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Arducopter Startup

Posted by Öncü Kayalar on July 30, 2010 at 12:04am
Hello,

Yesterday I setup my quadcopter electronics without frame. My setup is:
  • ArduPilot Mega
  • IMU Shield (Oil Pan)
  • KDA 20-22L brushless motors
  • Electrifly 35A Brushless Electronic Speed Controls
  • Futaba 6EXP 6 Channel FM Tranmitter/Receiver
I uploaded the arducopter.pde code to ardupilot mega ( http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/source/browse/#svn/trunk/Arducopter ). I added the following code to void setup() to arm the electronic speed controls.

// RC channels Initialization (Quad motors) 
  APM_RC.OutputCh(0,MIN_THROTTLE);  // Motors stoped
  APM_RC.OutputCh(1,MIN_THROTTLE);
  APM_RC.OutputCh(2,MIN_THROTTLE);
  APM_RC.OutputCh(3,MIN_THROTTLE);

  delay(1000);

  APM_RC.OutputCh(0,1950);
  APM_RC.OutputCh(1,1950);
  APM_RC.OutputCh(2,1950);
  APM_RC.OutputCh(3,1950);

  delay(500);

  APM_RC.OutputCh(0,MIN_THROTTLE);
  APM_RC.OutputCh(1,MIN_THROTTLE);
  APM_RC.OutputCh(2,MIN_THROTTLE);
  APM_RC.OutputCh(3,MIN_THROTTLE);

Unfortunately electronic speed controls (or servos) did not respont to transmitter commands except the throttle stick. When armed throttle command increases or decreases speed of all motors. And also motors did not respond the position changes of the IMU. Channel 5 switch and channel 6 knob position did not make any difference (yellow light indicates that channel 5 switch operates correctly). I couldn't be able to find what is going wrong.

Any suggestions?

Oncu


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Replies

  • Öncü Kayalar August 1, 2010 at 2:03am
    I dont' know how but connecting to ArduCopter Configurator solved the problem :))

    Many Thanks!!!

    Oncu
  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen July 30, 2010 at 7:39am
    Or you can download whole repository by using Tortoise SVN on windows, if you are using Linux you can use command line svn client to do it.

    There are ArduCopter Configurator v1.1 also as in zip file in repository, you can download it from this link http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/source/browse/trunk/Configurato...

    And you should not remove GPS / Magneto code due it's not that what makes the trouble for you. It is due you have not installed and initialized ArduCopter properly on your ArduPilot Mega.
  • Öncü Kayalar July 30, 2010 at 6:46am
    Thanks Jani,

    I am glad to join your community.. I hope to contribute to the community in the future.

    Now I will do two things:

    1. Remove GPS and magnetometer parts from the code and reprogram the ardupilot mega

    or

    2. Use the Configurator. Unfortunately I am not able to download the Configurator from this address http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/source/browse/#svn/trunk/Config...

    best regards,
  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen July 30, 2010 at 5:05am
    TCIII it's not that. Like Öncü said, it responds on throttle so ESC's are online..

    Öncü, welcome to world or ArduCopter.. due code is not yet on a public beta there are bugs and this might be one of them. We have noticed that sometimes when you initialize "empty" APM, ArduCopter will not respond to ELE/PITCH stick movements or gyro inputs. We are working on this issue.

    Please use Configurator that you can find from same repository as ArduCopter main code and use it to initialize ArduCopter. If you still have problems to get proper input, use Configurators Serial monitor and send Y to ArduCopter. After that do normal initialization from Configurator. Now it should start to respond on your commands.

    Let me know if this helped.
  • Admin
    Thomas J Coyle III July 30, 2010 at 4:24am
    Oncu,

    Did you manually calibrate the ESCs to your R/C transmitter throttle prior to running your code?

    Regards,
    TCIII
This reply was deleted.

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