So I am trying to get the autopilot on the APM2 board to fly my rc plane and have thus far only been able to crash it.
Manual mode works fine, but whenever the APM2 chip is requires, it seems as if the plane just spirals downward (not like a failsafe, but like a crash). We have done much debugging, and upgrading and following what is going on in these forums, but have been unsuccessful in making this plane work.
I am now wondering whether or not I need a new type of plane, because this EasyStar model does not have aelerons. I have noticed in the code where both the aelerons and the rudder are used to stabilize the plane, and I figured since I do not have aelerons, then this could be a problem...
Is there any version of ArduPilot that allows a plane to go into autopilot mode with just a rudder, throttle, and an elevator? Or maybe I'm just doing something else wrong. Any thoughts are welcome.
setup: Multiplex EasyStar
APM2 Board 2560 Mega
ArduPilot 2.34
Thanks!
Replies
When I was running eagle tree on only 3 channels I would get the death spiral so I did the mod and it helped on the eagle tree, but have only used the APM with ailerons so I can't help there. Here is a good guide for the easy* ailerons and they are great:).
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=350408&page=14
http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/APM2RC
I don't think I deviated from this but my memory is Terrible!
In stabilise mode, holding the plane in your hands with throttle off, do the controls move the correct way if you move the nose down, up and roll left/right?
The elevator should come up on nose down, should go down on nose up, and looking down the plane from the nose, tilting your left (the planes right) should move the rudder to the planes left whixh is your right facing the plane.
If you have the controls reversed (which is not the same as the Transmitters channel reverse) you will enter a death spiral fast as the plane is putting more dive to correct te dive!
I hope this helps.
Do you use the correct channel? IIRC, for a 3-channel plane with only rudder one is supposed to connect the rudder servo to the aileron channel (was it the first output? better check the manual). Have been using a 3-channel EZ myself for a while and had no problems with levelling.