How are people setting up thier radios when flying traditional helis using arducopter? In the setup it says to use Airplane/Acro mode, and connect channel 3 from the receiver into the ardupilot and then use channel 7 to connect directly to the ESC.
I'm assuming this means you have to mix Ch3 and Ch7 in your radio to Ch7 will match the output of the left stick. The problem with this is, how do you set up a throttle curve? Since helicopters want a constant velocity on their head you want a throttle curve that is constant accross a majority of the throw for your left stick. But if you are also using your left stick to tell the ardupilot what the pitch should be, you need a fairly linear range of movement. In a normal setup when you have your radio in Heli mode your radio does this for you and you set a throttle curve and pitch curve that are both based off the left stick. In airplane mode though, this doesn't work.
We currently have a setup where the radio is set up as a 'mechanically mixed' helicopter (older radio). This allowed the pitch to be output on Ch3 and the throttle to be mapped to channel 7. Is this how everyone else is doing this or do they have other setups? My newer radio doesn't have a 'mechanical mixed' mode, and I haven't seen any newer radio with this.
I know there was also a statement made that there isn't a desire to implement throttle control into the arducopter code for helicopters. Is this still the case? I would be interested in having this feature. I'm starting to look at the code to try to implement it and am curious if others would be interested in seeing this work?
Replies
RX. APM
Channel 1 Channel 1 aileron
Channel 2 Channel 2 elevator
Channel 6 Channel 3 pitch
Channel 4 Channel 4 tail
Channel 7 three position switch Channel 7 mode
Using this set up means you can use your collective expo to soften the centre, this may or may not make the heli less bouncy on loiter/altitude hold. (although the apm might just see a linear line) I'll report when I fly mine on Wednesday.
It also leave throttle control on the correct channel out on the rx. Makes it easier to set governor mode etc. I have mine set so I can use idle 1 for a straight 80% gives me around 2000 rpm and idle norm so I can kill the motor if it all goes wrong.
Hope this helps.