I seem to have reached a point of rrrrrgghhhhh and need help. If I could find someone in the West Palm Beach or Central Florida area that has a working knowledge of this software and could help a guy out I sure could use some help and advice.
I have an ArduCopter that was assembled and tested by jDrones. It seemed a little unstable when I got it. Not sure if it was me or what but I never flew the copter more than 5 feet off the ground so I decided to install the latest version of software with the Mission Planner which to a newbie is a big advancement in a user friendly interface. :-)
The copter is very unstable and tries to flip over when getting about a foot off the ground. I broke a blade on the last attempt. I am struggling with trying to figure out what is wrong and where to go from here.
A little background.I was advised when switching to this software to move the magnetometer from a component side up to component side down and this is the only change I have made to the copter other than the software since I got it, about 6 months ago.I do well with my T-rex 500 electric so I do have some ability.
I went thru the troubleshooting (http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/AC2_Troubleshooting) steps for the "Arducopter tilts over or wobbles crazily when I try and take off steps" and everything seems to be correct in steps 1-6 as far as I can tell.
#1.Is the APM board facing forward and in the direction of forward motion (towards the forward arm in + mode and between the arms in x mode)?
APM board is facing forward towards the front motor in + configuration. It came this way.
#2 Have you set your quad orientation right in the setup process: + or x?
It is setup in + orientation. I have loaded the software 3 times and verified this each time.
#3 Have you run the Motors command in the CLI Setup to ensure that all the motors are hooked up right, turning the right way and the pusher/puller props are on the right motors and oriented the right way?
Front and rear motors (3,4) turn CW and have the pusher blades. The left and right motors (1,2) turn CCW and are normal props.
#4 Was the quad stable and flat for the whole calibration routine at startup? Was it stable and flat during the setup process? (If need be, do it again)
Quad was stable sitting on the floor all three times I installed the software.
#5 Did you calibrate your ESCs? They should all start together when you advance the throttle. If need be, do it again manually, as described in the second process here.
I calibrated the esc's and using the mission planner raw data, radio viewer it shows everything working correctly. All esc's are in unison. I did notice that after going to the max and back, two of the esc's are slightly off from the other two by a little but I am not sure if this means anything it is so slight.
#6 Did you setup and test your radio? Run test/radio to see. Pitch, Roll, Throttle and Yaw should all be 0 or near zero (60 or less).
The radio seems to be doing what it should and the throttle, pitch, roll and yaw all seem to be acting correctly according to the data seen in the mission planner.
#7 Have you checked all your sensors in the Mission Planner or CLI Test/IMU menu to make sure the hardware is working right?
I watch the data coming from the quad. There are three columns of data and this is where I get lost.
The numbers start at (-1, -2, 0) The numbers do not remain steady. Column 1 goes from -1 to -74 to 1786 and then back down to negative numbers again. Column #2 goes from -2 to -55 to +1038 to -371, etc. Column 3 goes from 0 to 35982 and usually stays around 35xxx then goes to 211 to 1006 back to 35875 but never goes negative. I thought these numbers are to be fairly stable if the copter is just static, sitting on the floor? Am I headed in the right direction for figuring out what is going on?
Replies
Mikey, have you changed any of your PID settings? You could try following PID settings on your stabilize modes.
P: 2.3 - 2.4
I : 0.015
INT: 40
Few people has reported that these will make ArduCopter with bigger motors a lot more stable than current default settings. After you upload latest software all earlier settings are wiped out too so your ArduCopter is back on smaller motor/prop combination setting.
The imu test is pitch, roll, and yaw in degrees * 100. When the quad is on the table, you should see low values that are pretty stable. Yaw could be anything 0 - 36000.
Have you run "level" ? That's the command to tell the copter what is flat and upright. Without level, it won't fly well.
The hand test is with the props, just be careful. give it enough gas to not fly on it's own. It should want to recover immediately as you tip each axis. tip: don't hold the radio in your hand, leave it on a table and you won't bump the throttle.
If the copter wobbles or spins up the wrong motor, you have a config issue and we can solve that.
In the IMU test, it should definitely not change that much when not moving the quad (at least while not moving the quad/APM), but it is normal behavior when moving the quad/APM shield.
At least, thats my case, just after leveling (i did a setup->level in the CLI (command line interface)), i get -5 to 5 for the first and second column, and constant 338xx on the third column WITHOUT moving my quad. Obviously, if i move my quad, those numbers start jumping to different positive/negative values depending how i move my quad.
Have you tried the hand test to feel how the quad reacts to movement and see if it wants to stay stable? i found that test very valuable for me while i was still learning and building my quad.
sam