Bad compass health APM 2.6

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1

Hi all.

I purchased a APM 2.6 plus ublox GPS/compass unit from 3DR.

I connected to Mission Planner and uploaded the firmware for APM:copter. All looked fine.
Next morning the unit would no longer connect to Mission Planner, but I was able to upload new firmware. To cut a long story short, it was the 3.3 volt regulator that had blown. I hooked a new regulator up externally and supplied the 3.3 volt power directly to pin 1 on the i2c connector.

This fixed all issues except I’m getting “bad compass health” and in the CLI i’m getting a compass init failure.
The weird thing is, I can do a compass calibration and that seems to work fine.

I measured 3.3 volts of power getting into the compass and the GPS has a 3D lock.
Could anyone please tell me if I can tell if my compass is faulty or the APM board. All other internal devices seem to work. Gyro barometer etc. Before the regulator fix, I was getting dataflash errors and no connection in Mission Planner, so my fix seemed to work.

The unit is a genuine APM 2.6 and is not even a week old.

Any help would be most welcome.

Thanks.

2

@shane74,
This is a very strange issue indeed.
According to Craig Elder at 3DR the compass module is powered by 5vdc from the GPS input and does not rely on the I2C 3.3vdc for power.
Regards,
TCIII GM

3

sigh.

I’ve ordered another APM from 3DR. I hope I have better luck this time around. I didn’t order a compass as I didn’t connect it until after everything else was sorted.

Sill I wish I knew how I managed to kill the regulator. If it was my fault then no problem, I’ll know better next time, but I don’t know how it happened.

Shane.

4

My second board turned up from 3DR and the same issue occurs.

All I did was plug into the USB port, uploaded firmware and connected compass/GPS and we get
"BAD COMPASS HEALTH"

Clearly there is a major issue with quality control at 3DR.

I am going to jump on EBAY and order a clone. 3DR can keep my cash, but it will be the last.

5

@shane74,
Have you attempted to contact 3DR customer service at help@3drobotics.com to request support with your issue?
Regards,
TCIII GM

6

Thanks for the reply.

Yes I did, and they offered to RMA the board. Since I had done my own repairs I was assuming they wouldn’t warrant that and did not expect them to.

Instead I ordered a new board as this was what they were going to replace. This new board is doing the same thing. Two faulty boards?

As I said, I can do compass calibration, so I just don’t see how that can work but I get compass init failures in the CLI.

Is ardupilot trying to use a non-existent internal compass?

I really like the idea of the APM and have had the old board flying in manual mode, but this compass thing will not go away.

7

Anyone solve this? I just hooked up a new [clone] 2.6, and it’s looking like it’s working, but I can’t calibrate the compass, and I have the compass health message, although in the mission planner, it is correctly showing my heading under the yaw degrees, so I think it’s actually working, but doesn’t know it…

Could this be a software problem? Seems odd that so many people would all of a sudden report this…

-Steve

8

Got a 2.6 last wek
Hooked it up yesterday uploaded the firmware for my quad

GPS wont lock and Compass is bad health
I have spent 18hrs now trying to correct this
best I can do is over ride the arming check just to init the motors
Does the blue light go solid for gps lock or just blink all the time on 2.6
has anyone confirmed its not the firmware

But I dont think using lortier mode is a good idea at all

So here I sit
got a 800 size quad and cant get it off the ground safely

9

Would you mind checking if the cables are OK?
Verify that they aren’t making contact with each other or any other weird thing (ripped connectors and such)

10

verified everything is 100% at least as much as I can do

cables, connections, reflashed controller

even went to terminal and got into test mode
everything but the compass says its fine
this is what I get on the compase when I try "test] compass]"
Compass initialisation failed!

its a new compass/gps unit
gps inits fine

11

Just wondering if you figured out the problem. I am having the exact same problem. APM 2.6 and compass won’t initialize. The GPS unit appears to work fine. I have been banging my head against the wall and can’t figure it out.

Regards,

Chris

12

My problem was the amp itself was bad

no doubt about it
replaced it and the compass worked fine

13

Probily a silly question… But what do you mean by the amp itself?
Did you replace something on the compass / on the apm?
I have a kind of similar problem

14

spelling error

I meant I replaced the APM unit itself
and the existing compass/gps worked fine with the new APM unit

15

Satgod,

Thanks for the reply. I am going to get a new one and give it a try.

Regards,

Chris

16

I am having the exact same problem 1.5yrs later… there seams to be a quality control issue at APM… This really is unacceptable. Will contact customer support & ask for refund & buy a NAza… at least they work!

17

I was facing same issue for clone apm2.6 board.

i was getting bad compass health after connecting apm board to computer.

after reading many post i came to know that there is no on board compass on apm2.6 so this board might

give such kind of error even cant calibrate 2.6 board without external compass.

after connecting external compass everything works fine and no bad compass error and can calibrate easily

without any issue.

18

[quote=“chetan0412”]I was facing same issue for clone apm2.6 board.

i was getting bad compass health after connecting apm board to computer.

after reading many post i came to know that there is no on board compass on apm2.6 so this board might

give such kind of error even cant calibrate 2.6 board without external compass.

after connecting external compass everything works fine and no bad compass error and can calibrate easily

without any issue.[/quote]

Thanks for the reply, the board is a 2.6 & I do have an external compass/gps. This is the 2nd board as the first one destroyed the bootloader & couldn’t be recovered. both boards are 3DR units, embossed on board. Not really impressed thus far… promised the world… delivered nothing… bit like Ex PM Abbot