Cirus AIO Pro V2 Will Not Arm

[steve fh]

Hi All.

I';m just in the process of building my 1st quad, though I';m not totally new to RC having flown Heilis on and off over the last 20+yrs so, the build and general set up so far as not been to traumatic but have come up against an issue I can';t seem to resolve and have a couple of general questions.

My aim is to have a machine to act as a film platform for Gopro and small cameras rather than an aerobatic machine and so knowing I would want gimbal stabilisation and gps down the line went for the Cirus AIO Pro board for it';s expandability and two firmware options.

Spec of the machine is as follows

• Spider 635 frame
  Sanwa 35mhz 6 chanel radio (to be upgraded once the rest of the kit works)
  Cirus AIO Pro V2 (no extension boards or GPS at this time) powered via ESC BEC
  MegapirateNG V2.8 R3
  TBS 750kv Motors
  TBS 30a ESC';s (simonk)
  10x4.5 props
  4S 4000mha Lipo

My main issue is that when plugged into the Mission planer via USB low throttle and right yaw arms the board and everything works. However if I just connect the Lipo with the board not hooked up to the laptop the board does not seem to boot up and will not arm. ESC';s make the same sequence of sounds either way but the board never boots up. The board is getting power as the blue light is on but after a few flashes non of the red amber green remain on.

Has anyone else encountered this? Once it arms hooked up to the USB I can disconnect the USB and it remains armed so the machine could be flown but obviously booting via a lap top is going to be a bit of a pain out in the field long term so a solution would be good.

Couple of other things.

Auto ESC calibration would not work (not uncommon i think) so i calibrated all 4 direct from the RX with a 4 way splitter and the net result was very smooth linear throttle with good speed range while hooked direct to the TX. Now via the AIO board motors wake up promptly as the throttle stick comes up but seem to go straight to mid speed, sound very happy at mid throttle (stick) and then go a bit rough if you try and move the stick above half. It';s almost like they start at half power the moment the stick comes up off the stop ?  Radio calibration has been done and seemed to work well so is there a setting i need to mess with in the Planner ?

Do I need to program the ESC';s or does SiminK firmware take care of all set up ?

To get gimbal levelling does there have to be in input from the RX or can the gimbal servos just be linked to the board and receive outputs  (not a concern just now but relevant to Radio upgrade decisions)

Thanks
Steve

[teslahed]

Do I need to program the ESC';s or does SiminK firmware take care of all set up ?

The only programming option with simonK is calibrating the throttle, which you have already done. So you don';t need to do any more programming with the ESCs.

O yeah, and welcome to the forum!

[Gaza07]

Hi steve fh and welcome to the forum it sounds like you have more than your fair share of problems,
have you tried upping the endpoints of the rudder channel a little maybe it right on the edge of working and not working this some times cures a non arming problem, although in your case its quite weird how it will arm when connected to usb, I notice your using a sanwa radio system some of the sanwa gear doesnt centre in the same place as other radios and could cause a problem but im not sure about that 
when your powered up and connected to the planner do you see a gps fix what is the staus of your gps ?
did you edit the megapirate code your self or did you download it from here ?

[steve fh]

Thanks for the input.

I don';t think the arming issue is due to radio end points as I still have to give low throttle and full right yaw to arm it when hooked up to the usb and the works ok.

It';s like the board never boots up to recieve to a pint where it';s ready to arm off the usb. I have read some where (megapriate/arducopter wiki i think) that it does not work with some ESC';s but i';m not really sure how they affect or interact with the board at boot up ?

I';m wondering in a UBEC might solve the issue as it would take the ECS out of the equation

Re the throttle behaviour i managed to upset the ESC calibration last night so had to re calibrate. It took several goes but after the low THR via the board seems much more sensible and the motors power up in a progressive manner, so fingers crossed that issue is resolved.

I down loaded and uploaded the code as per the instruction link on the Unmannedtech web site for the AIO board.

Other than having to boot the board via a usb as of last night it seems to be all set ok and responds to all radio inputs, so i';m running out of excuses not to test fly

[Gaza07]

I have used megapirate for quite a long time  and Ive never had a problem with simonK flashed esc';s
but in the earlier versions that we used to run on the black vortex I do remember there being problems when powered from the esc some thing to do with the board taking to long to boot and not initilising the esc';s properly, powering from a ubec cured these problems and since I had the AIOP ive always used a ubec with it 

[steve fh]

My temp work around is to use a RX battery to boot the board via the RX and disconnect it once the ESC';s have booted and the quad is armed.

[Gaza07]

On my AIOP v1 I used a seperate Ubec and connected that to the balance port of the lipo let the board boot then connected the esc';s 

[attach=1]

[felixrising]

I';ve got a AIO Pro V1 and also a V2. Powering them can be a bit difficult can';t it!. I really had some issues with the V2 as its on a x250 (same as Teslahead';s) with small ESCs (1A BEC). I eventually had to use a seperate UBEC to power the Spektrum AR6115E receiver which then powers the AIOP. I still have two of the ESC BECs plugged into the AIOP (not sure if they are really needed), but it took me quite a while to get it to boot reliably so I';m going to leave it how it is right now (';if it ain';t broke!'. I';ve read elsewhere that this thing likes to be powered by a seperat UBEC and I';m not sure the 3A UBEC I';ve currently got is really enough, it should be, but I';ve decided to order a couple of 5A UBECs just for good measure.

I might end up selling the AIOP v2 board as it doesn';t seem to level properly at power on, it always needs ACC calibration due to pitch always coming on around -5 for some reason. Anyone have any ideas on fixing the ACC pitch being off without constant re-calibration?

[Loiner]

Hi Both,
Dont know anything, now, about Ardu or Mega on the CRIUS PRO but I have had no problems with MultiWii for version 1.9 to 2.2. Points made above should all be checked especialy the servo range of throttle and Yaw. If al else fails down load WultiWii http://code.google.com/p/multiwii/downloads/list] [url]http://code.google.com/p/multiwii/downloads/list
[/url]2.2 do a little configuring and Fly.

Regards

John

[steve fh]

I might end up selling the AIOP v2 board as it doesn';t seem to level properly at power on, it always needs ACC calibration due to pitch always coming on around -5 for some reason. Anyone have any ideas on fixing the ACC pitch being off without constant re-calibration?

I';ve the same issue with the ACC always needing calibration each time i fly. Had it level last night and this morning as soon as i flick to level mode it pitches back and right.

[Joker88]

I';ve the same issue with the ACC always needing calibration each time i fly.

Oh sh.., is this a well known problem? I';ve ordered one and it should come in some days. :embarrassed

[felixrising]

Oh sh.., is this a well known problem? I';ve ordered one and it should come in some days. :embarrassed

Honestly, I don';t know. I spent some time getting mine up and running last night and tonight after parking it into a tree. I did the stick calibration to level it out. It might be worth asking in the rcgroups or multiwii forum if it';s a known issue.. that';s where I';m heading now. 

[steve fh]

Mine did eventually seem to sort it';s self out with regards to the levelling but it still needs the odd bit of trimming.

For sure all the issues i';ve had with the AIOP V2 such as motors not in sync etc has all been cured by letting the board boot either off the USB or UBEC prior to connecting power to te ESC';s

[felixrising]

I';ve got mine running off a seperate ubec so I can power the FC up first, but will add some RF filtering via a ferrite toroid and see if that helps at all too. I';ll test out powering it up well before the ESC/Motors and report back.

[felixrising]

Hi Steve, did you work it out in the end? I';m still finding I have to manually trim my v2 board.. very odd. I';m also finding that with the Skywalker Quattro 20A ESC and some cheap GLB motors that it is very jumpy/jittery, I tried a KK2 board on the same and it';s all smooth. I still don';t have a LC filter or ferrite rings to try filtering the power and I/O on the board, but it';s a bit annoying for what is otherwise a very powerful FC.

[steve fh]

Hi Steve, did you work it out in the end? I';m still finding I have to manually trim my v2 board.. very odd. I';m also finding that with the Skywalker Quattro 20A ESC and some cheap GLB motors that it is very jumpy/jittery, I tried a KK2 board on the same and it';s all smooth. I still don';t have a LC filter or ferrite rings to try filtering the power and I/O on the board, but it';s a bit annoying for what is otherwise a very powerful FC.

Are you running MultiWii 2.1 ?  If so I ended up setting the vibration filter at 98ghz and this settled it down as far as twitchiness went which really points to vibration issues. Further time with motor and prop balancing helped as well. (Dynamic balancing looking at the GUI trace and adding/removing random bits of tape)

I had mine on m3 rubber mounts and I suspect this board would benefit from a more elaborate anti vibe mounting. 

I also ended up with the P values for pitch and roll at 3.8 and they could be lower in breezy conditions as it does start to get a hint of the wobbles in anything less that still air.

I';d say i never had the ACC trim perfect but it certainly ended up only needing the odd bit of trim here and there and worked well enough to get the machine back level and sunny side up if i got disoriented flying in acro mode

One other thing i did was move my CoG to between 10 and 15mm in front of the motor axis intersection. This helped a lot with the issue i was having with the quad pitching back when speed built up in forward flight and seemed to go hand in hand with less need to trim every time i flew. Not sure what yours does but when mine seemed to loose calibration it was always trying to pitch back and right if i switched level mode from stable hover in Acro and i';m sure is linked to the machines desire to pitch back any time it can in forward flight.

I';ve fitted a NAZA late last week with no other changes to the set up, but other than a quick hop in the kitchen weather has stopped me flying it to get a true comparison, though the hop was enough to tell me that in Attitude hold (level) mode it needed no stick inputs to stay over one spot on default settings.

It';s in the van with me here at work so fingers crossed the breeze backs off a bit later and i can get it in the air.

[kym]

I';ve just started the slow process of building up a Seeker/Locust based on a v2 Crius.
The guts are on the bench at the moment for some measuring and it';s all booting and arming just fine powered off the Hobbywing 4-in-1 esc. I sometimes have the 2d camera gimbal hooked into it, but the esc udec gives 5.25@3a and that seems enough to run the Crius as well as an old 8ch receiver.
My auto calibrate on the esc didn';t work (but I didn';t sit there for hours trying all variations :) but its default behaviour was good enough for initial measuring.
The gimbal twitches at boot (may be a bit annoying, later) and doesn';t do much after that. Tried tilting the FC around but only got a reaction from the motors (c';mon; of COURSE they were running at the time). But it';s not explicitly enabled.
It was only belatedly I discovered the v2 doesn';t have the gimbal control inputs on the edge connector like v1.1. I guess you have to stick some wires on pads 32 & 33.
I haven';t downloaded any software from anywhere yet. Whatever rctimer (where I got it a few wks back) has on the board by default is what I';m using. I have dozens of desktops around the place, but the only thing running wintox to get mission planners and whatnot up is a laptop that seems to have crawled off into a corner under something. I shall send in the hounds to find it, eventually.