Is my Mac the Problem?

Posted by Stephan Noller on March 3, 2014 at 3:34am

Hi all,

i have some strange problems while trying to get my Quadcopter up and running. I have APM 2.6 (the Kit offered by 3dsystems) and a Mac. As RC i am using the Spectrum DX7 with AR8000 as Receiver. I have a Mac with APM Planner 2.0 installed (+avrdude). The first problem is: i cannot flash from APM Planner, but it works through the Arduino IDE. I can then connect the APM Planner to the drone via USB and run some tests, but for instance the motor test is activating only two out of the four motors. I can run the RC calibration test through command line and get calibration results, but it does not work through the graphical interface (bars are not moving). While playing around the drone suddenly went on and all four motors were spinning. No clue how that happened because i cannot arm it through the RC (or do ESC calibration etc.).

Any idea of what is going wrong?

Thanks in advance,

Stephan

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Replies

  • Developer
    Bill Bonney March 3, 2014 at 8:22pm
    The latest daily build and next release of APMplanner removes the dependency on avrdude. You should try that from http://firmware.diydrones.com/Tools/APMPlanner/daily

    If you are having serial problems please
    Post logs to the support forum as we would like to help resolve those

    Thx
  • Thomas Rutter March 3, 2014 at 4:08pm

    Stephan,

    I also use Mac, but also being into regular helis, I was forced to get a Windows machine cuz' everything (esc's, TX's all the firmware), is written on it. Not!

    Have you heard of Bootcamp? It will turn 32G of your Mac into a Windows unit, but you have to build in the software, But  then there is no BS in it. I run XP service pack 3, and some other crap you'll get prompted through to do it. but it does work.

    Best winblows machine ever.

    T

  • Mike Boland March 3, 2014 at 1:17pm

    By the way, I use only Mac.

  • Mike Boland March 3, 2014 at 1:17pm

    There is definitely a serial port connection problem in the latest release.

    I found I could install the firmware through APM Planner using USB but that was all.

    I could not establish a connection to do any configuring nor get any data for the flight screens, using USB.

    Via XBee I was able to get a terminal connection happening, but nothing else, no flight data screens nor setup screens.

    When going back to initial setup the serial connection icon was no longer displaying.

    So there are are some real issues in the latest release regarding the serial connections.

    I am currently working through so I can post some observations in the forum area for APM planner but until then I will be using the Mission Planner (Win) under Fusion to configure the Copter for flight.

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