Ardu Tricopter wiring etc

Hi, I built at Anycopter Tricopter with a servo driven rear yaw tail rotor. I have an Ardu 2.6 I believe. I have an external GPS. I am running a Turnigy 9x transmitter and receiver. I have been able to get it to arm every now and then. Some increase in the lower range of the throttle seemed to help with arming. But that is still infrequently working. I have throttle on all the motors. But I get no action on the swivel tail servo and no reaction to any change in pitch, yaw or any other command than throttle on all the motors. I am VERY unsure of how I have the wiring mapped on the Ardu unit to ESCs. I connected the first five inputs for the receiver to Ardu 1,2,3,4,5 one to one. I connected the outputs to ESC 1,2,4,7 as I saw that on some web page. I have gone over all the web pages I can find many times.

But I only get Arming and throttle identical for all motors. I see various changing “prearm: bad velocity” and “GPS glitches”. But even when all those settle down and I get it arm with left stick down and right there is no action besides general throttle.

I do get all of the check off points green in the test of calibration screen on occasion.

What am I doing wrong or missing in setup? Is the wiring correct? Do I have to setup something on the radio? Is there some input mixing which must be enabled?

@sdodd,
Please provide tlogs and/or data flash logs to help troubleshoot your issue.
Regards,
TCIII GM

[quote=“TCIII”]@sdodd,
Please provide tlogs and/or data flash logs to help troubleshoot your issue.
Regards,
TCIII GM[/quote]

Receiver to apm sounds right for a turnigy (1=ail, 2=ele, 3=thr, 4=rudd, 5=mode) and the motors should be front right is 1, front left is 2, rear is 4 and servo is 7.
Servo should move left and right with rudder commands but will only do so when the apm is armed, and make sure you’re in stabilise flight mode.

Beyond that, as TCIII says we need logs.

Well I thought I uploaded the latest logs. Buy I’ll look again when I get back to that computer.

I think this is the latest log. I hope I uploaded it correctly.

S

Did I get the log files up there correctly?

S

Hi Again,

If you may recall I was confused about wiring my Ardu Tri. I wanted to make sure I had it wired correctly. I got it setup receiver to Ardu 1,2,3,4 and the Ardu outputs to 1,2,4,7. After messing around and realizing I could turn off the startup hardware check before arming I was able to arm my Ardu Ti system and get the props responding to transmitter inputs. I also realized that a bad gyro might be a hardware problem. But the props were not doing the right things and I will study that later.

But before I go further I need to know why there is no response to the yaw servo on 7. All the motors turn and respond to inputs. But the yaw servo does nothing.

Does someone have a suggestion.

S

In reviewing your posts you haven’t stated how you are providing power to your servo. Are you providing 5 volts to the output rail from one of your ESCs? If this is an APM and not Pixhawk you should have the JP1 jumper removed and a separate power source feeding the output rail. That source could be one of your ESCs as long as your ESCs can provide at least an Amp or not (i.e., not Optos or possibly Afros)

This is an interesting response. I realize there is a diffference between ESC and servo power. But I don’t really know how the servo should be powered. I do have Afro 20amp ESCs. I just removed the jumper from jp1. I do have a Turnigy 26V SBEC but don’t know how to use it.

S

Possibly your problem. Do you have the red wire (the center wire in the servo connector) plugged in to the output rail from at least one of your ESCs?

APMs, with the JP1 jumper removed, have no power on the output rail. That is, if you measured the center pin on any of the outputs it would measure 0 volts. And that center pin is where your servos wants to get its 5 volts from. So how to power it?

Most ESCs can provide a couple of Amps of power via their center, 5 volt lead. If you plug in one of these to your output rail, 5 volts gets provided to ALL the center output pins. It’s not a good idea to plug in more than one ESC this way, thinking you’ll get more power, as they may “fight” each other.

Now Afros are a special case. Their design is such that they can provide only 0.5 Amps output. That’s not a lot. A tricopter servo can draw as much as 2 Amps, depending upon model and load. However some folks do get away with plugging in all the power leads from their Afro ESCs and having enough power to get their servo to work. That’s a bit too risky for my taste though. You could try plugging in all three ESC power wires and see if your servo responds. If so you could decide to take a chance and run that way, or just get a small, cheap 5 volt BEC capable of at least 2 amps and plug it into any of your unused output slots. Personally, I’d do the latter.

[quote=“OtherHand”]Possibly your problem. Do you have the red wire (the center wire in the servo connector) plugged in to the output rail from at least one of your ESCs?

Now Afros are a special case. Their design is such that they can provide only 0.5 Amps output. That’s not a lot. A tricopter servo can draw as much as 2 Amps, depending upon model and load. However some folks do get away with plugging in all the power leads from their Afro ESCs and having enough power to get their servo to work. That’s a bit too risky for my taste though. You could try plugging in all three ESC power wires and see if your servo responds. If so you could decide to take a chance and run that way, or just get a small, cheap 5 volt BEC capable of at least 2 amps and plug it into any of your unused output slots. Personally, I’d do the latter.[/quote]

This is making sense. It also agrees with other comments. I do have afros. I also have an 8-26v SBEC, max 5a, 5/6v output selectable, in my parts drawer. Which output voltage should I choose and do I take the power right from the general battery harness?

Thanks,

S

Yep. Set the BEC’s output to 5 volts, connect the main power input leads direct to whatever battery system you are running, and plug the BEC’s output servo lead into one of your unused APM output slots, like output 3. I’d recommend making sure that none of your Afro’s 5 volt out leads (center wire) are connected to the APM. Should work unless you have something really strange going on. BTW, the tail servo won’t start responding until the APM is armed.

So, the yaw should remain on APM output 7?

S

So, the yaw should remain on APM output 7?

S[/quote]

Well … I blew out the receiver. Lucky I have another one. But I have to learn why first.

S

Your receiver should be getting its power from the APM’s inputs, and if you have the JP1 jumper removed, that voltage is 5 volts, That’s provided by the Power Module. Pretty hard to damage a receiver. The APM would usually go up in smoke first.

And yes, the yaw servo should be connected to output 7 of the APM.

[quote=“OtherHand”]Your receiver should be getting its power from the APM’s inputs, and if you have the JP1 jumper removed, that voltage is 5 volts, That’s provided by the Power Module. Pretty hard to damage a receiver. The APM would usually go up in smoke first.

And yes, the yaw servo should be connected to output 7 of the APM.[/quote]

Makes sense to me. jp1 was removed. I did check the voltage on the APM inputs and it was like 5.5v. I did not have the jumper on the BEC set to the higher 6v option. But I am pretty much a hack at electronics. I am not sure there is no possibility of a higher instantaneous voltage.

Anyway, the red bind light went out and never blinking worked again.

Maybe I’ll tear into it and see if their is evidence of a dead component.

Meanwhile I gotta figure all this out.

S

[quote=“sdodd”][quote=“OtherHand”]Your receiver should be getting its power from the APM’s inputs, and if you have the JP1 jumper removed, that voltage is 5 volts, That’s provided by the Power Module. Pretty hard to damage a receiver. The APM would usually go up in smoke first.

And yes, the yaw servo should be connected to output 7 of the APM.[/quote]

Meanwhile I gotta figure all this out.

S[/quote]

So upon reconnecting the receiver came back. But I still can’t get an arm.

S

[quote=“OtherHand”]Possibly your problem. Do you have the red wire (the center wire in the servo connector) plugged in to the output rail from at least one of your ESCs?

Now Afros are a special case. Their design is such that they can provide only 0.5 Amps output. That’s not a lot. A tricopter servo can draw as much as 2 Amps, depending upon model and load. However some folks do get away with plugging in all the power leads from their Afro ESCs and having enough power to get their servo to work. That’s a bit too risky for my taste though. You could try plugging in all three ESC power wires and see if your servo responds. If so you could decide to take a chance and run that way, or just get a small, cheap 5 volt BEC capable of at least 2 amps and plug it into any of your unused output slots. Personally, I’d do the latter.[/quote]

I had that pointed out to me and already installed a sBEC on another slot in the lengthwise rail and resolved those issues with it. I checked the voltages and had 5.14 on the output rail. It is supposed to produce lots of power.

It was also suggested to prevent red wire connection for the afros. I haven’t decided on how to non-destructively do that.

But it was very odd to have the receiver refuse to blink and then suddenly come back to life later but not arm. I did have one occasion where the flight screen showed reaction to all physical movement but would not allow an arming and no errors. Now it won’t do that much.

There must be aliens involved.

S

[quote=“sdodd”]
It was also suggested to prevent red wire connection for the afros. I haven’t decided on how to non-destructively do that. [/quote]
It’s easy to remove the center wire from a servo connector. Simply take a small pointed object, like a straight pin, and press in the center wire’s retaining clip that’s in the opening on the face of the servo connector housing while lightly pulling the center wire out. It’s sort of difficult to describe verbally but very easy do actually do. Just push down the retention tab while pulling the wire out. Then fold it back and tape it to the servo wire. If you decide you even need it again you can just push it back into the servo connector housing and it will lock back into place.