@MephistoPFBR wrote:

Hi all , I new on the forum

I´m From Brazil and stay out of the Hobby World for a long time.. (when multirotors start to appears)

But now I want to put my old and reallyable Trex450 V2 (Flybared) to work whith APM!

I´m a little bit rusty whith new terms soh please be pacient..

I put hand on a mini-APM 3.1 (case label) inside on the board it says 3.1 too)) No compass chip!

Hardware list:

9XR pro (frsky module and RX)
mini APM 3.1
Neo 6 (Gps compass module)
Trex 450V2 (flybar)
Power Module
DS410 align Servos for cyclic
DS520 Align for Ruder
Tower PRO ESC 40A

Issues:
1º I have no cyclic (on heli tab cyclic dont goes up and down) the only way to have it is mix the TX cyclic option to channel 6 (this will kill the knob for later adjustments))... need help on that.

2º when I plug the USB whith no battery it make servos work (noise) and esc beeps!
I rewiew all my wires and have no 5V line conected from APM to any other hardware
the only common 5V connection is via Power Module...look a hardware issue (I affraid to burn computer USB or APM)

3º I need a Little help whith PID starting setting...(has I sayd mix on channel 6 for cyclic i has no Knob to adjustments) there is a short os videos on youtube and documentations

Kind regards

Posts: 1

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@aerodim wrote:

Hello to all of you!
I'm new here and this is my first post. I hope and wish under your support, to found a solution to my strange issue!
So, first to say that I'm not very familiar with mission planner 1.3.46 and APM2.8 for traditional heli 450 electric. and i was totally lost in many steps during the whole procedure and setup.
Fortunately, after a lot of readings Plus wrong and correct attempts, ....finally i succeed to setup my heli ....till the step to move my swash and servos correctly according the green bars in the software. And here it starts my issue. After lets say around 3 or 4 (heli and software) restarts, all of my servos are not moving at all. Not even a noisy sound by them or anything!! they are completely ...dead! Of course i test servos directly in RX and all are working very well. Another strange thing is that whenever i move my TX sticks the green bars are following correctly my moves But servos are off!!! M.P. software gives me the error 'RC not calibrated' I re-do calibration lots of times but ....nothing!!!! Same results as described!!! The only thing i can Note, is that my PWM values for each green bar as i move my sticks, are above than the established or recommended ones. I don't know if this has anything to do!!!
So, I'm stuck here and kindly ask any of you for your efforts and your help to continue with the rest !!! i use futaba T8FG Super as TX
Many thanks in advance

Posts: 2

Participants: 2

Read full topic

@rfine7666 wrote:

Thanks in advance
Newbie to APM helicopter and need some advice. I have used APM 2.6 and 2.8 board for a few years now on quads and tricopters. I have watched videos of APM helicopters flying waypoint missions with no input from the transmitter a they are smooth and steady, I cannot get mine to fly anything like that with me controlling the sticks? Actually heli with APM is only a small amount more stable than flybared? I am pretty much using stock parameters except in extended tuning Rate pitch P is 110 and Rate Roll P is 90 , if I try to raise P parameters to improve stability, I get oscillating right and left? I have read many pages in forums but cannot seem to improve stability, heli is drifting a lot like there should be more input from APM for self adjust? What am I missing?
Thanks again

APM 2.6 Ver3.2.1, 450 Trex clone (was flybared and flew pretty well) now tarot FBL head, Emax digital servos, (APM is mounted under belly of heli) flying in stabilize mode and right now no GPS or compass attached?

Posts: 2

Participants: 2

Read full topic

@rfine7666 wrote:

Randy told me I would be better off to post question here.
Thanks in advance
Newbie to APM helicopter and need some advice. I have used APM 2.6 and 2.8 board for a few years now on quads and tricopters. I have watched videos of APM helicopters flying waypoint missions with no input from the transmitter a they are smooth and steady, I cannot get mine to fly anything like that with me controlling the sticks? Actually heli with APM is only a small amount more stable than flybared? I am pretty much using stock parameters except in extended tuning Rate pitch P is 110 and Rate Roll P is 90 , if I try to raise P parameters to improve stability, I get oscillating right and left? I have read many pages in forums but cannot seem to improve stability, heli is drifting a lot like there should be more input from APM for self adjust? What am I missing?
Thanks again

APM 2.6 Ver3.2.1, 450 Trex clone (was flybared and flew pretty well) now tarot FBL head, Emax digital servos, (APM is mounted under belly of heli) flying in stabilize mode and right now no GPS or compass attached?

Posts: 1

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@ChrisOlson wrote:

I thought I would post this, as it's not being done too often. I put a Direct Drive Fixed Pitch tail rotor on my Trex 500 test helicopter. I finally got it working really well. However the current code is somewhat broken. The tail is active without arming the flight controller. And it goes to full tail thrust when you arm.

Other than that it works well.

This is like the second flight test with it, before I got it tuned properly

This was the final flight test after tuning it, but the camera ran out of SD card and the video quit at 3 minutes into the flight

The final flight of the day was a 1.7 mile total distance auto flight with a target speed of 20m/s. It performed beautifully on the auto flight with perfect yaw control in 15-20 mph wind out in the open field.

This is couple photos of the modification. The motor is a Tiger 3510-630. The prop is a APC 9 x 4. The ESC is a Lumenier "Silk" 40A. Amazingly, it takes less power to run this tail than it did the stock tail. My hover amps went from an average of ~22 down to ~21 (4S battery).

Posts: 1

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@ozsteel wrote:

I had my heli doing a perfect RTL. Then I upgraded to 3.4.6 and it now moves to a point in the sky exactly at the home position but will not land - it just loiters.

Here is a log: 2017-05-21 14-48-23.bin (2.9 MB)

Here is the parameter file: Parameters as at 20 May 2017.param (11.0 KB)

Any ideas?

Posts: 2

Participants: 2

Read full topic

@frizensami wrote:

Hello everyone,

I've been tuning a tandem helicopter (two SAB Goblin 500 frames linked together) running Copter-3.5-rc6. This is the largest frame I have tuned, and while I can get the rate and angle PIDs to a decent level, and I can get somewhat acceptable throttle control, I'm having a lot of trouble with tuning Loiter performance.

The heli tends to drift to the left or right of the loiter point, then slowly come back, overshoot, and then continue with the same pattern. I've been tuning VEL_XY, but cannot get a rock-steady hover over the required point. I have two GPSs blended together, a Here and a Reach RTK in Fix mode - so the GPS information is as good as it can be.

Does anyone have experience with similar Loiter performance? Any help would be very appreciated

Test logs:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_bbiwjdkLT2NHk3UVNjX3NQYkk
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_bbiwjdkLT2eGM1VThPeWgtUG8
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_bbiwjdkLT2Tm04TnlUdXkzSEU

Best parameter set:
bestparams.txt (20.1 KB)

Posts: 2

Participants: 2

Read full topic

@umbcorp wrote:

Hi everyone, i have managed to install a pixhawk to my Trex 400 electric helicopter. It flies perfectly stable on stabilize mode however when i switch to rtl, althold or loiter it starts to vibrate in a funny way however it still flies. It can return to land by itself and hold some kind of position while vibrating in a weird way. Here is the video of the flights and behaviours that i described here. https://youtu.be/3Dt4FO4C8L0 if anyone experienced a similar situation it would be great if you can help. The p value is at 0.080 it cant go lower (unless i modify it from param list) should i lower it till it flies better? Thank you! I also attached my param files heli450param.param (10.9 KB)

Posts: 2

Participants: 2

Read full topic

@TianChang_Yonah wrote:

Hello!

@frizensami and myself are in the process of learning to tune the control chain in ArduCopter using Xplane. We've been struggling for some time but finally making some headway. After studying @tridge 's params for the jet ranger in xplane, things only got better until we started focusing on a few things

1. Focus on tweaking rate PIDs to get a smooth time (critically damped) response curve of the current Angle "chasing" the Desired Angle (RP&Y)
2. Accepting some degree of steady state error in "Current Angle vs Desired Angle (RP&Y)" while in Stablized mode - about 1 to 2 degrees - using P gain from the rate PIDs and adding a tiny bit of D and I gains. Previously, we've been trying to get the current angle to match perfectly the desired angle
3. Reduce ACCEL_Z_P down to .3 - and even lower for smaller helis. -- this helped A LOT.
4. Start with real low VEL_XY PID and POS P gains - work our way up by LOITERING and looking at the drift on the map screen.
5. Keep the rest default, maybe bumping up ANGULAR YAW P for yaw performance while in forward flight -- we took @tridge's jet ranger params and ZERO'ed out the key ATC params and slowly worked up from there.

Using the few key pointers above, here are the param files for the R22 and the smallish Raptor heli. They aren't the best it can be yet but it seems flyable in auto mode. We even tried a 21 knot wind on the R22 on our params and it worked fairly well. However, it is after all a simulator (we're hoping its at least 80% representative of reality) -- we're waiting out for new batteries before hitting the field again for tuning.

We thought we'd share here and also learn from others who might have more experience than us.

R22TCTuning29May2017.param (14.7 KB)
RaptorTCTuning29May2017.param (14.7 KB)

Raptor in Hover after auto mission.PNG1920x1050 187 KB

• Raptor in a hover after an auto mission.

TC
Yonah

Posts: 1

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@rfine7666 wrote:

Confused Again, and Thanks in advance for any help/
With Arducopter Traditional Helicopter mission planner documentation I notice there are two ways to wire a APM 2.5 board to inputs, outputs, esc so on. I have tried to included pictures of these layouts ( hope I posted pics right) and I wish someone would tell me which one I am suppose to use?
One setup shows APM 2.5 ch 8 connected to receiver ch3, with ch6 connected to ch7, and ch7 connected to ch8?
The other setup shows all ch on APM straight across to receiver channels1 to 1, 2 to 2 so on
Not sure which is correct?
Thanks for any Help or Suggestions

6-2-2017 8-01-38 AM.png1280x960 343 KB

6-2-2017 8-03-45 AM.png1280x960 321 KB

APM 2.6 Ver3.2.1, 450 Trex clone, tarot FBL head, Emax digital servos, (APM is mounted under belly of heli)Flysky Th-9X, and Flysky 9ch receiver

Posts: 12

Participants: 3

Read full topic

@rfine7666 wrote:

Thanks to anyone for help
If someone has a working APM 450 helicopter would you Please upload your parameter file, just to be used for reference.
Thanks

APM 2.6 Ver3.2.1, 450 Trex clone, tarot FBL head, Emax digital servos, (APM is mounted under belly of heli)Flysky Th-9X, and Flysky 9ch receiver

Posts: 1

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@Leonardthall wrote:

Hi all,
I am getting close to working through some updates to the Attitude controller and I would like to make sure that I have considered the requirements of Trad Heli. As I don't fly Trad Heli I am somewhat at a disadvantage. In particular I would like to understand:
1. Your before-first-flight tuning you do. In particular I am interested in any parts of this process that you use the Autopilot. Here I am not focusing on things like autopilot calibration, more things like servo travel and some of the advanced setup features of heli.
2. The ground check procedures people follow. For example, how do you check your swash is moving correctly. How do you make yourself comfortable the autopilot is working correctly. I would like to know exactly what procedures you use and what you are looking for as you run through them.
3. Your spool up procedure. Is it always the same or different depending on what mode you want to fly in. I would like to hear exactly what you do from just before your rotor starts spinning until a few moments after lift off.
4. Do you think there are any special cases that need to be handled in Heli?

My goal here is to understand what process people go through with Trad Heli and determine if the current controllers are able to be optimised for these needs. I would like to highlight where I can enhance heli support and where I need to add additional features to address short cummings in the controllers.

If you can demonstrate issues using video's and dataflash logs I would be very greatfull. If you can't do this that is fine too but please take the time to answer questions.

Posts: 42

Participants: 5

Read full topic

@jinchengde wrote:

We try to auto takeoff the helicopter to the first waypoint in 15 meters, but the heclicopter climb more than 40 meters and loiter about 1 minutes, then it turn to the waypoint, check the log and show err 24-1, does it mean EKF2 error?2017-06-11 17-38-20.bin (2.9 MB)

Posts: 1

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@Sunit_Pal wrote:

I was flying my heli successfully using 3.4.6. Then I upgraded it to 3.5-rc8. Now I get the message “PreArm: Motor Interlock Enabled”. I am unable to find out the reason for this. This happens only when the RSC_MODE is set to 2. When I set RSC_MODE to 1, then there is no error. Is anybody else having this issue? I searched this forum but no one seems to have reported this issue. Some one reported a similar issue ( http://discuss.ardupilot.org/t/3-5-0-rc2-on-heli-with-pixracer-cant-clear-motor-interlock-solved/15734) but that seems to be dues to missing CH8 in the transmitter.

Posts: 5

Participants: 4

Read full topic

@rfine7666 wrote:

Thanks in advance for any help
I am pretty new to AMP helicopter and like to have very little negative pitch because I have not taught my thumb not to pull all the way down on the throttle when I panic.
I am having some trouble with the helicopter wanting to float quite a bit and maybe my negative pitch setting of -2 to -3 degrees in mission planner is part of the problem?
I read this in one of the traditional helicopter setup in mission planner post.
The FC needs the range to cope with gusts etc. You can set +/-12° for the FC and -2° to +10° for you and 'everybody' is happy.
Am I correct that this advice means to use mission planner heli setup and set the APM values to +12 and -12 and then save? Then use a pitch curve in your transmitter to setup a +10 and -2 for easier hover beginner flying?
If there is a better way to do this please tell me.
Thanks

Posts: 2

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@Implicit wrote:

Does anyone know if they will work?
I'm thinking something like this:
https://www.helidirect.com/helicopters/electronics/governors-rpm/rpm-sensor.html
Along with this:
http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/parameters.html#rpm-parameters

Posts: 4

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@Sunit_Pal wrote:

Today I had a very strange experience. I flew my 450 heli ( PixHawk2, Trad Heli V3.5.0-rc8) and then landed it. Immediately after landing I switch off the interlock switch ( CH8) to shutdown the motor. It did shutdown. However it started to move intermittently until I disarmed it using the Yaw stick. In the image of log below you can see that RCIN CH8 is low and the RCOUT CH8 also goes low. However as you can see it gets some high values causing the motor to move. I have been flying this heli with this setup for a while and I never had this before. However today this happened twice. Does anybody has any idea why this might be happening. I am little injured so I only fly small heli in a small field nearby, but had this been a big heli, it might injure someone. Hence this is also a safety issue. I will appreciate any inputs.

CH8.png933x216 38.4 KB

Posts: 2

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@mxracer wrote:

Hey everyone, Im just wondering if anyone will be willing to share there parameters using pixhawk and arducopter 3.4.6 for a trex 700/800. The helicopter is stock standard with DFC, Castle ice2 hv120 esc and Align 3gx FBL. I have heard mixed opinions with running pixhawk along with a FBL controller. I was in the process of setting up pixhawk in an old esky belt cp 450 sized heli but had a prop strike and parts are no longer available in New Zealand, so going to go straight to the trex 800, if anyone has any parameters that I can use that are close and I can fine tune from there just to get me started in the right direction. Eventually I will be using the helicopter for precision agriculture and thermal imaging of power lines. I would possibly go to a petrol/gas setup for this to type of stuff for flight duration and ease of just pouring in more gas while out on the field. Later I will be looking at a decent size heli that is capable of spraying. If anyone has any relevant links/information that would be great, I know there are options already available out there, but way out of my price range and I quite like all the features of the pixhawk and arducopter. Cheers

Posts: 8

Participants: 5

Read full topic

@OAPpilot wrote:

I have aquired a Align 550E Trad helicopter, thatI have I fitted a Pixhawk to, Now I am setting it up. I tried to reduce ACCEL_Z_P, 0.05 down to 0.02, with no sucess. I'm running the latest firmware 3.5.

Posts: 2

Participants: 1

Read full topic

@Implicit wrote:

Had the heli with me up in the mountains yesterday, partly to try to get some scenic footage, but mostly because I could :).
However, shortly after switching it into loiter, it started strongly moving right, with the ground station complaining about 'EKF velocity variance' and I got EKF Primary errors in the log.
What causes these? Vibrations have gotten a little worse since I moved the pixhawk. Are they the cause of this?

Log:

Posts: 4

Participants: 2

Read full topic