 8, 2014 at 10:38am

                When i get home from work i'm gonna try the latest version of 3.2

                I've been reading of people having success using an unstable version.  I may not fly with the version, but it'd be nice to see if this solves the problem

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