This post focuses on Pixhawk wiring. The Maker Boat Basic uses the Radiolink Pixhawk that is sold by RobotShop. We normally avoid clones, but we had a lot of spare parts and no autopilot so we took a chance and bought this one. That said, other ArduPilot compatible boards should also work. The instructions below follow this guide in the Pixhawk documentation.
If this is your first build, BE GENTLE with cable connectors, as the JST connectors break easily if forced.
- Do not connect the Power module to the Pixhawk yet – wait until the power distribution step
- Find the telemetry radio cable and connect one end to the radio and the other to TELEM 2 on the Pixhawk
- Use a 3-wire servo cable to connect the Pixhawk to the SBUS connector on the Taranis FrSky X8R. The SBUS port is the 3-pin male with horizontal orientation on the bottom right. The ordering of the wires is signal, power, ground, so orient the cable with the yellow (signal) wire to the left
- Connect the other end of the RC receiver cable to the back of the Pixhawk and the RC IN
- The GPS and external compass module have two JST connectors. Plug the larger one into the port labeled ‘GPS’ and plug the smaller connector into the ‘I2C’ port on the Pixhawk.
When you have finished with Pixhawk wiring, let’s configure the X9 Lite