I have been a RC Acro/Heli pilot since mid 90's... I been into electronics and computers even longer so i am no stranger to RC and DIY.
I have taken a few years break from both but the moment i found DIYDrones that break has ended. One of the areas i was interested in was robotics and one project i was working on before i got out of the hobby was autonomous flight. So you can imagine how excited i was to find ArduCopter.
I ordered two kits... One from JDrones and earlier this week a kit from the DIYDrones store. I received my stuff from the DIYDrones store over the last several days (Thanks for the speedy shipping!).
I setup the APM, programmed it and confirmed all was ok with my Radio, Sonar, GPS, etc. I had one oops with the shield (soldering the filter pads, i accidentally dislodged and lost one of the surface mount capacitors. Luckily it was an easy fix and all was ok). I ordered another shield 'just in case'.
Today i received the frame and such for my ArduCopter from DIY Store. I spent a better part of the day building and soldering it up. All was going great until i got to setting up the APM and my radio. The APM was not recognizing the receiver in test or radio setup.
I was stumped for the longest time until i realized i had a connection or two connected upside down (receiver connections). I am not new to doing this so i dont understand how i did it, but i did. After correcting this the PPM light would flash but the ArduPilot was not seeing any of the channels. The receiver is fine, tested with servos plugged into it. The ArduPilot will not see the receiver.
So my best guess is i fried the ArduPilot board. So back to the DIY store to order a replacement.
The way im destroying parts these guys are going to love me.
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