APM 2.8.0 showing negative altitude when armed

You don’t need to spend 400$. Search for “Matek H743 Slim” on Google, they are sold starting at 60$ (on AliExpress) and they are very capable FCs.
F4 FCs are a bit cheaper, starting at 40$, but they also don’t support Lua scripting, if you want that option in the future.

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If anyone pays $400 for a discontinued Pixhawk 4, they are a fool. You can get a Pixhawk 6C or better for $200 directly from Holybro.

I understand location plays a part in pricing and availability. But a $100-$200 US budget should be plenty for a supported F7-H7 autopilot.

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Move beyond the 4th stage of grief and budget for a supported Flight Controller that isn’t named “Pixhawk”.

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Nope, that is not necessarily the case. These FCs use newer hardware, and the sensors are better then the ones on the APM2.8

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Actually, I am just a bit hesitating to use F4 or F7 flight controllers… It would be my first experience with them. But Pixhawk 6C costs 28,550 INR in India, which is a large amount.
OK, So this means that this is clear that my apm 2.8 is dead and cannot be repaired…
Thanks all of you for spending your valuable time with me and for giving me plenty of nice suggestions. I will do some research on good flight controller and will definitely buy one…
Thanks a lot!

I agree with all others that it would be the best to change to a actual flight controller.
But still I am think about your problem.
The local air pressure is never really static. It changes on local weather conditions, changes of hight over reference level and also on direct air speed at the sensor.
So the algorithm of the flight controller (FC) must reset the ground level to zero just before take off.
So if you power on the FC while the the drone is placed maybe on a work bench on a different level than you airfield the startup value should be wrong. So the FC should not take this value. The FC has to take the value just before take off while the drone is placed on the airfield. To detect this condition the FC can use the arming command as this is command only if you are ready for take off.
If this, my thinking, is correct you can test your system fixed on the work bench.
Monitor the FC barometer reading with the fixed drone from power up and try to arm. At some point the reading must go to zero. Than let the drone powered for a while, serveral minutes; without moving or touching the drone. The reading must be stable. If so, you can than take your drone for example 1m up or down and check again the readings. It must be again stable with a difference of the changed level. Than put the drone back on the bench and the reading must go back to the first value. If this all work than the FC barometer function is principal ok and you have another undetected problem so far. And if so you run maybe in the same problem with the next FC.

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@RudrakshTek in this and other threads you stated how expencive new FC are for you and you need time to earn such money. Also you stated that you will learn all about drones, FC, electronics …
So one possibility to go deeper in all this is starting to realy troubleshooting your problem on this drone and FC.
You have the time and analysing the behavior of your system first in a more static field as described above will cost nothing but gives you the chance to learn.

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Yes. I am doing all that. I am constantly researching on net about my problem and also collecting information about some other topics as well. I put a denser, black foam on the barometer and it worked to some extent. My drone was not skyrocketing, but yes, it was quite unstable, considerably unstable.
So, as I have made my final decision to go with Pixhawk 6C mini, and I have started collecting money, meanwhile, I am troubleshooting my apm 2.8.
I know, my barometer is not dead. Because, as I raise up my drone, the altitude also increases, and the same vice versa. But it’s just that the altitude is somewhat fluctuating sometimes and going negative, even when it’s at a height of 1.5m above ground.

So, now you can start your methodical scientific work.
Place your drone on a fixed place and read out the height maybe every 30 sec without touching the drone.
What are the readouts over a time let say 10 minutes?
You can do this with and without the foam to see if there are changes.

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Thanks for motivation and suggestions!
Yes, I will try that out.

Offtopics: Can’t I change out my username in ardupilot discourse??

Hey once again after a long time! I placed my order of Kakute H7 wing FC!!! But still worried about my old friend APM 2.8… I put that foam on it and it worked fine for some weeks but again…
So I saw that I should put open celled piece of foam over it… Here’s what I have got:

I want to confirm whether these pieces of foam are open celled? Please look at these images…

Nice to hear with the Kakute H7 :+1:t2:

Yes, this is open cell foam. You can see it perfectly on the shadow in the first picture, if it was closed cell foam the shadow would be a straight line and not jagged like this.

But as I tried with this, readings altered from -60m to 33m !! What’s this barometer doing… Since Kakute H7 wing will take time to arrive because it is imported (approx 1 month) at this time I will check all possible things I can do with my old friend APM…

That is normal. Once it is armed it will read 0m

Please have a look at this Flight Controller:

On its page, it is written that it will support VTOL and ardupilot firmwares… But it is F405 based… So will it support latest firmware which can be used in my drone? Because this FC seems good with a nice price range of 4400INR to 4900 INR, and also has wifi and Bluetooth connectivity! And inbuilt power module! Just like Kakute H7 wing… And it also has inbuilt 4 led battery level indicator! Means, they are giving lots of things in just this price!
If this FC turns out to be good to be used in Quadcopter, I am very excited to buy it next month!!

I thought you already bought or ordered a Kakute H7

You always claim your low budget and the high costs and now you will by the next FC. OK you can do what ever you want.
The F405 chips only have 1MB Flash and the ardupilot firmware is rising with nearly each upgrade. So at the moment the firmware is running on the chip but not with all possible features. Only to move your copter as before with your old FC it also will work on the F405. But it is not completly future proof for the next years.

Yes, I placed the order of Kakute H7 wing from official Holybro website. Actually, If the item has many features with an affordable price range, then I don’t consider budget. Actually, prices till 6000 INR seem affordable to me but only if they have something special in them. And since I get 11000 INR for my part time job every 5th date of new month, so There’s nearly 6000 INR left for my passion…
Leave it whatever, If we keep the ‘future proof’ thing aside, I think this FC currently is just perfect and obviously, F4 chip will be way more better than Atmega 2560 present on APM, with APM supporting only firmware 3.2.1. I wish I got the same FC with H7 F7 chip…

Really for me and I think many user users it is not important to knw when you get what salery for which work. If you can spent more than 50% of your salery just for your hobby it is much more than most people here in Europe can do.
Keep the future proof aside is the first mistake mainly if budget is limited. Not future proof means that you always buy new old parts in relative short intervals as you will want also to have new or updated feature.
If you go with F4 chip than also you can look to different brands. Not all FC based on the same chip are with same quality. If you take the time to just read this forum you will see how often users come with problems and questons on this special platform. And last the SpeedyBee F405 Wing is not completly without soldering requirement. But this was something what you excluded all the time.

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Speedybee is the forum filler for questions arising from problems. Just use search and find out :wink:

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Aa, what is meant by Forum Filler? Means, are you trying to say speedy bee is a good company? As a beginner, I don’t know about much foreign companies…
And when I asked Google Gemini about the reviews of this FC, she said It is OK and also mentioned the same fact that it is not Future proof.
I now think that I should start a yt channel and earn with yt also. I know this will take time but let’s see…
This Money thing feels like barricade to me…