I have built a robot platform based on apm 2.6.Using rover code 2.45. The robot is using 2 power chair motors and a sabertooth 2x25 motor controller. The bot is heavy.I want to do a compass calibration.
Can anyone help with this conumdrum?
Thanks for input…
@servoman1,
Yes, big, heavy chassis tend to hinder the compass calibration process.
One possibility is to eliminate any item on the chassis that might not affect the compass calibration. Can you remove the drive batteries, which are usually big and heavy, and power the navigation controller with a small battery to help save weight?
Is it possible to reduce the weight of the chassis sufficiently that with the help of some friends you could make a stab at rotating the chassis in all axes? If you do, make sure you have plenty of beer on hand:-).
I once had a chassis that was big and heavy so I built a vertical structure about 18in tall out of HDPVC to go above the top of the rover and mounted the compass on that. I used that structure to rotate the compass around during the calibration process and it worked quite well since it was way above the chassis and any motor magnetic fields.
Regards,
TCIII ArduRover2 Developer
Thanks for your input.I think building the hdpvc structure is the way I will try.Much cheaper than buying
a case of Yengling 
. I would like to share photos of the process but I can’t figure out how to
upload pix’s.
@servoman1,
I think that you can add pictures as files in the attachment window below the text editing window.
Regards,
TCIII GM