Hi all.
I could really use some help trying to figure out if Arducopter 2.6 is ever going to work for me.
I have had a total of 4 units 2x genuine 3DR APMs and 2 generic arducopter.
2 buddies also have 1 unit each.
We all have major issues with all units.
to cut a long story short. We can have 3x perfect return to launches, then the the 4th one will result in a toiletbowl effect. Just randomness like that.
I've given up on using ANY failsafe as APM is just too unreliable.
That was a week ago, now things have gotten much worse.
Even stabalize mode does not work. If the quad makes it off the ground it will sometimes dart off in one direction, other times it just falls out of the sky The quad also "pulses"
Some times the quad will just stop responding to the controls and has to be knocked out of the sky to stop it from flying.
Othertimes the unit will just disarm on takeoff.
Have tried multiple recievers, boards etc, NOTHING fixes these issues. Both my buddies have given up on their board and now fly perfectly with another (closed source) autopilot. I would like to get this going correctly but the APM just seems so unstable.
I have attached some logs in case that helps.
Please help!
Replies
I actually just had a crash that seems to have been FC related. I'm flying a Pixhawk with a 3DR RTF X8. I've had 30+ flights with no issues.
I armed in alt hold mode and it immediately rolled left. In an attempt to get the motors to disarm, I switched into Autopilot - big mistake. The copter took off (throttle was at 0 according to logs) flew a low circle and crashed. I'm attaching the log for you all to check out, I have no idea what happened.
Damage was minimal - couple of stripped motor mounts and a small scratch on my $200 camera lens.
Any steps that I should take in making sure it won't go nuts next time?
Thanks!
2014-08-21, 1430 PM.log
ALWAYS arm in stabilize mode .. and take off ...
Then when you are in the air and sure everything is fine, change to a different mode.
I normally fly as Johann suggests, arming in stabilizing and then switch modes but arming in Loiter has the advantage that it ensures the GPS is good before you get started. i.e. it runs a pre-arm check that the GPS is good. This is skipped if you arm in stabilize.
AC3.2's take-off and landing in Loiter and AltHold is much improved from AC3.1.5 so I suspect using those modes will become more popular.
That's good to know. So if you want to verify the GPS is good enough then just arm in loiter but switch to stable before applying throttle.
Does that apply if in Super Simple mode?
There's no special pre-arm checks that look at super simple mode. Super-simple relies on knowing your home location and the current location of the vehicle so I'd highly recommend waiting for a good lock before taking off if using super-simple. If you don't wait then what will happen is when you first take-off super simple won't do anything, then once it does get a gps lock it'll mark the home position wherever it happens to be at the time and the super simple controls will all switch to be relative to that point. Depending on how far that home position is from your actual position, the controls could be quite weird.
it would make sense for us to stop people from arming in a mode using super-simple if they don't have a good gps lock.
Thanks!
Been taking off in Auto mode for most of my flights and it's been fine. The copter won't arm sometimes, I have to switch between modes and try it (unless spin up is disabled in certain modes...?)
But with that frame, ESC, motor set you should be able to fly well with the basic configuration no tuning.
Have a couple of questions and if you have a iPhone / iPad and we could FaceTime one evening perfectly happy to walk through this start to finish. The issues you describe on losing solid loiter are most likely compass related (interference / setup). The issues you describe on the radio sound like lockups, and I'm interested in how failsafe is setup on your receiver
questions :
- how are you powering your receiver ?
- how are you powering your apm unit ?
- does that GPS include an external compass or are you running the one on the APM unit ?
Hi.
I'm powering the reciever from the APM itself.
The APM unit is powered by one of those 3dr regulators.
The compass is an external unit, as I'm running APM 2.6
My failsafe is setup to mimic the switching of the mode to RTL and throttle half way as when I first setup the failsafe to engage RTL with the throttle down, the unit just crashes.
I set it up this way as I understand it, if the APM is in a manual mode, the failsafe for the APM is to just zero the thottle?
Please keep in mind, I can have several perfect flights, then all of the sudden, it just seems to want to crash.
I do run telemetry, but the range is really poor, around 30 meters at best, so its only good for a close hover.
From what I've read, the telemetry should have much longer range, but mine does not. I have tried different flying fields but it seems to have the same range. I've upped the power, but still short range
Since upgrading to a pair of DIY dipoles a while back i haven't had any issues, warnings or dropouts. This might be worth a try to improve your telemetry link.
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