Comments

• 

  Sean Headrick May 26, 2014 at 3:22pm

  so we were running some flights over some farmland the other day and a couple things came up..

  • The flight plan was executing smoothly when about halfway between two waypoints the aircraft started to descend at an alarming rate. Battery power was at 40%. Have begun looking through the .log files , but am still a bit new at analyzing the log files.could help me see what caused the unexpected loss of Alt. I think it may have been a WP ALt command but all my waypoints were at 45 meters.
  • Was also trying to figure out how to inject GPS camera locations where the relay was triggering the camera using the relay command from the RC9 pin. The " Goetagging Photographs" wiki page suggests only the tlogs can be used, Do these locations record anywhere else?

  Thanks for your help

  2014-05-24%2011-17-40.log

  https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3701743773?profile=original
• Steve Cain May 23, 2014 at 5:38pm

  BustamyTool... the pins do not need to be in place.

  There are two flavors of power modules... the kind that provides 5v to the APM along with the voltage and current readings... and the kind of power module that only reads the voltage and current but does not have a BEC and therefore does not send 5v to the APM.  It sounds like you have the kind that only reads voltage and current but does not have the BEC in it.
• BustamyTool May 23, 2014 at 3:45pm

  Im trying to build a Y6 and im on my 3rd apm board. I wont go into detail but here's my prob. The board powers up when connected thru the usb but I just tried useing the power module to power up and it does nothing. My question is do the header pins for the jp1 jumper need to be soldered in place? I dont mean the jumper itself just the header pins the jumper connects to.
• Ken Gaines May 23, 2014 at 2:31pm

  I have no idea why it would do that. You might send Jeff (on that tutorial) a PM and ask him. He has helped me LOADS!!!!
• 

  Sean Headrick May 23, 2014 at 2:24pm

  That was the ticket!  Thanks On a related note, you are required to use the "relay" triggering method for this application. However , each time I connect to the APM, that specific param reverts back to "servo". I have not noticed this with any other param, and don't get why it would always revert back.
• Ken Gaines May 20, 2014 at 9:07pm

  Sean, check out this link for a GREAT DIY hack that will help you on your way.

  http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/apm-to-chdk-camera-link-tutorial

  The tutorial shows how to use APM to do this, but I bet you could use an AUX on the Turnigy with the right PWM to accomplish the same thing. You might even be able to mix two channels on the Turnigy to simultaneously trigger both cameras, but using APM to do it is much easier IMHO.
• 

  Sean Headrick May 20, 2014 at 8:46pm

  I am a bit new to it, but I am triggering a couple cannon cameras with the CHDK USB connected to the with a turnigy Rx switch. All i am looking for is a high PWM signal. It seems like it shouldn't be this hard. I think I just have some servo or PWM limits out of wack.
• Developer

  Randy May 20, 2014 at 7:52pm

  @Sean,

      I guess you're triggering "cameras" not "cannons"!  In any case, it may be because the update rate on the pins on the back of the APM are running at 490hz while RC10 and 11 only run at 50hz.  It's likely the servo or whatever that is attached to the pins that can't handle the high update rate.
• 

  Artem May 20, 2014 at 5:44pm

  ok, maybe everyone now this and it is an obvious thing but here is what I just figured out:  the "noisiness" of your 5v source to the FC will affect the number of sats your GPS will find!  In about February I upgraded my copter to 6s and because 3dr doesn't carry a 6s PM I got myself an eBay version which supports up to 30v and provides V, I and 5.2v for up to 3amps. Since it was only 15usd I honestly didn't hope it would work right away, but surprisingly it worked right out of the box!  Voltage and Amps readings on APM were extensively bench tested with a borrowed watt meter and my multimeter to confirm their worthiness. Everything checked out good, in fact I was very happy, I didn't even need to adjust anything in MP, I just chose 3dr power module and I had m volts amps correctly comprehended by APM.  around that time I had minor crash in which I though I damaged my 3dr GPS/MAG combo, so the sats were never higher than 11 and that happened only after 5-6 minutes sitting in the open field. since it was flyable and I consistently was getting 11 sats + 1.6-1.8 hdop, I didn't bother to replace it. So here is the culmination:  Last weekend I got a new 3dr gps/mag from a friend of mine and put it on the copter, again 11 sats and no more! I started experimenting with the shielding, but doesn't matter what I tried I still had 11 Sats, that's it.  Finally I switched my attention to my friend's copter to see what was different... the first thing that standed out was that he runs 4s, I took his battery plugged in to my copter.... still 11 sats! ok, the only thing different among our builds left was PM. I took my old 3dr pm, soldered it onto the available leads of my PD board and hooked up a 4s batt, right away I got 13 sats and that number went to 14 in about 2 mins.  that is w/o ANY shielding of GPS... I went back to my 6s ebay PM, took the gnd/vcc wires and put them through an FPV LC-filter. hooray 14sats in under a minute from cold start (due to lack of time the operations took place on different days). now I have at least 9 sats inside the garage with garage door closed, no windows and a second story on-top. 

  just my .02
• 

  Sean Headrick May 20, 2014 at 5:14pm

  Some help please! I have been trying to get two cannons to fire simultaneously while being stabilized by two servo driven gimbals running off pins RC10 and RC11. 

  

  When using 10 or 11 to trigger the cameras works those seem to be the only pins that drive the servos. I have tried multiple times to get RC8,7, just about everything I can

   think of but I seem to be missing something. I am using channel

   7 as my manual camera trigger and have set the servo out function of RC8 to "camera trigger" I am really at a loss. If anyone could point me in the right direction I would sure appreciate it.