First experience with AP2000I

[cbergen]

I know, maybe a little behind the times here, but we've been busy with other things....... :D

A customer is here this week to pick up his Twin Observer and when he asked about the AP2000I that he had ordered, I realized that I had totally missed that on his invoice. :oops: :oops:

Luckily, I had a unit here that I had ordered to test on my own Observer but not had the time to install it yet....

Anyway, installation went fairly quickly, I manufactured a plate for the FMA sensor from a fin clamp and flat sheet of G10, wired it up, ensured the directions were all correct, used the right side slider for gain adjustment, and went for a test flight.

Per the instructions for a First Flight, I put the bird in a 20-30 ft hover and slowly increased the gain. I noticed a slight amount of forward movement and right movement, which of course became more pronounced with more gain adjustment.

A minor adjustment of trim on the radio ended with a very satisfactory stable hover. No calibration, no muss, no fuss! After landing with the unit still on, It showed a reading of 57% gain. I did not "feel" the stabilization working against me as I flew the heli around, but certainly felt it working when holding it in a hover.

Scott (the customer) was very pleased as well, which helped to reduce my embarrasement at forgetting it in the first place, and plan on letting him have the sticks tomorrow.

Well done Angelos and Mark Webber, ( I need to order another unit.... :wink: ) I like it.

[heliplt]

Hey Chris,
The AP 2000I was one of the best things that I have installed in My Observer, I'm very happy with the performance.

"Well done Angelos and Mark Webber"

[GGoodrum]

I'd be interested to hear how the cal function works on one of these bigger ships. I'm guessing it will be a lot easier to get in a stable hover to do the cal function. Once done, I'm also guessing it will do a great job of holding positions.

-- Gary

[AZ ChopperCam]

another positive AP2000i report. doesn't suprise me really. The unit is freakin' AMAZING!!

If it weren't for Angelos' awesome product my productivity and profit margin would be half of what it is.

BTW Chris, that turbine observer is the shizzle!!

[MarkWebber]

Gary

The calibration feature is awesome on bigger heli's. Initially, I didn't think I was going to use it. I had my AP2000i set up well and rarely needed more than a few clicks of trim to hold a decent hover. I only did the update so I was more informed for customer support. Now I'm hooked.

If I were a better pilot, it would be even better. :roll: Unfortunately, Angelos hasn't written an update that'll fix me :wink: Greg Alderman did one of the initial test flights for me. Needless to say, he held a real nice hover for calibration. Just a slight drift with the wind but was a snap.

Chris

I'm glad to hear that you finally got to use it. Good to hear that you've been so busy. Can't wait for the Turbine Observer results.

[dreslism]

Chris,

Just FYI,

If you had one "just laying around", I'm betting it does not have the latest firmware that supports the cal feature, has a glitch counter, and other things.

Anyhow, just wanted to give you a heads up as people above were talking about using the cal on a bigger ship, and if you tried to show it to your customer or explain it to him, it might not be there.

You'll need V1.10 firmware to use the cal feature, and will require a little tiny bit more of radio setup to activate the cal feature.

[cbergen]

'preciate the heads up. Looking into it now.

[AZ ChopperCam]

The new glitch counter has been invaluable in helping me get rid of my glitching on the Raptor. love it!

[cbergen]

Can someone tell me where to find the driver for the USB?

I plugged everything in, and it's not detecting the board, even when I hit the Detect button :lol:

[MLaBoyteaux]

Try downloading them from here:
http://spartan-rc.com/products/flashlink/Flash-Link_blue_plug_v20019v2021.zip

I had the same issue when I first tried to update mine :D

[cbergen]

Driver updated, thanks.

Still won't detect the board.....

Any idea?

[dreslism]

With your cable plugged into your pc, then under your device manager on your PC, Under USB section, the cable shows up, and gives you a virtual com port number (like comm 5??), and does not give you some yellow triangle with an exclamation point in it showing there is a problem?

Once you have that comm port number verified from the USB section of the device manager, you should be able to put that into the PC loader app for it to talk to the ap2000i.

The ap2000i is powered up and in the ldr menu?

USB cable is plugged into last slot on ap2000i?

From the manual here are the instructions. The first bullet is basically what I said above about verifying that windows really sees it.

*Connect Flash-Link to the PC and confirm that it has been correctly
detected by Windows.
· Power-on the AP-2000i, enter the engineering/service menu, select the
“Ldr” menu and press the “Increment” button. The message
“*LOADER*” will be shown in the LCD.
· Connect the other end of the Flash-Link cable to AP-2000i’s USB
interface connector.
· Run the firmware loader application on the PC.
· Select the COM port where the AP-2000i is connected. If unsure select
the listed ports sequentially. When the correct port is found the
message “AP-2000i detected” will be displayed at the lower left corner
of the window.
· Click on “Open” and select the new firmware hex file.

[cbergen]

Got it!! Had one of those RTFM moments...... :oops:

Now I have to get it to go into cal mode. I have the gain set up on the right slider, which is running aux 2. 9303 radio by the way. With slider all the way up, the box says off, slider all the way down, box says 100%.

How do I mix, say the aux 2 switch to get the aux 3 to go into cal mode?

[dreslism]

Got it!! Had one of those RTFM moments...... :oops:


Ahh, yes, another one of those (R)ead (T)he *(F)riendly* (M)anual moments. I love those! :wink:

Sorry, I sold my JR's and now just use a futaba, but from what I remember, it would most likely be the same.

You will program a mix that is activated by aux switch 2.

What channel does your aux 3 (the gain ) control?

This is the channel you want to mix your switch to.

For example, your gain to ap2000i is on channel 5 which is controlled by Aux3.

You would program a mix activated by switch 2 that mixes channel 5 to itself. Futaba uses terms like master channel and slave channel in its mix setup. Just mix 5 to 5. The amount of the mix to activate the cal(on my setup) was small like 5, but you can determine it yourself watching the ap2000i lcd screen.

In my mix setup, I could pick high endpoint or low endpoint. I think I started with high endpoint and just set it to 5 and it worked. You could try it out as stated below.

To perform cal on ap2000i, ap2000i gain must be off, so set aux 3 so that ap2000i is off. Then create mix controlled by aux 2 as stated above. Flip switch aux2 while watching the ap2000i lcd. Did it say Cal then done? If so, then you are done.

If not, leave switch aux2 on, and increase mix on Tx slowly 1 click at a time all while watching the ap2000i lcd. See if lcd goes into cal /done after each increase on Tx. If it does not and you have increased mix offset by large amount, then take it back down to 0 on Tx and try the other endpoint.

Eventually you should see the cal, then the done.

Once setup, the procedure outside would be take off with ap2000i gain off.

Get into stable hover. Flip your Aux2 switch and wait 1 second. slowly increase gain on Aux 3 and if your hover was good, you should not require any trim, or much less trim.

You may not notice much diff doing this new cal procedure in your open test field, but your customer flying in different locations everyday, or near buildings will most likely appreciate it.

[dreslism]

The new glitch counter has been invaluable in helping me get rid of my glitching on the Raptor. love it!

I have to start checking that out, but I always unplug before I remember to check it.

I want to see if Angelos can automatically display the glitchs if they are non zero.

Currently the LCD displays gain, and current and min voltage toggling back and forth.

It would be good if glitch/frame count becomes non zero, that it also then scrolls through current voltage, min voltage, and glitch count.

This way you can immediately see it when landing and not need a pocket tool to press the decrement button.

Too me it seems like a good feature.

If a glitch happens, I would like to know about it, so let the thing tell me easier than button pushes with a tool.

On previous planes, I used to have a FMA FS8 Rx, and it would have a red led that would be flashing the number of glitches during the flight. If you land and the red light was solid, no glitches. Otherwise it would flash the number of glitches it counted during the flight. This made it very useful and easy to tell if you had any.

What do you say Angelos? Next version of firmware? :mrgreen:
Oh yes, PLEASE.

[MarkWebber]

I want to see if Angelos can automatically display the glitchs if they are non zero

I always forget to check mine too.

What do you say Angelos? Next version of firmware?
Oh yes, PLEASE.

Why not...he seems to fit everything else we want into that small package :D

[GGoodrum]

Yep, that would be handy. Maybe Angelos can include it with the new alititude hold feature change that I know he must be working on... :D:D