APM 2.5 & Rctimer Arduflyder V2.5 Guide for Arducopter

[Jumpy07]

This is more of a hardware and features guide., work in progress, latest version will be posted here only.

Although this was written for the Rctimer Arduflyer APM 2.5 compatible FC, much of it is the same for genuine boards.

Current version V1.4


Disclaimer: Use at your own risk, I am sure there will be a few errors and typos, would welcome feedback.

V1.2  (removed, updated with V1.4 below)                          (2470.67 kB - downloaded 2364 times.)
V1.3  (removed) updated with V1.4 below)                          (2476.72 kB - downloaded 2220 times.)
 
V1.4

[Gaza07]

Very nice work Craig 

[icedfusion]

That is a fantastic guide! Thank you for taking the time to collate all this information and making it clear and concise in one document. You sir are a star!

ice.

[Mslater]

Nice, I've just added motor leds to mine, tis easy when you know how but the Wiki's make it appear really complicated - its not.

If you want to drive any more than 40mah then you need a circuit like this, otherwise just plug the Leds in on the board. The LED behaviour can be controlled in the mission planner by entering a value between 0 and 255 in the motorLeds parameter. I'll document how you work out the numbers later but for now the default values work quite well anyway.



Original drawing by U4eak of Diydrones (this version shows APM2 and dual LED voltages)   Current draw up to 500mah per channel MAX

[TeeJay]

Just registered to say a huge thanks to Jumpy for creating/posting these files
It's a great help to someone like me who's an "early adopter" but without the real knowledge/skill to be one :)

Cheers

[Gaza07]

Hi TeeJay and Welcome to the forum please feel free to post any pics or share any video you might have 

[Jumpy07]

Just registered to say a huge thanks to Jumpy for creating/posting these files
It's a great help to someone like me who's an "early adopter" but without the real knowledge/skill to be one :)

Cheers

Cheers .. thanks for the feedback.. I was in the same boat as u a few months ago.. and just thought.. wouldnt it be great to get all this info in one place...   glad it helped

Craig

[TeeJay]

Hi TeeJay and Welcome to the forum please feel free to post any pics or share any video you might have 

I'll stick a few up but they're old now and using an APM2 in a quad, I'm much more into planes now which is what I'll be using my Arduflyer 2.5 for

[Gaza07]

I would be very interested in seeing how well it does in a plane, I started out with planes and still some times fly a cougar 2000 

[TeeJay]

Well I'm finaly getting round to installing the APM2.5 in my Super Skysurfer
Having a few teething issues due to lack of knowledge but getting there

The latest problem is a little odd though...
When I power up to get the Mavlink OSD to work I have to unplug it then plug it back in again, not very convenient

[Jumpy07]

Its a common problem with high TVL cameras, make sure you have latest firmware installed.. sometimes this fixes it..
 
You may have to do what I did in the end... fit a momentary break switch from in the video wire from camera to minimosd... and press it to reset and sync video after MimimOSD has booted.
 

[LTMNO]

Great document... just joined to say thanks... will follow the forum moving forward.

Cheers.

[pektusin]

Great document, thanks a lot! However it is painful to see that you advertise a cloners but not the original developers. Everything comes from 3DR, they developed hw, fw, Mission Planner and they keep doing great job updating sw. Where this project would go without 3DR? Did RCtimer contribute anything into this project?

I know that Arduflyer is cheaper. Consider this when you're buying the product: 3DR has to pay developers, therefore they cannot match chinese clone price. Rctimer gets everything for free.

[teslahed]

Where do you see the rctimer clone being advertised without the original being mentioned?

The guide is titled "APM 2.5 & Arduflyer V2.5  - Guide for ArduCopter & MultiRotor’s "

Where the APM 2.5 is the official board and the arduflyer V2.5 is the rctimer clone. I don't see anything wrong in mentioning both - it's an open source project so there is nothing wrong with people cloning the hardware like this - but i agree it's only fair to include mention of the original developers of the hardware and software. If you can point out where we've missed doing this i will see about getting it fixed, thanks.

[Gaza07]

Hi pektusin and welcome to the forum I agree with what teslahed has said above we have reffered to two boards not one, if we are guilty of anything its the assumption that every one knows the APM2.5 is made by 3dr and possibly not mentioned their name enough,
we will be sure to correct this in the future 
what you dont see here is the times we have pointed members to one of the approved 3dr dealers to buy the genuine products which we often do in live chat 

Great document, thanks a lot! However it is painful to see that you advertise a cloners but not the original developers. Everything comes from 3DR, they developed hw, fw, Mission Planner and they keep doing great job updating sw. Where this project would go without 3DR? Did RCtimer contribute anything into this project?

I know that Arduflyer is cheaper. Consider this when you're buying the product: 3DR has to pay developers, therefore they cannot match chinese clone price. Rctimer gets everything for free.