Pixhawk Loiter out of control

ArduCopter Copter 3.1
1

Not much of a forum poster but getting frustrated.

Have a Pixhawk on a Hex and have had quite a time getting things sorted out. I have been happy with the results when things are working though.

I had a problem with modes, they appeared to be working in mission planner but only stab would work while flying, the others only sent it falling to the ground. But in stab I had it flying good. I switched the stab to Loiter in MP and it was out of control, It would wobble a couple times and then roll 45+ and take off and input controls had little effect, other modes only sent it falling toward the ground. Very ugly crash resulted.

Not sure what I did but the modes are working now, stab and alt hold work very good but in Loiter it still loses control rolls and takes off, Tx controls have minimal effect, have to switch modes to save it.

Another issue, the Tx pwm readings when shut off (1160) are higher than the low throttle pwm (1102). I have failsafe set at 1088. I will not have FS if out of range. Not sure what to do next.

I have another controller here but I want this Pixhawk to work. I am getting there but ran out of google search ideas.

I find the instructions a bit lacking when you have a problem. When I did not have the modes it was probably something like not saving correctly etc. but there is no confirmation??

Thanks!

2

Can you provide a logfile of when the copter misbehaves in loiter mode?

When you change a mode in the setup in Mission Planner, it should be saved automatically right away. Odd, when it doesn’t - maybe your connection wasn’t stable.

3

Getting an error writing .log will this work?

4

I had a problem with my Pixhawk-based quad flying well in Stabilize and Alt-Hold, but the moment I chose Loiter it banked hard to the side and just took off.

Then I found the problem. When I was doing my initial setup, you get three choices of compass. The first choice is an image of just a Pixhawk, but the third image is of the 3DR GPS that look exactly like the one that comes with the Pixhawk. You have to select the plain Pixahawk image, even though it’s tempting to pick the image of the compass that looks just like the one that comes with the Pixhawk. Maybe that isn’t confusing to everyone, but it confused me at first.

I know that’s a wild guess, but was that it?

5

Yes, in fact the sticky in this forum specifically requests .bin over .log.

6

Your compass is going absolutely nuts. Where is it placed?