Ignition and throttle control when Disarmed

Hi everyone!

So I have a quad plane with an internal combustion engine. I have been passing a lot of time in setting the ICE parameters from the Quadplane documentation page and on the ICE page itself.

The problem I have is that the ignition and throttle controls are only enabled when the aircraft is armed. This means that when I want to start the engine, the VTOL motors are actually armed. This is not a good to me as I need to be close to the aircraft with the starter and to do some pre-flight engine run-ups.

Is there a way to to activate the ignition and the throttle controls without arming the system?

It would be very very nice to be able to Enable the ignition and to set the min thr (in percent!) during the pre-flight. (to have a button next to the Arm/disarm button in mission planner that says Ignition On / ignition Off)

Otherwise, I would have to start the ICE with the four VTOL props spinning…

Thanks all!

Your request seems a bit too specific to warrant a change to the base software, but I think you may be able to use an RC channel for ignition on a GPIO pin rather than assigning it the ignition specific function. I don’t think that will have adverse effects otherwise, and GPIO (a “relay pin”) is available when disarmed.

EDIT:
Actually, I take that back - there’s quite a bit of ICE functionality that you’d lose by not assigning an ignition channel.

Instead, what about using a switch or relay to interrupt ESC output to the electric props? I wonder if the RC or button function, “Motor Emergency Stop” will kill the ignition or just the electric motors?

Mmm, Good thinking, Let me try that and I will get back to you. Thanks for the help!

It also Kills the Throttle. :frowning:

Ugh. I thought that might work! What about just a physical switch to disable the ESC when you’re running up the engine?