APM 2.8 quadcopter lifts off, lose control, goes up

I don’t even know if anyone uses APM 2.8 to fly drones anymore but I’m a super noob and I just started my first quadcopter project using APM 2.8 and with the help of youtube I’ve done the things to make it fly BUT there are things I need help with and I’m afraid that this is not going to work. The things are:

  1. The APM doesn’t arm sometimes even if it locks onto the satellites(I don’t mind this because after trying sometime it just works)
    2)After my first crash and blown props, I learned how to calibrate ESC’s, after that everything seemed fine but all hell broke loose when it started hovering like 10m above ground(it was unstable closer to ground when taking off but became controllable at like 5m or so) anyways after 10m it just started climbing up really fast and gone several meters up.I completely lost control on my Txr. One of the propellers came off , quad stopped working and fell to the ground.
    Please kindly someone help with this.
    I have a fly sky i6X Txr and iA10b Rxr and in the Txr I set failsafe to -100 throttle because someone in the youtube did it and I know nothing about failsafe in APM planner.
    I searched for similar threads but they are either unanswered or is in terms I can’t understand.
    So please someone guide me.

A Warm welcome…
APM 2.8 , 2.5,…etc ,…even though they are great FCs, they are not supported now.
If bitten by the bug…
Anyway, post more details about your setup & some experts will guide you.

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And start from here:-
https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-autopilots.html

Thanks dude really appreciate it.
I’m using an Arducopter board with external gps and compass.
And it has simonk 30A ESC’s with 1000kv motors running on 3000mAh battery.
I tried to analyze the log but I cant understand anything, I don’t even know if it’s the right log or not.
It broke one of its arms and now I’m so worried about flying it again when fix it.

Don´t worry. After a few crashes you will become expert : )
it is true that apm 2.8 is no longer “supported”, but to me is one of the most popular even today. because is cheap, versatile and kind of robust, so a lot of people still like this apm 2.8

The first time i activated the auto-tune function (for PID), was in a apm 2.8 with version of
Copter 3.2.1 , and i just could not belibe what i saw… INCREDIBLE.
apm 2.8 slill to me a masterpiece to learn software development in flight controllers, or any microcontroller-processor systems

for user mode, follow this instructions video-series:

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https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-apm25-and-26-overview.html

Did you use any apm 2.8 drone now?Can it make a reliable gps drone to this day? I’m just curious about the first I’ve ever had!
Thanks for the link though. I thought these threads were dead dated back to like 2017.

2015 was when the last version of Arducopter to support the old 8-bit APM flight controller was released. Do yourself a favor and replace it. Not only will you have a better performing Flight Controller with years of features added there are a lot more people around to help.

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to be true yes. i have 2drones, one with pixhawk 2.4 and the other with this famous apm 2.8
both for experimental things…

And yes man, that apm 2.8 have a very good gps lock, and flies in Loiter mode very, very well…
Of course recent versions of software and hardware ar much much better… but apm sttil impress me…

the apm 2.8 is mounted on a 25 $ plastic frame… with 5$ motors…cheap esc and a 2500mha battery… in fact that same frame was used to build my first drone with Arduino Uno as a flight controller board with the YMFC-AL software of Joop Broking, i modified that software to do experimental things aswell and learn something in the proces…

today there are even linux computers flying…

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You have all the reason, but the truth is, a lot of people in the world get in the ardupilot community because of the ols apm 2.8, lest face it.
apm 2.8 has a very close relation with arduino mega model, a lot of young boys from India,
Africa and philipines are fascinated in first instance because the apm 2.8, and maybe
if the support and development over the limited capabilities os apm 2.8 come back again,
people maybe become more interesed on develop software to the Ardupilot Community, because the learn curve would be much easies for them, for us, in consecuence more developers will appear … its my point of view…

Well sure, I had several of those Flight Controllers flying multirotors and planes but all of them have been replaced with much more capable boards for not much more money. You can buy a F4 FC for $30 that runs circles around an APM and runs the latest firmware.

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I would love to obtain such boards but it it so hard and expensive to get into flying in India. APM or Pixhawk is the best option available for us to begin with, then again pixhawk costs here like 6000 to 12000 rupees which is like 100-200 dollars. It costed me $35 for an APM. It is also so hard see people with hobbies here too.

Is it possible that my Ground Control Failsafe is triggered because I did connect an air telemetry module to the APM but didn’t connect/power the ground control unit to start with.

Sir.
Please say this version.


Plot your RC Throttle Input (Chann-3) to any of the servo outputs. They should be in sync.

Have attached a graph plot where the APM-2.8 (the controller that I use) doesn’t maintain Servo Output in sync with that of RC input. Please note the plot is for Quad which is on ground with all propellers removed. Acc, Mag are calibrated via Mission Planner. All ESCs are individually calibrated by directly through RC receiver.

Such open-loop tests are useless and provide no valid information.

You need to have props on and flying in order to close the control loop.

Is it normal that vehicle with high vibration levels climb undefinedly.
Reducing vibrations must be your number one priority.

And you need to attach your props correctly. The prop that flew off was not caused by the APM, nor the Software. It was caused by you not attaching it properly

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