Pixhawk Arming problems APM Plane 3.0.3

Archive
1

All I want to do is to ensure that the prop isn’t active after battery power is applied, until I arm it but I want the servos to work with the prop not armed.

Question #1
The pixhawk arm button is apparently required to arm the servos. Why? I really wish I could use the arm button to just arm the motor and have the servos be live as soon as I plug battery power.

Question #2
I’ve set ARMING_REQUIRE 1, so not I have to push the button to arm the servos, which I wish I didn’t have to, and then the motor doesn’t arm, which is not what I’d like but how it’s designed currently.
From there, I’m supposed to be able to go full rudder left to arm the motor, but that never works.
Arming from ground station does work, but obviously not great at the field.
How do I debug arming from rudder stick not working? (I tried full right and full left for 5s just in case)

Question #3
If I put ARMIING_CHECK to non zero (I put it back to 0 for now), are arming failures only going to be shown in the messages tab in apmplanner?
If so, would someone consider having a set of wav files on the sdcard and just play the relevant ones to give status messages for what tests passed “GPS lock” “baro initialized” “Compass ready” “armed” or give the relevant soundbit for whatever failed?

Question #4
Is it possible to make the arming button “arm” with a 10 second press or something?
(although again, I really wish the arming button could be used to arm just the prop and not the servos which would be armed at power on)

Thanks,
Marc

2

I think that’s a good safety feature. I am happy with using the default settings. I have never had any problems with the default setup.

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3

I have a Futaba Sbus setup and have never been able to get the rudder arm to work. I’m not really sure how that is supposed to work? I assumed that it was an alternative to pushing the button but apparently not? Does anyone have a link on how to use that feature?

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4

Ok, I found the problem. For some unexplained reason, RC4_REV was set to 0
This caused the rudder not to work for APM plane, also causing it not to arm.

5

[quote=“marcmerlin”]Ok, I found the problem. For some unexplained reason, RC4_REV was set to 0
This caused the rudder not to work for APM plane, also causing it not to arm.[/quote]

Exactly what setting on the arming parameters do you have set to get the rudder arming to work? Does rudder arming replace button arming?

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6

If you want the servos to function before arming and let the arm only control motor, set ARMING_REQUIRE to 1 as you describe in #2.

On powerup you will have full servo control but the motor will not arm until you press and hold the arming button. No RC or Ground Station required.