Progress is being made the flight controls and the hub for the first prototype was attached to Goliath and spun up to make sure it held together (see #EVPR: Electric Variable Pitch Rotor for more details). There were no issues with the EVPR, there was an issue with the flight controller. When the vehicle was activated, the controller didn't power up properly. The Pixhawk consists on an FMU and an IO board. The IO board power was the only light coming on, nothing else. As a work around for this test, the flight controller was removed and I went back to controller the throttle with just a standard RC receiver directly connected.

While I can do a little bit more testing without the controller, it's not going to be too long before I need a new controller to start testing the interface between it and the EVPR. However, I'm a little hesitant to get another Pixhawk as I'm not sure what went wrong with the old one. It was about 3 years old, but there was only a handful of hours on it. There were a few rough tests, before I nailed down the isolation on the avionics tray and Goliath had two solenoids go bad, most likely due to vibration.

I'm familiar with the PX4 flight stack and at least know conceptually how to proceed with modifying the software to work with the EVPR. However there a few controllers that use the PX4 stack including the newer Pixhawk 2.1. Of course it uses different connectors, so the stack of DF13 connectors I have laying around as well as the GPS would be worthless, but maybe it makes sense to upgrade.

If anyone has any thoughts I'd love to hear them.