Discussions

APM Mega Gyro Calibration

Posted by Jeff Johnson on August 13, 2011 at 12:46pm

 

I’ve had my APM for about 5 months. When I first bought the board I remember running the each of the tests in the CLI and was getting what I thought were good results. Moving forward to August 2011 I upgraded my APM Planner software and the firmware to the APM 2.2.1 version. After that I couldn’t get past the gyro calibration during a ground start (“Flight Mode”) switch position 1. Under test mode, switch position 0 when I ran the gyro test the center column is stuck on -6 and doesn’t change regardless of the access I’m rotating on. When I run the imu test it never finished the gyro calibration.

 

I thought, “ahh man my board is toast before it ever left my desk”.  I contacted DIY customer support, who turned out to be very responsive and got some suggestions on what to try. I re-soldered every pin and inspected the board with a magnifying glass to try and identify any loose/detached components pins or possible shorts. None of which produced a fix. I then read about some other people having the same issue last year and one person mentioned that loading APM Beta 1.0 firmware version solved this issue for them. So I just loaded the APM Beta 1.0 firmware and what do you know it seems to be working now.

 

In switch mode 0, I can run the “imu” test and the gyro calibration finishes and will start to give me r,p,y values as I move the board on each access. If I move the switch to mode 1 and reset the ground start completes and after a few seconds my A and C lights stop flickering B is solid on.

Anyone else ever experience this and have an ideas on why the APM Beta firmware works but APM 2.2.1 does not?

 

I've attached some pictures of the two different firmware results when running the "imu" test.

 

Thank You,

 

Jeff Johnson

imu-APM-1-0.png

imu-APM-2-2-1.png

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Replies

  • Jeff Johnson August 13, 2011 at 1:36pm

    Thanks Chris,

    Well, that’s unfortunate news. At this point I’m wondering if my board is going to function properly under the APM 1.0 version. I attached a picture of the r, p and y values changing drastically without me ever moving the board.

     

    Do you think these test results are essentially saying the gyros are not stable enough to fly my plane? 

     

    Thanks again,

     

    Jeff Johnson

    imu-values-APM-1-0.png

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3692253593?profile=original
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson August 13, 2011 at 1:01pm
    APM 2.x runs a more rigorous IMU test, which your board is failing. The solution is a new board or stick with APM 1.x and hope that the gyro issues aren't severe enough to interfere with flight.
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