I dropped this the other day and after changing the prop the lower motor stopped working at power, it would spin erratically.
After getting it appart I noticed a couple things the pins on the back of the board had been pushed together and some were contacting each other. The next thing is, there are two different wire plugs that weren't connected.
Does the plug that fits into the group of pins at the rear of the board attach to one of the groups of pins? top Middle or bottom row? it's the black connecter with6 wires that ariginate behind the pins I bent. What are these for?
The other wire that Is in there loose is a red/black two hole plug, I haven't been able to figure out where either go.
Thanks,
Replies
The red and black cable will take power to the APM only if you are using ESCs that have BEC (battery eliminating circuits) i.e. they have their own power supply as the ones supplied by 3DR have (look at the white label). The 3DR APMs don't supply power to the ESCs so if you have another type that is opto isolated and so does not have its own power supply (a lot of the multicopter ESCs are like this) then you must make a plan to get power to the ESCs. If you look at this link https://pixhawk.org/users/actuators/pwm_escs_and_servos it explains it all. This link http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-powering-the-pixhawk/ is also useful.
The multi strand cable takes the signal from your APM to the ESCs. You can either plug all your ESCs onto the pins in your photo or take them direct to the APM (which I did when having problems with an ESC which I wanted to identify). 3DR recommend disconnecting the red (+ve) wire from the ESC plug when attaching it to the APM but I didn't bother as the pins on the APM don't do anything. In this case I was using the APM 2.6.
Thanks for the replies I ended up finding another y6 in our department that was also built by event38 and the two plugs I had in question were not connected either. place so the cables are just taking up space.
Mine is labelled. The black and red wire coming out the middle of the board is labelled 'To APM' - it can be used to provide power to the APM on the input rail (with jumper JP1 installed) or to servos on the output rail by plugging it in there. Just make sure the black and red wires are connected correctly - black is -, red is +
On the bottom of the board mine says 'S1' to 'S6' - this cable feeds the signal from your APM's output rail to your ESC's plugged into the pins on the end of the board.
Check out pages 9 and 18 in the build manual for an explanation.
Regards,
Nathaniel ~KD2DEY
Check out pages 9 and 18 in the build manual for an explanation.
Regards,
Nathaniel ~KD2DEY
Joe,
If I'm understanding what your asking; the double row of six pins are where each of your ESC's plug into the PDB. The loose two pin connector that is soldered to the board behind the double row of six pins can be plugged into the power rail on the Pixhawk to provide redundant/direct power to the rail/Pixhawk.
Regards,
Nathaniel ~KD2DEY