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Power problem?

Posted by Thomas Fankhauser on January 2, 2011 at 10:10am

I realy need your help! First of all, excuse my bad english.

I set up a plane with ardupilot mega and the imu sheeld. i attached following

  • ublox gps
  • airspeed sensor
  • 4 servos (aileron with y-cable)
  • xbee xbeexsc
  • esc to power whole system by my 3s lipo

my problem is, that if i test the autopilot with one servo and NO xbee attached, everything works fine.

when i attach more servos, the ardupilot will not boot (flashing leds stopp after some seconds, then it starts over again and again)

same problem with xbee connected.

 

I tried to work with external power from a 2s lipo (yes i removed the jumper:)

now without xbee everything works fine. my plane is flying on my table now since 20 minutes.

as soon as i connect the xbee, i have the same problem again.

so i tried to give the xbee its 5V from a +Pin from the servo connectors (the esc power source): ardupilot starts, runns perfectly for 1-3 minutes, then restarts again (or hang up)

 

any idea what i can do? i realy would like to have the telemetry, too

 

Thanks so much

tom

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Replies

  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson January 2, 2011 at 2:38pm
    It sounds like you've got an older APM board with the buggy PPM firmware (one of the fuses is set for a 4.7v brownout protection, which is too close to the nominal 5v. It should be set for 1.7v. You need to update the PPM firmware, as explained here.
  • Thomas Fankhauser January 2, 2011 at 11:06am

    Hi Matin!

    With no servos and power from esc it seems working.

    1 servos no xbee over esc is ok. 2 servos sometime.

    4 servos - no way

     

    all are tiny servos (no hi current)

     

    edit: gps and airspeed were connectet all the time - no problem with that. MUX led is blinking, too

  • Distributor
    Martint BuildYourOwnDrone.co.uk January 2, 2011 at 10:22am
    If you remove all servos, GPS & airspeed sensors and just connect the BEC from the ESC to the AMP and Xbee how long will it work for then ?
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