All I want to do is to ensure that the prop isn't active after battery power is applied, until I arm it but I want the servos to work with the prop not armed.
Question #1
The pixhawk arm button is apparently required to arm the servos. Why? I really wish I could use the arm button to just arm the motor and have the servos be live as soon as I plug battery power.
Question #2
I've set ARMING_REQUIRE 1, so not I have to push the button to arm the servos, which I wish I didn't have to, and then the motor doesn't arm, which is not what I'd like but how it's designed currently.
From there, I'm supposed to be able to go full rudder left to arm the motor, but that never works.
Arming from ground station does work, but obviously not great at the field.
How do I debug arming from rudder stick not working? (I tried full right and full left for 5s just in case)
Question #3
If I put ARMIING_CHECK to non zero (I put it back to 0 for now), are arming failures only going to be shown in the messages tab in apmplanner?
If so, would someone consider having a set of wav files on the sdcard and just play the relevant ones to give status messages for what tests passed "GPS lock" "baro initialized" "Compass ready" "armed" or give the relevant soundbit for whatever failed?
Question #4
Is it possible to make the arming button "arm" with a 10 second press or something?
(although again, I really wish the arming button could be used to arm just the prop and not the servos which would be armed at power on)
Thanks,
Marc
Replies
Mmmh, maybe I found a problem. APM Plane 3.0.3 does not seem to control my rudder at all.
If I go in failsafe in apmplanner, I see rudder input on channel 4
If I'm in FBW A, the channel 4 output does not move at all
If I'm in manual mode, the rudder moves as expected.
WTF., RC4_REV was set to 0. I know I didn't do that myself, must have hit a bug?
I set it to -1 and now FWBA can control my rudder
And now arming via right rudder works too.
Man, it looks like I really paid the price for trying not to use AETR originally.
Thanks all for your time and suggestions.
Would there be a reason for APM Plane to not want to talk to my rudder, unless it's in passthrough mode, and is it maybe the same reason I can't use rudder to arm?
I use safety button and yaw arming in plane. Works fine.
It should be noted that you cannot yaw disarm - or at least I can't. once you arm with yaw, you must use the safety button to disable throttle output until you power down.
Thanks Steve. If it works for you with Plane 3.0.3, there must be something wrong with my setup.
Is it happy to arm as long as you have full rudder in one direction for 5 seconds is it?
Does it matter what the other sticks are sending at that time?
Arming support was added to AP2 at the end of January'14. I plan to test this this week to make sure it's working from AP2 as expected.
1) it's the Safety Button, (not ARM button) you can enable arming in plane if you want, just need to set the parameter for that. The safety button just allows the PWM to output to the ESC/servo. No motor will run before it is presed. Why do you need it to be enabled on battery plugin?
2) Arming is a secondary function from pressing the safety switch, you can disable ARMING by setting it to zero.
see http://plane.ardupilot.com/wiki/arduplane-parameters/#ARMING__Param...
3) No they are flashed up in the PFD for a brief period.
4) When using the ARMING required parameter, i believe the servo are outputted when the safety button has been pressed, but until you arm you cannot takeoff. i.e servo controls will be outputed, just not throttle
Thanks for your answers Bill.
Just to be clear, I don't need or want my motor to be active on battery plug in, but I'd like my servos to be active as soon as I plug the battery, so that I can test/preflight/whatever (including try flight modes without any risk that the prop will start. RTL or circle are happy to start the prop when you're on the ground and not moving).
So, I want the safety button to only enable the motor since the servos would already be auto-enabled at battery plug in time.
Is that possible?
I know I can disable arming, but I don't want that. I want arming to be required just for the motor. If I enable that, the safety switch does not allow arming if ARMING_REQUIRE is 1, correct?
If I disable ARMING_REQUIRE , then enabling my servos also enables my motor, correct?
You are correct that with ARMING_REQUIRE the prop will not turn after I push the safety switch in any way I found, and I have not been able to arm using the controller and applying right rudder for 5 seconds as documented.
So apparenly I cannot have a safe mode where servos are on, but the motor is off, unless I have my ground station to manually arm via serial since I seem to have no other way to arm the motors that works.
Does that make sense?
Any idea how to debug arm with right rudder not working?
Thanks, Marc
You and iskess are right, you need to figure out why you cannot arm, as that is the behaviour you want.
The safety sequence is currently
1. Power up - no signals to any outputs
2. Press Safety Button - PWM signals go live
3. ARM motor, signal will no go to motor. (If ARMING_REQUIRE is set)
(To change the behaviour of that start requires modifications to the code)
iskess and Bill, thanks for your answers.
So, here's my troubleshooting:
RCMAP_YAW is set to 4
RC4_MIN is 982
RC4_MAX is 2006
I checked on the status page that my transmitter sends 982 or 2006 with full stick deflection (I'm not sure which one of the two is 'right' because my rudder servo is reversed).
ARMING_DIS_RUD is set to 0
Arming just does not work no matter what I do (servos are armed with the safety switch though).
I can only arm by using the ground station.
Any idea what to try next?
I'm thinking about this again: is anyone actually using rudder arming in APM plane?
Maybe it doesn't actually work and only work for Copter?
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