I have an old APM1 (2560) board and was wondering if there are still any fun or useful things that can be done with it perhaps?
Bored and stuck at home? 
I know the feeling.
Not sure, never played with it.
I would say it’s not worth spending any time on. Better to throw it away and buy a cheap F4 board that supports current Ardupilot than be hobbled by that obsolete FC.
Lol what makes you think that? 
It doesn’t have to necessarily be something that flies but I just thought seeing that I paid $400 ( 
) for it back in 2012 it’s got to still be useful for something perhaps.
You can use it as a Antenna tracker.
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Kotze101 Ha ha, well, I learned more about Ardupilot in last 6 weeks that I didn’t in last 2 years lol
My wife thought she got herself a millionaire Husband 10 years ago, and she recently posted this pic on fb after COVID-19
All kidding aside, ok here’s what you can do with it.
- Add a sound sensor to it, and use Aux pins to turn on and off lights. The “clapper”
- See if you can build an interface with Alexa.
- You can still use it to build a quad.
Its a controller, control anything you want to control that you never did before.
I don’t know buddy…I just need a really nice drink
Asim
Asim I think I’ve also made more progress in the past few days than what I’ve ever done since building my first ArduCopter. 
I went from replacing ESCs to basic tuning and I’ve just had two alt_hold tests flights where my quad was rock solid in the air. Next up will be pos_hold testing.
With regards to the APM1 board I think for now I will just leave it in the box where I found it…
Actually Andre’s suggestion of using it for an Antenna Tracker is a good one. I didn’t consider that.
Kotze101 Some things are good to be left alone this includes APM1, and old socks
Who knows, maybe your grandkids can showcase it down the road like I am holding on to my ZX81 ,first home computer with awesome 1KB memory…huge!!!
Build a VTOL or join me where I am building the World’s First Autonomous Lawn maintenance Robot…Lawn Care with AI - Worlds first all in one solution
A friend of mine gave me for free a very old APM, I guess is the first generation (2 stacked boards, Arduino Mega 2560 + IMU Shield.). Even if it is old I managed to use it on a small RC boat. My question is, could this board use PPM signal from the radio receiver? (as APM2.x do by shorting 2 pins on the PWM inputs). I tried using a jumper between pins 2 and 3 but no result.
This board would probably be the APM1.4 by the sound of it.
It takes only PWM input as far as I recall.
So you would need s receiver with individual PWM channel outputs or a PPM to PWM convertor board
Or bronze it and put it on a trophy pedestal 
This is the board.
I started using APM series since version 2.5 so I really don’t know anything about 1.x.
The PPM connection would have helped me a lot reducing the number of wires. I guess these days it is cheaper buying a modern flight controller than reviving an older one. So I embraced the ideea of the bronze pedestal
and I just swapped it with a more recent Pixhawk (but not the latest). Now the Pixhawk board way too good for the purpose of my boat 
.
I also still have my old APM1.4 board stashed somewhere in a box at home and haven’t had the heart to just throw it away yet. The saddest part is I paid $400 for it back in 2011… 