I have APM 2. Everything worked great, flying great. Then, I had a crash. My fault, not the board. I crashed into a tree. Now, the board lights up fine when I plug it in via USB to my computer. All the LED lights show normal function. I get GPS lock, I can access Mission Planner, erase eeprom, load new codes (2.5.5), etc.
With the USB still in, if I plug in the lipo and arm the motors, I can throttle up and the motors spin normally. But as soon as I unplug the USB (lipo is still plugged in) the board goes dark and I get no response from the motors other then the dreaded continual beeps. Somehow, it seems that I'm not able to power the board via the output pins (jumper is in on the JP1 pin), but can power the board via USB.
I've checked all the soldering on all my wires going in and out of the PDB. I've visually checked the board itself. All the soldering looks good. I guess there are many things that could have damaged the board during the crash, but why does it work normally as described above? Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated. I miss my robot friend. :(
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If no one can suggest a good fix for the problem above, I might have a solution that may work:
Since the board can be powered by the USB port, I can use this 5000mAh battery with USB port here and connect this to the board via USB. Since USB is 5V I shouldn't fry the board. Then I can plug in the lipo, arm the motors, and I'm back in business. I would rather not spend the extra 50$ for this battery. I would rather have a simpler fix that applied to the APM 2 board itself (maybe something simple that I missed). Is there a hardware buff out there who knows the answer? Please help. Thanks.