Hello,
I am completely new to the APM 2.5 board, GPS, radio,etc. I purchased them from:
http://witespyquad.gostorego.com/flight-controllers/readytoflyer-2-5-287.html
I've installed the board on my bixler, loaded arduplane to the board, installed Mission Planner, and all with no issues. Initially I easily connected with the mavlink and it worked great for 10-15 connect/disconnects. Then one day, while connecting through mavlink, i got a message "FAILED TO UPDATE HOME LOCATION" followed by a "FAILED TO CONNECT" message and ever since have got the same message.
I purchased a FTDI and re-installed firmware on both ground and air radio. After that it connected fine 10-15 times BUT...now I get the same messages.
I DO know the radio's are communicating. I get a solid green light every time I connect the radios. Also, while attempting to connect through the mavlink, the artificial horizon moves on my computer screen, until i get the "FAILED TO CONNECT" message.
I have no idea what to do at this point and am not sure if I have a faulty radio, GPS, to some setting is incorrect somewhere. I'm pretty sure it's not the GPS because I can connect to the APM board flawlessly with a micro-USB cable. I really don't want to spend over 50 bucks on a new 3DR radio just to have the same issue.
I've spend way to many hours trying to figure this out, and the only reason I purchased the APM 2.5 in the first place, is to be able to use with the telemetry!!
any help/ suggestions would be much appreciated
-Phil
Replies
***ISSUE RESOLVED****
After spending some time changing setting after setting, the issue is now resolved! The issue was with the compass.
The external GPS unit has a compass built in. The APM 2.5 also has an internal compass (which must be disabled), and the external compass/magnetometer enabled in the GPS unit. Also, you have to cut the trace on the APM 2.5 board to enable the external compass.
In summary, if you get a error message "FAILED TO UPDATE HOME LOCATION" do the proper steps to make sure the external GPS/Compass is in use. It ended up having nothing to do with the radio.
So hopefully this will save somebody a bit of time in case they ever encounter the same problem.
You should have bought genuine 3DR hardware instead of a cheap Chinese clone. I don't think APM 2.5's go for $60 bucks, plus they have been out of production for a while. That GPS is definitely not 3DR. The use of the ardupilot logo and linking to the 3DR wiki, it does't get lower than that imho and its a copyright violation. You got dodgy equipment from a flybynight cloner.
Quote from DIYDrones: (This website....)
The PX4FMU / PX4IO was made as a University project by a Swiss team including Lorenz Meier and used next generation microcontrollers and distributed processing to greatly increase capabilities beyond the APM. DIYDrones and 3DRobotics adopted it as the basis for their next generation flight controller.
The Pixhawk actually is the DIYDrones next generation flight controller made by a collaboration of DIYDrones,3DR and the original Swiss team that made the PX4 to actually incorporate everything we wanted in a flight controller.
So, the PixHawk is based off of the Open source license of the PX4 that's why they have to post their schematics etc. So some may say it is a clone also., But that is another story.
There is no use blaming the hardware being a clone, if you have no idea where the problem is coming from... There is no copyright infringement, it's OPEN SOURCE, both APM and Pixhawk....