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Arducopter only seems to work with USB attached

Posted by Stefan Kellner on October 11, 2010 at 2:36am
Hi!

I successfully build some Mikrokopters (mikrokopter.de) already and wanted to take a look at Arducopter too as it's 100% open source and seems to be easier to customize and play with.

I built my first one now and have the following question: If I connect the board via USB everything seems to work (Configurator looks fine, RC input is working etc.), if i connect the board via ESC/BEC the board is booting but the motors cannot be armed. However, I can control two of the motors directly with the RC. The PWM LED is not blinking.

Did I miss something?

TIA

Stefan

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Replies

  • Leonardo Lisboa October 12, 2010 at 3:08am
    Stefan, I had a similar problem. Are you connecting your 5V source to one of the ESC inputs in the board or are you connecting it to the Arduino power source (red board)?
    If you're connecting to Arduino power it shouldn't work, because it needs 6V to work. So, just connect the ESC 5V to one of the motors input and it should be fine.

    Cheers,
    Leonardo
  • Ed Kirk October 11, 2010 at 5:09am
    I had the same problem using Scorpion ESCs which look for a signal from the transmitter when they are powered up. The ESCs don't see a signal until they are armed by the transmitter which creats a delay in the signal. I switched to E-flight ESCs and they work great. I am going to contact Scorpion, their distributor is about 5 miles from my home so I can go by, They have been very helpfull in the past, maybe the delay can be bypassed.

    Ed
  • Sebastian Gralla October 11, 2010 at 2:56am
    nice to see someone here, who can compare arducopter with the mk

    does the apm boot correctly? (green LED on)

    can you arm tghe motors when it is connected over usb? (the motor bars should go up)
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