Convert Typhoon H to PixHawk 6C Flight Controller

[1midniterider]

Okay, I went a little crazy with the shielding and I haven't even gotten to the receiver cable.

 

[1midniterider]

Why must Yuneec be so unique? Connected the landing gear module to power and it didn't fry so that is a plus. Moved on to connect power to the camera shoepad. Hold up! Wait a minute! Five wires come off the shoepad to connect to the TH mainboard but, wait... The connect to the mainboard is only a 4-wire connector. What? No biggie! I'll just reach into my box of connectors, nope! Yet another style of connector. There 1mm, 1.25mm and some other size and style. I'll sort it out, after all I did sign up for this challenge.

Bonus! I connected the TH micro usb port to the PixHawk FC. No more popping the hood to plug in. I also hardwired the MavLink wifi connectors. I needed to lower the profile in order to get the clearance to fit under the hood.

I misspoke... I'll blame it on tired eyes. I can replace the entire cable leading from the camera shoepad to the FC. There is nothing special about the wiring. The real question is how to connect the RX and TX/PWM wires....

 

[Vaklin]

As Rx and Tx in every UART. What further...?

 

[1midniterider]

As Rx and Tx in every UART. What further...?

So bear with me... Full control of the gimbal requires RX/TX on a UART. PWM controls only the tilt function, correct? The latter requires a PWM init code, correct? Both methods should allow the FC to control the gimbal, correct? So my question is how does the ST16 interact with gimbal controls? Is that via WIFI?

 

[Vaklin]

2.4 GHz packets via ZigBee.

 

[1midniterider]

So bear with me... Full control of the gimbal requires RX/TX on a UART. PWM controls only the tilt function, correct? The latter requires a PWM init code, correct? Both methods should allow the FC to control the gimbal, correct? So my question is how does the ST16 interact with gimbal controls? Is that via WIFI?

So, theoretically I could create a connector where the TX/PWM connects to both UART and/or PWM. Then "play" with either one. Again, bear with me... With PWM only controlling tilt, the assumption being if you need to rotate the camera then you would rotate the entire craft, correct?

 

[Vaklin]

You can implement a full UART communication, some aspects are shown in another thread, or use PWM only for tilt. My recommendation is to first forget about the camera and stay focused on the flying capabilities itself.

 

[1midniterider]

The only reason I brought it up again is that since I have it disassembled is to install the wiring for all of the components, so whenever I do get to play with the camera as well as the landing gear, I don't have to do another tear down....

 

[1midniterider]

Buried within PX4 is gimbal control. There is simulation for the Typhoon H480 which includes gimbal control... Interesting...

 

[1midniterider]

High vibration sorted out. With the shielding the radio rarely drops out now, before it was every few minutes. Also, the orientation of one of the magnetometers was incorrectly set. Performed another radio calibration and the high vibration is all but gone. Looks like it is ready for a hover test flight. The motor outputs track very well. Much better than before. Before the left and right side ESC controllers were distinctly different.

 

[1midniterider]

It would seem that this modified TH is becoming a wireless communications nightmare.

1) GPS/Compass antenna
2) MavLink WiFi (Station Mode)
3) Remote ID WiFi (AP Mode)
4) CGO3+ WiFi (AP Mode)
5) RC

The Landing Gear module is powered and connected via PWM. PX4 gimbal is configured (not working) via MavLink.

The CGO3+ is powered and its gimbal is connected to the GPS2 UART and appears to working in station keeping mode. The camera is showing video. The RC is connected via DSM.