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 have been flying these things for a bout a year. I lost one due to my setup having the compass too close to the esc I think guess I'll never know for sure. Its interesting to note the only thing on the copter not 3DR was the gps / compass.
During this same time period my brother got into the hobby with a Dji phantom. He just lost his 3rd one and has no idea why for sure. The last one he was flying over water and for some reason the baro messed up and even though his FPV OSD said 15 meters it wigged and flew right into the water. Thats his 3rd phantom, 3 axis gimbal, and 3rd go pro lost, 3rd fpv set up! OUCH!!!!! $$$$$ He is seriously thinking off moving over to 3dr now.
Since there is fair number of people following this thread and it's on topic, I'll post my latest issue. First I've begin playing in this sandbox now for close to 2 years and I have and gone thorough about 4 quad copters, 1 hex, 1 converted hex to Y6 and 1 new Y6 from 3DR. Most of my stuff is 3DR, but I bought some 3rd party stuff (not much, frames, motors, Tupperware box, 1 GPS). I have 4 APM 2.5 and 1 APM 2.6 and 1 PX4. I've flow and crashed my fair share of stuff in the past 2 years. It's been a great time and a lot of fun. At times the frustration levels have been quite great, but I've chalk it up to having fun and learning.
My current Y6 running an APM 2.6 using external GPS/Compass has been a really problem of late. The 3DR external GPS/Compass just stops working. I plug in the battery and get no sats. Normally when this happens, I just unplug the Y6 and plug it back in and everything works. Now, I have to flash the APM with a firmware to get the GPS/Compass to work. This make no sense, I thought maybe the issues was GPS unit or the cable. I've tried different GPS units and cables, but I still need to flash the firmware. I've got another GPS/Compass unit on order.
Anyone have an idea why this is happening? Could this be an issue with the hardware of the APM 2.6? Is there firmware upgrade for the GPS/Compass module that might fix this issue?
Still having fun,
Richard
Shane,
I was wondering, is your circling issue (which was the original cause of this thread) resolved with the COMPASS_ORIENT fix I suggested?
If yes, could you add a "RESOLVED" to this discussion's subject?
This setting was correct and was setup correct from the beginning. Roll 180 as its external compass is mounted upside down.
If you post a picture showing the compass orientation on your quad then this can be confirmed for you.
Hi.
I am building a brand new quad and should be ready by this weekend as my old quad is in a pile.
I will go though everything and post the results.
Thanks to all who have tried to help.
I have been flying RC for 20 years. If you think APM is unreliable you should use some 20 year old height of technology reliable equipment! I have had only one issue with APM in hundreds of hours of flying that was not directly cause by me. I had an underpowered quad that triggered the bug that shut off or slowed one motor. It was reported by another user, the user and developers trouble shot the issue, found the errant code, and released 3.1.4 or.3 within a week to fix it. For FREE software that rivals and is better in many ways to expensive closed systems it works great. I mean its free so what is there to complain about? There are thousands of different equipment and configurations that fly flawlessly everyday. Today I was trying to fly right over a mailbox and misjudged the altitude. One skid hit at about 15 mph. I thought my hex was a goner! But nope. Spun 180 degrees, maintained altitude because I was using altitude hold and returned to normal flight almost immediately. I even flew for 5 more minutes without issue. Another quad of mine I flew through a tree FPV. Came out the other side tumbling, but there was enough altitude that it leveled itself and I flew it back. Only damage was green marks on a couple of props. So to say the APM or Arducopter isn't stable isn't true at all. It is a very reliable, flexible, upgradable, capable, customizable, and FREE software system that can fly planes, multi rotors, traditional heli, and ground vehicles. Nothing even comes close to that on the market. 99% or higher of errors are user caused, not APM caused. The computer just does what the operator has programed it to do, or uses the errant data provided to it from poor user setup to attempt to fly. Bad info in, bad results out!
There are plenty of sucess stories and also plenty of failure stories to balance things out.
My own personal experience is one can have many great flights then all of the sudden have the unit act crazy and flip, Or get circles that often get bigger until theres a crash.
I'm not seeing anywhere that will tell me how to find out how to interpret the logs or anything that can help. Lack of documentation could be a big factor. There is disagreement on these forums for even basic setup info, like what wires should be connected to ESCS. So if its user error, how can I tell? Ive uploaded my flight logs and asked for help, but it seems there is not many people around with the time and patience that can read the logs correctly and assist.
I have had 4 of these units, all have had their own issues.
The first one was a genuine 3DR one. It produced a "no dataflash inserted" before it was even installed on a quad. The issue here was apparently not being able to have the battery and USB connected at the same time. I didn't see this mentioned in the wiki? I made my own 3.3v supply up, got it running and after connecting the GPS/Compass kept getting "Bad compass health" Nothing would help.
I ordered another 3DR APM and GPS and this set worked, and worked almost to the point of "I dont have any issues" then I went to take off in just stabalize mode one day and I noticed the controls behaved in a way I can only describe as the way acro mode would perform, then it just flipped and crashed. From the logs the only strange thing I could see was this was the only flight the showed the date in the logs as 0000. All of the rest showed the correct date. I don't know if thats significant.
2 more units and problems similar to the above happen maybe once in 20 flights or so, and the compass issue one in 5-10 maybe.
One of the other 2 units, all of the sudden, in flight, showed flat zero on all radio inputs and just locked the unit in the air. I had to chase after it and knock it out of the sky. The quad should have landed as a failsafe, but did not!
The compass is now quite close to an ESC on the arm of the quad as I broke all of my sticks in previous crashes. Maybe thats causing some issues in the auto modes. I've ordered more
2 Buddies also with an APM each had multple major crashes with APM and after switching just the autopilot and nothing else, have had no crashes for months.
Shane,
Here are two wiki pages (here and here) to help you get started understanding the dataflash log files.
It would be good if you can dig up the dataflash logs from those previous incidents and we can help you find the cause. Alternatively if you posted those incidents to the APM Forum or somewhere on the diydrones site then the logs should still be there I suspect.
I'd also really appreciate it if you could answer my question about whether fixing the COMPASS_ORIENT resolved your problem that you posted here.
Hi Randy.
I did post about the COMPASS_ORIENT being correct. I read up on that beforehand and understand that it needs to be set to ROLL_180 as the compass is mounted upside down.
I have uploaded the logs on page 2 of this thread. If you would be able to take a look, I'll have a read of those links and see if I can learn more about the logs.
Thanks heaps
If you
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