Setting up my ArduPilot system... A project post...

Well the day has come, my Shield V2 arrived, and I have all the parts necessary to start building my UAV control system. This is just a documentation if you will, of my progress, hope, dreams...etc. I've been reading this site on & off for a year or two, and am now finally getting started. Within you will see my trials and tribulations, do's and don'ts( mostly don'ts so far lol) and who knows, I might be of some help with the newbies like myself. =] If you need some help like I did when you want to get started, try this link, it's what I did... =]My Ardupilot:

I thought I would use the Swiss Machine Pin Headers after reading on Sparkfuns website that they hold really well, which is what I wanted. Also the FTDI cable works as well(my own realization).

DO NOT USE THESE! They hold a little too well...

You can see in the pic above that they tend to bend when trying to pull off the shield from the ArduPilot, they can't bend a whole lot, or they break.

So I need to find my damn desoldering tool, and desolder ALL the machine pins off, and put in the regular headers that came with the shield. This doesn't shine a bad light on sparkfun and their products, they work really well, just not for this purpose... lolLast but not least, here's my ArduIMU V2:

My plan is to use Doug's Ardu-IMU-Pilot code, and do some testing with it.That's it for now, until I do some desoldering, and resoldering. lolPeace out...

OK, so I was able to fix my failed header pin fiasco... Trust me when I tell you, it was a whole lot of fun. So with that out of the way, I was able to do some testing. I loaded the 2.4 code, hooked up my AR7000, a couple servos, and an ESC, IT WORKED!

So since the AP setup worked, I tried uploading some waypoints. I'm unsure what I am doing wrong, but I've only been able to get a successful write 3 times maybe. I have the com port set to 6, and have read the manual, troubleshooting, FAQ's, & searched the site, still having issues. I think I have it pegged to a sequence of steps I need to do in perfect order, or I will get a fail...

I also made a wiring harness for my ArduPilot that will connect with my ArduIMU. I loaded Doug's code, and the R17 code for the IMU on my V2 IMU. Hooked everything up, and tried to get a response from it, nothing much happened, but again, I believe it comes down to my procedure. It was late 2nite, so I wasn't very in tune with my thinking. I'll be doing more tomorrow, trying to get things ironed out.

Oh, and I'll also be uploading more pics and vids when I wake up tommorrow.

laterz...

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

Benjamin Lanehart December 29, 2009 at 10:39am

@ Chris, thanks for that, thought it was me... =]
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson December 28, 2009 at 11:33pm

Note: just because it says "something is wrong" doesn't mean that the write didn't go through. Just do a read and check. We'll fix this funkyness in the next version.
Benjamin Lanehart December 28, 2009 at 11:24pm

OK, so I was able to fix my failed header pin fiasco... Trust me when I tell you, it was a whole lot of fun. So with that out of the way, I was able to do some testing. I loaded the 2.4 code, hooked up my AR7000, a couple servos, and an ESC, IT WORKED!

So since the AP setup worked, I tried uploading some waypoints. I'm unsure what I am doing wrong, but I've only been able to get a successful write 3 times maybe. I have the com port set to 6, and have read the manual, troubleshooting, FAQ's, & searched the site, still having issues. I think I have it pegged to a sequence of steps I need to do in perfect order, or I will get a fail...

I also made a wiring harness for my ArduPilot that will connect with my ArduIMU. I loaded Doug's code, and the R17 code for the IMU on my V2 IMU. Hooked everything up, and tried to get a response from it, nothing much happened, but again, I believe it comes down to my procedure. It was late 2nite, so I wasn't very in tune with my thinking. I'll be doing more tomorrow, trying to get things ironed out.

Oh, and I'll also be uploading more pics and vids when I wake up tommorrow.

laterz...
Benjamin Lanehart December 21, 2009 at 2:14pm

My kitchen table if chock full of baked goods for the last couple of days(tis the season I guess), so I haven't had a chance to desolder my mess, and fix it. Feeling bored, I was rummaging around the house, and I found the charging plug that came with my wife's iPod Touch. She doesn't use it, so I decided to claim it. Some of you may have these, but for those that don't, they plug into the wall, and convert 120 - 240VAC down to 5VDC, and have a handy female USB connection.

One thing I'm not a fan of is having a to spend a varying number of minutes to grab a GPS lock because of traveling, hasn't been turned on in a good while, or any number of reasons. I figure this will be a perfect solution, and it turns out to be a nice option versus draining batteries. As an added bonus, it works with the DIY Drones official FTDI cable. =]

ArduIMU V2:

ArduIMU V1:
Randy Varilek December 20, 2009 at 2:30pm

Morli, This camera control is for a full size powered parachute. This is my winter project so nothing to really show yet. I am working on version 2 of the wood mock up of the pan and tilt structure and trying to figure out the ArduIMU board/software/interfacing. Basically at the hair pulling stage with the electronics trying to learn the basics. Got the lights on the ArduIMU board so it seems to be sending data somewhere but I have not found out
where yet!
Randy Varilek December 19, 2009 at 4:20pm

This is a great post. I just received my ArduIMU + board and am trying to figure out how to really use it. My “drone” is the camera on my Powered Parachute. I am looking to stabilize it to stop the up and down and side to side motion that occurs to a camera mounted to the powered parachute frame. If that is successful, maybe I will be able to lock on a view, which would be neat but not nearly as important as to take the movement out of the picture. If you watch a video of the camera mounted to the frame it will quickly make you seasick unless the air is extremely calm.

Randy
Benjamin Lanehart December 18, 2009 at 9:55pm

Thanks, I like to share my screw ups, it usually helps someone... Like this one I failed to mention. When I soldered everything on, it helps to LOAD THE FREAKING CODE... I went through plenty of cigarettes out in the 20 degree temps we had today watching the blue and orange LEDs bounce back and forth waiting for a GPS lock, DUH. Needless to say, after feeling defeated, I went back in, loaded the 2.4 code. After I did that, I went outside and it took five minutes. lol Oh well... =]

This reply was deleted.