I had just finished my quad using Afro ESC 30Amp Multi-rotor Motor Speed Controller (SimonK Firmware) and the APM2.6. I went thru all the setup, calibrations, tuning, and failsafes. I test flew it 6 times and it flew pretty good, and the modes/failsafes worked.. I went out today to do some more test flights and I accidently had it in althold when I tried to take off instead of stabilize. As it tried to lift it went violent, but didn't crash, and I shut it down. After that my my throttle would work until half throttle at which point the motors would decrease in power and fluctuate. I took the props off and retested everything on the bench with the same result, as if I lost my esc calibration. I tried to recalibrate multiple times and its always the same issue. In calibration mode the spool up as they should, but the second I go back to normal mode I only have half throttle and it erratic. I watch the esc and they have the green light on until I start throttle then no light until throttle is closed and then they flash 1 red then 1 green. I thought maybe I changed a setting that was causing it but do not see what it is. I have tried starting back at the beginning setup and even ran thru the wizard to set it up, but same results. I wanted to try to wipe the apm back to default but I do not see how to do that, as everytime I reinstalled the firmware it retains some of my settings. I am at the point of looking for different esc, and I was hoping someone could tell me what esc seems to work well with the APM for them. I would give some of the data logs but I had cleared them and the ones I have saved I am not sure contained the time I had issues. I can tell you that in the stats pane the throttle(ch3 in) is good closed to full but the (ch3 out) is erratic after half throttle. Maybe some knows how to reset all my parameters back to defult and I can retry it again. At this point any help would be greatly appreciated. I also have another question, the instructions say that simonK flash esc have an issue with autotune. I haven't tried this yet, just done it manually. Has anyone else tried this?
Again thank you for your time in this matter,
Don
Replies
Hi Don. I'm using Turnigy Plush 40A ESCs and have never encountered this problem. I'm still fairly new to APM 2.6 but have you tried the "all at once" ESC calibration method? It worked brilliantly for me. The video is here.
I had tried both methods. All at one and one at a time. I will try the full erase and see what happens. Thanks for your response.
Hi Don....I've used those same Afro ESCs in a couple of quads with no problems at all. They seem to work pretty well. That said, I've used a number of others (Like Lumeniers and Turnigy Plushes) and they all worked just fine too.
To do a full erase of the APM, go into terminal mode, type "setup", then "erase". This will wipe your APM completely and let you do a full, fresh install.
Hi Tom,
Thank you for your response, I will try the full erase and let you know what happened.
I have another question about your setups with the afros. Did you use autotune or manual tune?
Thanks,
Don
Tom,
Thank you very much. I erased it and reloaded firmware and as of now it works perfectly. Now back to setting everything else back up and hoping it still works as it should.
Thanks again,
Don
I'm pretty lousy at tuning in general so I used Autotune. I have two APM quads running Afros, a QAV500 and a larger one of my own design. The large quad has 14" props and low KV motors. Autotune worked very well for both these quads and came up with better PIDs than I ever could.
That sounds awesome, as it takes me forever to tune it manually and its not perfect when im done. I just seen on APM instructions that simonk and below 500 kv motors lose sync when using auto tune. But I will try it being that it worked ok for you.
Thanks again
Don
Don, I've heard of those issues with SimonK and some low KV pancake motors. It has happened to some, but not all. The motors on my large quad are 470KV and I've seen no issues with the Afros. As you've probably read, the occasional problem occurs with the low KV motors getting out of sync with the ESCs. This only happens with rapid, large throttle changes. Of course this is what Autotune does to a large extent.
If you'd like piece of mind regarding your motors and ESCs, what you can do is anchor your quad firmly to the ground, arm it and work the throttle back and forth rapidly through large swings. If your motors don't go out of sync during this "torture test" you likely will have no problem with Autotune.
hi tom,
i build a quad with 470kv and 17 inches prop, running on 4s.
i had few crashes trying to autotune, i think i am too far from good pids to do autotune.
could you share yours so i will put them and redo autotune?
thx
Nicolas, the props I was using on that quad were only 14x4.7, so the Autotune PIDs I got would likely not apply to you with your much larger props, but here they are anyway:
Roll P: .105
Roll I: .105
Roll D: .004
Pitch P: .220
Pitch I: .220
Pitch D: .015
Stabilize Roll: 4.55
Stabilize Pitch 4.55
With those size props you might want to test for ESC sync issues as I described to Don earlier in this thread.
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