Hi I need some help finishing a 3DR Y6 with ardupilot 2.6. I have built a lot of UAV's but this is my first APM and it has had me baffled for over two months on and off. I have read much and watched many videos and I am close to completion but unit simply will not fly. Basically it just flips when I try to take off.
I am using 3.1.5 firmware and I keep getting the 'bad gyro health' msg. So I get it that there is a part that probably has to be soldered in to overcome the problem and I can not do that at the moment so I tried rolling back to version 3.0.1 as some suggest to get rid of msg. This works at getting rid of the msg but unit does not fly still.
To troubleshoot, I checked all wiring etc for Y6B configuration and tried the motor test on terminal using the test and motor commands. My problem is there is no clear explaination what order they should spin for a Y6 configuration. I expected that it would be 5 1 3 6 2 4 or perhaps 5 6 1 2 3 4 or something like that. But in my test, the firing order is 5 1 6 4 2 3. I have checked the wiring from motor to esc from esc to power distribution board where they merge and from power board to APM, it seems correct.
Does anyone have any idea why I get this weird firing order and how I can resolve this. Does 3.0.1 use the old propeller firing sequence, Y6A?
Replies
Hi, Thank you for your reply. I ended up having one prop wrong, due to change after breaking blade. The second problem I had was right stick up down channel needed to be reversed, found tip in a video, missed this originally. Machine now flies. I think my other issue was motor spin test due to Y6A and Y6B config differences. Once I went to Y6B and checked ignore preflight checks, it spins correctly in 1 2, 3 4, and then 5 6 order as expected. I will confirm once I start machine and test again as I have forgotten details at moment.
I built a custom Y6 with an APM 2.5 running 3.1.5
I've followed the motor layout on the wiki using layout Y6B and it flies beautifully.
Bad Gyro Health message is not good at all - which means if even after calibration you still get that message, this explains why your Y6 flips over - however if you already fixed that, with a calibration then keep reading for more possible issues below
Note: motor firing order in test mode doesn't mean much in regards to your flying results you've described. You should be able to make sure that you have the following things in order before flying.
Prop direction: make sure both top and bottom props of each co-axial set of motors are facing the correct way. This means that both props, on top and bottom have the top facing upwards (having the text on the prop upwards on both).
Also, make sure your motor pin out is correct, so if you selected Frame Y6B and have set up your props to work this way, then idle the motors a bit, and move the pitch, roll and yaw channels on your RC controller just a bit to make sure you get the proper response before taking it out to the air.
Let me know if you need a picture of what the prop direction should look like, and I'll gladly get one for you