Replies to This Discussion

ModeratorPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on September 17, 2010 at 3:19pm

Cooper, this is the #1 issue for anyone working with Arduino projects of any sort (not just ours), and it derives from the FTDI interface and drivers, which are complex. It is almost invariably due to a problem in your setup (it has nothing to do with the code, and rarely is due to the hardware). Can you confirm that you have checked EVERY ONE of these steps, from the manual?

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Permalink Reply by Cooper on September 18, 2010 at 6:15am

much thanx for the quick response chris. i spend all last night confirming all the manual steps.
only questionable about 7 (because i cant load a sketchbook),
8 (because FTDI was just files that i pointed port drivers to)
and 0 (because any 3cell lipo is more than 4v-7v)

but every other step was confirmed. check out the video of my problems. lol. thanx again

HERE IS THE VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXgbHzE2zUQ

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on September 18, 2010 at 8:01am

It looks like you switched your power solder jumper to BAT rather than the default SRV, which is a mistake if you're using an ESC. Needless to say, nothing will work if your board isn't getting power, so let's start with that.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph Schauber on September 18, 2010 at 8:55am

Cooper:
1. Look at your video 1:14 minutes into it. When you were trying to remove the ESC lead the power light was coming on. Look for a bad solder joint on the board.
2. At 2:53 minutes, you see the "Preferences" tab. click on it and you get this :

The "Sketchbook location" entry shows Arduino-IDE where you have your "Sketchbooks"" stored.

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Permalink Reply by Cooper on September 18, 2010 at 8:55pm

Thanx Jo. i got it!!!!!! i cleaned up all my solder points. They were way too big and sloppy. The ESC connection gives power in the correct position now. your feedback helped great too. B4 i couldnt open my sketchbooks, and fixed the preferences. so now i hope im good:). I didnt see any instructions for setting that part up, sorry. thanx. im feeling lucky

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Permalink Reply by Joseph Schauber on September 19, 2010 at 7:08am

You are welcome. The video helped to see the intermitent contact on the power bus. As Chris said we have all encountered this error:

avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00
avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51....

Many times it is related to the FTDI interface and drivers; however, in your case it was the "board" itself. Uploading software to the board is only the first hurtle. Now the real fun begins.!!!!!!

Keep us posted.
Joe

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Permalink Reply by Cooper on September 18, 2010 at 6:58pm

sorry, not sure what you mean when u say i switched my "power solder jumper to BAT rather than SRV". in the setting up the arduPilot there is no instance where it says to solder POWER TO SRV.
i do see BATT and SVRO... also POWER, but

there no jumpers between them.

aside from that, are u saying the ESC should only work with the black wire on the outside and NOT reverse way? (like in the video)

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Permalink Reply by Joseph Schauber on September 18, 2010 at 8:00pm

Cooper,
What Chris is trying to find out is if you did the following;

Changing the power solder jumper (Optional)
Although ArduPilot is designed to be powered by your ESC/RC receiver, it also has a built-in power regulator, so you can power it from a separate battery ranging from 6-15v (via the "BATT + -" holes) if you want. To do this, you have to switch the solder jumper from the default RC power to battery power. This means unsoldering the solder jumper that the board ships with and resoldering it on the other side.... This information can be found here : http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot/wiki/SolderingBoard

I can not speak for Chris, but I am sure "the ESC should only work with the black wire on the outside and NOT reverse way"

Have you read the ArduPilot manual found here : http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot/wiki/ArduPilot ?

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on September 18, 2010 at 8:02pm

I was referring to the SVRO/BATT solder jumper in the second picture. It comes from the factory the way it is in that picture, but it looked like in your video the solder bridge was actually on the BATT side. It was hard to see, so maybe I'm wrong. Just checking...

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Permalink Reply by Cooper on September 18, 2010 at 8:57pm

hey chris. i got it!!!!!! i cleaned up all my solder points. They were way too big and sloppy. The ESC connection gives power in the correct position now. and jo's feedback helped great too. B4 i couldnt open my sketchbooks, and fixed the preferences. so now i hope im good:). I didnt see any instructions for setting that part up, sorry. thanx. im feeling lucky

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Permalink Reply by Florin Mingireanu on September 19, 2010 at 12:27am

Also please make sure that you did the following: "Important: if you're using Windows, you must go to the Control Panel/Device Manager and make a change to the COM port assigned to the FTDI cable. Find the USB Serial Port entry as shown here (your FTDI may have been assigned to a different port than the 3 shown here; it doesn't matter what number it's given) and under Properties/Port Settings/Advanced, ensure that the "Set RTS On Close" box is checked, as shown below. Once you've made this change, you won't have to do it again. "

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Permalink Reply by Cooper on September 19, 2010 at 7:18am

thank you kindly. :) got it

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