This is a bit of a cry for help because I have tried everything I can possibly think of and still not having any luck to get my drone in the air.
The problem is that I can get all the motors to spin in sync in calibration mode but as soon as I unplug the power to the battery to get out of calibration mode the whole system resets and forgets about the motors. Whether I arm(beep beep beep beep) or disarm(slower beep, beep, beep) the motors continue to beep and will not spin or respond to transmitter.
I have manually calibrated each motor individually (motors work with raadio)and also tried the all at once method ( easily 20 times with different orders by powering pixhawk with usb and battery to motors and all kinds of mixing and matching to try different orders) I followed the calibration in tutorials and read over the escs manual as well( and always have motors spinning and responding to throttle in calibration mode but no response to yaw or elevator). Always operating in stabilze mode. Tried lowering throttle trim ons startup on dx8 as well but no luck.
Using DX8 and AR8000
Tried both methods of connecting receiver directly with PPM encoder then to RC and with satellite to pixhawk
RC Timer 30A esc
http://www.rctimer.com/product_146.html
Starting to think I need to make changes to the pixhawk or DX8 but not sure where to go from here?!
Or is it that the Escs need flashed? Not sure how this is done but I need a program and special device I guess.
Thank you for any help and time because I only have so much hair left after dealing with this the past couple of days.....
Replies
Ok. Sounds like you are following the instructions, but something must still be off.
I too use a Spektrum DX8 transmitter with the AR8000 receiver. One thing that tripped me up when I was setting up my unit was the servo settings because the up/down left/right movement of the sticks was not correct for me. And when doing the ESC Calibration having the wrong setting on the throttle will cause the calibration to fail.
On my DX8 I have the following settings in Servo Setup -> Reverse
Throttle: nor
Aileron: rev
Elevator: rev
Rudder: rev
Nothing special on the trim.
Thank you Robert for the help.
Finally got it all dialed in and fixed.
The problem was with the throttle trim ultimately. I had to trim it between 1000 - 1100 and then I also had to recalibrate the radio and escs in that order. It was set to high and I had lowered it but not with a radio and esc recalibration so it was failing.
I also had to rev the servos as you described.
I used this to diagnose:
http://ardupilot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6027&p=1063...
I just finished my first couple flights successfully.
I went through the prearm safety check and arming pages and I am not receiving any warnings. I also tried disabling the pre-arm check altogether and it still did not make a difference.
Yes the light goes solid red after I push and hold.
The motor/escs continue to beep in prearm mode. Then when I arm they beep twice as fast. No warnings are given in HUD.
Sorry to hear you are having issues.
The issue may not be motor calibration. Have you followed the instructions on the pre-arm page http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/prearm_safety_check/ and Arming page http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/arming_the_motors/
Because on the PixHawk the motors will not arm or spin up if the pre-arm checks fail.
Also, are you pressing the safety button as describe in step five in the arming the motors page and getting the resultant steady safety light?
If you plug the unit into the mission planner, it can show you why pre-arm may have failed as described in the pre-arm safety check page section titled "To see what has caused Pre-Arm Safety Check failures".
Have fun, -blake