Hello DIY Drones community,
Gear: APM 2.5, Spektrum DX8 with AR8000 receiver.
I am a newbie to this hobby. I have purchased pre-assembled Arducopter and Spectrum DX8. Only wiring i had to do was between APM and AR8000. I am able to bind DX8 with AR8000 (light turn ON on AR8000)
I followed Arducopter wiki guide. I am stuck at ESC calibration step
https://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/AC2_ESC
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- Disconnect USB and battery. The entire system must not have power
- Turn your radio on and put the radio throttle stick at maximum.
- Connect the Lipo to power the APM, radio receiver and ESCs. You will probably hear one or two short musical tone from the ESCs.
- When the APM boots, the Red-Blue LEDs will cycle slowly and continuously
- Leaving the throttle stick at full, disconnect the Lipo and reconnect it again to reboot the APM and power the system. The APM will now pass the radio signal directly to the ESCs, triggering calibration. The Red-Blue LEDs will cycle quickly - You will probably hear the short musical note and then 2 beeps (it depends on what brand of ESC you have; the 3DR ones will do as described). After the two beeps there is a pause, during this pause drop the throttle to full down. You should hear confirmation/arming beeps. Move quickly to the next step.
- Do not unplug, move the throttle up a little to confirm all ESCs are armed and the motors are working in sync.
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I hear no confirmation in step 5 when i move the throttle stick down. and ofcourse step 6 is not working for me. motors are not spinning :(
any help will be appreciated as the snow melted away and i am excited to fly the arducopter for the first time. I am from Minnesota!!
20130503_145642.jpg
wiring on APM Inputs
One Whilte, three orange and two yellow are in "S" Channel 1 to 6
One Red are in '+' Channel 8
One Black are in '-' Channel 8
AR8000 wiring
six wires (white, orange and yellow) are in the bottom pins of AR8000 (see the attach image)
Black wire is in Top pin AUX 2
Red wire is in Middle pin AUX 2
Replies
On July 13th I helped Aleem get his first flight at the Grassfield RC Club Funfly. He had just loaded the latest 3.0 software version so we ran through the configuration steps again, and it was the ESC calibration which ended up being the issue why the APM was not arming. It took us few tries to get the ESC calibration to work. It helps to follow the instructions.
Two flights.
One crash.
It was very windy.
Not to make this thread bigger I posted my experiences with 3.0.0 today here Help welcome ;-)
Was a solution found to this???? I have a DX8 and cannot arm the APM2 despite having calibrated everything more than once. Just get a continuous flashing red from the board.
Make sure the PWM signal of the throttle gets to 1000 or lower. After that, try to arm. If that doesn't work try down and left to arm. If that works you will need to reverse the rudder channel. This type of info needs to have a bigger spot "somewhere" in the setup guide.
Radio calibration? ESCs like to see a few clicks below minimum stick by using the trim.
Is your DX8 in ACRO mode and not HELI mode?
This experience is common. It happened to me too. You will get through it.
Set-up on!
-=Doug
what ESC's are you using? Do you have a PIC?