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connecting RX on arducopter

Posted by Bart on January 4, 2011 at 4:06am

Hi,

I'm on the edge of completing my Arducopter. Having a little problem with the RX.

Does it need a power connection or not. Didn't find any manuals in the Futuba-box.

I'm building the pre-soldered and tested kit and it includes ESC's with BEC.

Do i use the right pins to connect to the apm? (most left ones on RX block)

Ans yes i am a complete noob on building my own RC stuff.

Oh and another question: can i use any USB cable to connect to my pc or do i have to use a special one?

For all you wannabee-arducopter-noobs:

The arducopter pre-soldered, tested kit is pretty easy to build if you have any experience with LEGO and/or Ikea.

I'll get back to you on the flying as soon as mine is ready to fly...;-)

arducopter, futuba, rx

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Comments

Cliff Dearden January 4, 2011 at 10:13pm

Many thanks Chris, sorry to be such a pain.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson January 4, 2011 at 9:55pm

Cliff--that's actually an optical illusion. The wires are meant to be seen as pointing to the rows of pins, not connected to any in particular. But I can see how it's confusing, so we'll redraw.
Cliff Dearden January 4, 2011 at 9:51pm

@Jani, Chris. Sorry to harp on this guys but your wiring diagrams are still incorrect. You are still showing

the signal wires comming from the ESC's are all connected to the bottom set of pins [negative rail] of the

APM board plus you have a further 6 wires [negative] all going to the negative pins of the Futaba Rx. If I

could re-draw it for you on the computor I would but I'm afraid I don't have that ability, sorry.
Troublemaker January 4, 2011 at 6:01pm

My 2 cents worth. On any receiver they way to tell the pins if they are unlabelled is that the signal
pins will be connected to individual tracks on the circuit board. The groind pins will all be tied together on one track. So too will be the power. Positive is always in the middle!
Developer

Jani Hirvinen January 4, 2011 at 6:00pm

Thomas, yes but still in same order. Signal and GND are always at edges while +5v is always at middle pin.
Admin

Thomas J Coyle III January 4, 2011 at 5:26pm

@Jani,

An exception: The new Spektrum AR8000 is GND, +5, Signal. Just the opposite of the rest of their product line.

Regards,

TCIII
Developer

Jani Hirvinen January 4, 2011 at 5:20pm

And here are real pictures that I've took some time ago of the connection cables. Ok it's not futaba receiver but all receivers are using same pin order eg. Signal, +5, GND. And as side note. As long as you don't mix that order eg put middle pin to upper or lower you won't brake anything. If your Signal/GND are upside down, you also won't brake anything. Having servo cable for example upside down does not brake anything, your servo just won't work untill up flip the cable.

Pictures of cables:

http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/Quad_Soldering_PDistro_RevC
Bart January 4, 2011 at 1:49pm

splendid.

Thats why i choose to join this project: very agile.

thanks a lot
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson January 4, 2011 at 12:28pm

We've updated the wiki to make this clearer. Please check it out.
Developer

Jason Short January 4, 2011 at 12:03pm

Bart,

Your Futaba diagram is correct.