MR60

Second APM bricked in less than a month...

Posted by Hugues on March 2, 2014 at 11:22am

Hi,

It is decisevly not my day : I took out the 3DR quad that was stored for a couple of months and plugged in the USB cable...nothing, not even a led, a sound.

I measure correctly 5.3V on the power module going into APM.

However I measure only 0,5V on the APM rails.

What has been blown ? How could I repair it ?

(This is the second APM getting bricked at a few weeks interval... this hardware is just not resilient to normal handling=>let's hope pixhawk boards are a little bit harder).

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Replies

  • Emin Bu March 3, 2014 at 2:00am

    And what happens when u connect batt?

    • MR60
      Hugues > Emin Bu March 4, 2014 at 10:31am

      absolutely nothing. Like there is no power.

      Is there a fuse os some sort that would have blown out ? (how can I check it ?)

    • Emin Bu > Hugues March 4, 2014 at 3:21pm

      I do not now answer...for sure main power line thru apm have diode and fuse...

      we have to find answer among us bcs Forum is real mess, and here it seems to me that only Randy(RESPECT!) and very few others taking care of 1000+ questions...

      I have similar situation, where when I connect my APM2.0 with external gps,blue led (showing 3D fix) is always solid on...without connected gps(and it works normally in U-centre)

    • Emin Bu > Emin Bu March 4, 2014 at 3:27pm

      http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-apm25-and-26-overview/#Powe...3702749450?profile=original

    • MR60
      Hugues > Emin Bu March 4, 2014 at 3:40pm

      Thx for helping out, I appreciate it.

      I will try to measure step by step with a multimeter to verify where the power line is broken, if broken.

      I think anyway, viewing such a great number of described bricked boards in forums, that APM's hardware is just too fragile. My own experience confirms this with two broken boards after less than a year of usage.

  • Euan Ramsay March 2, 2014 at 11:24am

    Methinks you're doing something wrong, or just vey unlucky - I treat mine like total ****, including epic crashes, trying to melt one with 8.4v, dual earths, poked with screw drivers, allen keys, hacked to bits for the external compass etc etc. All are ticking along just fine.

    Edit: When I run it off USB, I get about 4.9v, not 5.3v.

    • MR60
      Hugues > Euan Ramsay March 2, 2014 at 1:30pm

      I dunno, I must have been victim of a EMP bomb or something. 

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