A little back story to my hexa project...
On monday I was handed an incomplete jdrones arducopter hexa with a turnigy 9x w/ stock firmware.
It was purchased in feb of 2011 but im not sure if it has the ardupiolt mega 1 or 2 board...
(honestly i am a little confused on the difference between the difference between all the components and what i actually have on my hexa... apm1, apm2, mega 1, mega 2, oilpan1.0 or 1.4 any help with this would be appreciated ingesting all this in 4 day is a bit much)
But....
I have gone through every set up guide and I am pleased with how far I have gotten given
- Hexa powers up perfect syncs with Mission planner
- updated firmware to 2.9 hexa
- all the flight data syncs perfectly- GPS, gyro, accelerometer
- controller calibrated, I can arm the hexa and control throttle, yaw, pitch and roll and disarm
I feel im fairly close to a test flight but i want to set my flight modes first this is where im having issues...
I have read every post possible on setting this up with the 9x but I am stuck. This tutorial seems to be the best.
It seems that one of the main issues is connecting channel 6 from the receiver into input 5 on the APM and channel 5 from the receiver is to be left unplugged.
When I unplug channel 5 and leave it hanging I loose all signals from the controller same thing if i unplug channel 7...
Now what i have done is plugged channel 5 from the receiver into input 6 on the APM and everything works now and I have set channel 5 to GEAR as stated in the above tutorial. Now i am getting a reading in mission planner on Radio 6 when I Flip the gear switch.
The next step is to
"4. Put the F. MODE switch in position 2 and THRO HOLD/GEAR switch to the rear.
Go to the PROG.MIX menu and then setup MIX1 to look like this. Adjust the DNRATE value to get a pulse of 1555."
Any adjustment i make to the DNRATE does absolutely nothing to my pulse rate... this is where I am stuck.
I did a hard reset on my 9x but the same problem persists... not really sure where to go now is it an absout must to upgrade this thing to the er9x firmware or can i get this thing working as is...
Here are some pictures of my wiring set up it all looks correct based on the photos and diagrams I have seen of other hexas on here. (sorry for the long post trying to be as detailed as possible)
THANKS!!
Replies
Lucky you, just getting a hexa and APM handed to you! I agree with Bill, don't worry about setting the modes, just make sure you have stabilize set up and follow the guide and have it set up on all the channels in case your switch gets bumped or something else.
I started off with arduplane and tried to get all the bells and whistles set up and ready to use in the first flight. I can tell you that most of those bells and whistles were the least of my concern once the plane left my hand and I was just trying to keep it from lawn darting. I went through a lot of glue and styrofoam because of being so focused on having the perfect set up.
I switched to a quadcopter for Christmas this year and have headed the advise of the manual and other seasoned members. I am keeping it simple. I have spent the majority of my time balancing my copter, the props, doing the hand test, and practicing arming and disarming. I think this will go a long way towards a successful first flight this weekend. Who knows though!
Good luck on the first flight, and congrats on being given a hexa setup!
See here for more info http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/AC2_ModeSwitch
You can see the flight modes option screen here http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/APM2RCSetup about half way down, but it's for arduplane.