Hugh Hemington
Well-Known Member
Let's see, how did today go?
I tried putting the APM 2.5.2 controller in my newer frame with all the power leads pulled from the ESC control leads, so only the power module was powering the flight controller. I took it through all the calibrations in Mission Planner, resetting all flight modes to "stabilize", and took it outside. It armed and one blade began spinning slowly (I didn't feel this was a good sign). Then when I tried to throttle up, they all took off, it pitched forward, flew across the yard and into a fence. The second it took off I pulled the throttle back all the way then turned the radio off, but by that time it was in business for itself! With the radio off, I picked it up and it tried to take off in my hand, but I managed to get the battery unplugged without losing fingers. Ok, I score that as a failure.
Take it back to the shop and put in the 2.7 from HobbyKing. I don't like it in this frame, because the pins all stick up and if I install permanently I'll have to hack the frame up quite a lot so the ESC and servo leads don't get worn and broken being under pressure from the top deck. (HobbyKing made the deck too short for EVERY CONTROLLER THEY SELL -- nice job there HobbyKing!)
This time, I rigged the quad to the test stand I built for my other one, so it could complain all it wanted but couldn't fly anywhere. But this time, the APM wouldn't arm. I just got long and short blinks on the red LED. I connected it to Mission Planner and it says "compass health bad" or something which basically means my GPS/compass module is blown. I checked all the wires, and they're all fine.
This was my "older" LEA-6H GPS/compass from the RCTimer kit. The new one I bought -- the NEO-7M was "designed to work with Pixhawk", which should have read, "WRONG CONNECTOR!" but didn't. It has a 6-pin connector (with 4 wires) where every other GPS has a 5-pin connector with 4 wires. Apparently it was vitally important to have TWO unused pins instead of just one.
In the last couple of days, I've had both quads basically go crazy in testing, and in one instance it snapped the threaded base off the GPS pedestal, so that's gotta be replaced (naturally no one sells cases for LEA-6H GPS modules!). I ran all the wiring and nothing is shorted out. Although the QuadLugs frame is a dog's dinner by now, after all the mods and fooling around, the Alien is a work of art! (just neither one will actually fly)
I cannot attribute "one prop turning slowly" to a bad compass, so there's obviously quite a lot going wrong somewhere, although I'm not sure how I will locate the problem.
At this point, I'm considering just screwing everything to a piece of plywood to work out the kinks before putting anything on any frame again. "popping the lid" off the Alien is about 40 screws! I'm getting tired of that.
I either need a new GPS or need to spend God-only-knows how many hours sleuthing out both sets of cables to manage a conversion on the NEO-7M. And of course, the Chinese have used a connector sourced from Satan's bunghole, so I'll never find another one or a part# on this one. (and all but one of the LEA-6H wires are black -- isn't that special?)
And I should probably figure out if I need to do some sort of calibration of the ESCs to the motors, radio or something, because something is royally screwed up. But I previously connected the Throttle channel on the receiver to each ESC directly, to check rotation and they all were parked at "zero", started slowly and throttled up smoothly. And SunnySky motors sound GOOD! So whatever is going on is on the flight controller.
I will also need to build some sort of plastic protector cage for every GPS I install, because they snap off easily and apparently don't survive crashes well either.
I'm determined to get something into the air, under control, if it's the last thing I do.
I tried putting the APM 2.5.2 controller in my newer frame with all the power leads pulled from the ESC control leads, so only the power module was powering the flight controller. I took it through all the calibrations in Mission Planner, resetting all flight modes to "stabilize", and took it outside. It armed and one blade began spinning slowly (I didn't feel this was a good sign). Then when I tried to throttle up, they all took off, it pitched forward, flew across the yard and into a fence. The second it took off I pulled the throttle back all the way then turned the radio off, but by that time it was in business for itself! With the radio off, I picked it up and it tried to take off in my hand, but I managed to get the battery unplugged without losing fingers. Ok, I score that as a failure.
Take it back to the shop and put in the 2.7 from HobbyKing. I don't like it in this frame, because the pins all stick up and if I install permanently I'll have to hack the frame up quite a lot so the ESC and servo leads don't get worn and broken being under pressure from the top deck. (HobbyKing made the deck too short for EVERY CONTROLLER THEY SELL -- nice job there HobbyKing!)
This time, I rigged the quad to the test stand I built for my other one, so it could complain all it wanted but couldn't fly anywhere. But this time, the APM wouldn't arm. I just got long and short blinks on the red LED. I connected it to Mission Planner and it says "compass health bad" or something which basically means my GPS/compass module is blown. I checked all the wires, and they're all fine.
This was my "older" LEA-6H GPS/compass from the RCTimer kit. The new one I bought -- the NEO-7M was "designed to work with Pixhawk", which should have read, "WRONG CONNECTOR!" but didn't. It has a 6-pin connector (with 4 wires) where every other GPS has a 5-pin connector with 4 wires. Apparently it was vitally important to have TWO unused pins instead of just one.
In the last couple of days, I've had both quads basically go crazy in testing, and in one instance it snapped the threaded base off the GPS pedestal, so that's gotta be replaced (naturally no one sells cases for LEA-6H GPS modules!). I ran all the wiring and nothing is shorted out. Although the QuadLugs frame is a dog's dinner by now, after all the mods and fooling around, the Alien is a work of art! (just neither one will actually fly)
I cannot attribute "one prop turning slowly" to a bad compass, so there's obviously quite a lot going wrong somewhere, although I'm not sure how I will locate the problem.
At this point, I'm considering just screwing everything to a piece of plywood to work out the kinks before putting anything on any frame again. "popping the lid" off the Alien is about 40 screws! I'm getting tired of that.
I either need a new GPS or need to spend God-only-knows how many hours sleuthing out both sets of cables to manage a conversion on the NEO-7M. And of course, the Chinese have used a connector sourced from Satan's bunghole, so I'll never find another one or a part# on this one. (and all but one of the LEA-6H wires are black -- isn't that special?)
And I should probably figure out if I need to do some sort of calibration of the ESCs to the motors, radio or something, because something is royally screwed up. But I previously connected the Throttle channel on the receiver to each ESC directly, to check rotation and they all were parked at "zero", started slowly and throttled up smoothly. And SunnySky motors sound GOOD! So whatever is going on is on the flight controller.
I will also need to build some sort of plastic protector cage for every GPS I install, because they snap off easily and apparently don't survive crashes well either.
I'm determined to get something into the air, under control, if it's the last thing I do.