Alright, I hope I'm missing something here, because I have checked the wiki/documentation over and over to see what I am doing wrong.
When I connect my APM to my computer via USB, all the lights come on and it appears to power on fine.
Last night, I finished my Power Distro Board and connected the battery and the APM. The motors all beep, but the APM has no lights and no sign of power.
What can I try? Please help.
Here is a picture of how my Power Disto Board looks.
Replies
Do you have a voltmeter? Could you check the voltage coming out of the power cable from the PowerDistribution board (PDB) to the APM?
Check out this wiki page, the first picture (near the bottom of the picture) shows the cable I'm talking about. It's labelled "To APM GND & 5V".
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/Quad_Soldering_PDistro
If that's not 5V there's something wrong with how that's been connected to the power distribution board...or possibly you're connecting it incorrectly to the APM.
You definitely need to be careful when connecting the power, you don't want to cause a short by connecting it incorrectly.
For me, I normally take that power cable from the PDM and connect it to one of the empty columns of pins on the back of the APM. So hold the power cable from the PDM vertically with the red wire on top, black on the bottom, then slot it into the back of the APM so that:
- the red wire connects to one of the pins on the middle row at the back of the APM
- the black wire connects to one of hte pins on the bottom row at the back of the APM
-Randy