Green Cube Help!

pyrate · Jul 9, 2017

I have a black cube for sale, will have two soon. Plan to port both mine over to the green cube.

IrishmanPDX · Jul 10, 2017

Hi Folks, really appreciating all the help here, what it seems like is that the solo itself is not booting. So no chance to establish a sololink with controller or wifi on laptop. However, noticed that beside the pixhawk, there is another slot with a memory card glued in there. Is this the where the solo (companion computer) stores it's o/s if you will? If that's the case, would a possible solution be for me to remove said card from a working solo, clone it and stick the clone in my non booting solo? PS sorry for the late updates, spent most of the weekend gardening, which makes me wonder about flying the solo inverted.... pretty sure that would do a fine job of cutting the grass....

PS: I can't believe you barred that other guy from here, I so wanted to make the point that I bought some toilet paper from the store the other day, didn't come with instructions, now I reckon the store owes me a new pair of pants.....

IrishmanPDX · Jul 10, 2017

pyrate said:
I have a black cube for sale, will have two soon. Plan to port both mine over to the green cube.

Oh didn't think of that, I have the black cube, the green cube and a spare black cube that I bought a while back in case I needed one.

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 10, 2017

IrishmanPDX said:
Hi Folks, really appreciating all the help here, what it seems like is that the solo itself is not booting. So no chance to establish a sololink with controller or wifi on laptop. However, noticed that beside the pixhawk, there is another slot with a memory card glued in there. Is this the where the solo (companion computer) stores it's o/s if you will? If that's the case, would a possible solution be for me to remove said card from a working solo, clone it and stick the clone in my non booting solo? PS sorry for the late updates, spent most of the weekend gardening, which makes me wonder about flying the solo inverted.... pretty sure that would do a fine job of cutting the grass....

PS: I can't believe you barred that other guy from here, I so wanted to make the point that I bought some toilet paper from the store the other day, didn't come with instructions, now I reckon the store owes me a new pair of pants.....

This is where over simplifying the interface for consumer use gets in the way. It is booting and probably connected too. WinSCP will probably connect just fine since it is connecting to the companion computer only. However if the Pixhawk is not communicating, the controller will still say waiting for solo.

Is the base of the pixhawk flashing orange constantly? There is really no way to rectify this without Mission Planner on a PC hooked up directly to the pixhawk with a USB cable.

IrishmanPDX · Jul 10, 2017

Thanks for the advice (again!). Ok, I'll scrounge up a laptop somewhere, put mission planner on it and do a direct connection. May take a day or two but this is the whole reason for having spare birds!

just_bruce · Jul 11, 2017

I believe I asked before if there was a reliable way to reproduce the motor stoppage issue when on Master and the answer was no at that point.... Is it still no?

I've got all the components selected to try level shifting, but I wanna have a way to produce the issue. My plan is to install two level shifters (one for each CW and CCW motor) and leave two motors without level shifters so I can, in real time, verify that the little circuit I've designed does the job.

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 12, 2017

just_bruce said:
I believe I asked before if there was a reliable way to reproduce the motor stoppage issue when on Master and the answer was no at that point.... Is it still no?

I've got all the components selected to try level shifting, but I wanna have a way to produce the issue. My plan is to install two level shifters (one for each CW and CCW motor) and leave two motors without level shifters so I can, in real time, verify that the little circuit I've designed does the job.

Unfortunately there isn't something you can reliably and repeatably do to cause the failure. You can try, and probably make it happen, but I can say "do this and at point X, they will fail". I think the best way to do test it is on the bench. Strap the solo down so it can't take off or kill you. Use stabilize mode to rapidly punch the throttle to full power. The spikes of high current are what lead to the voltage sagging on the ESC signal circuit. You may also try using the motor test function in MIssion Planner. You can set it to test all 4 motors at once and feed them 100% throttle instantly. This might be even more effective than Stabilize mode since it won't be trying to stabilize. Just raw power.

If you're able to fairly reliably reproduce it via some ham fisted testing method, that will be very helpful!!

IrishmanPDX · Jul 17, 2017

Pedals2Paddles said:
This is where over simplifying the interface for consumer use gets in the way. It is booting and probably connected too. WinSCP will probably connect just fine since it is connecting to the companion computer only. However if the Pixhawk is not communicating, the controller will still say waiting for solo.

Is the base of the pixhawk flashing orange constantly? There is really no way to rectify this without Mission Planner on a PC hooked up directly to the pixhawk with a USB cable.

Been out of it a while, but here's the updates. Mission planner on its way, just need to update net framework,.hopefully do that by tomorrow. However, took green cube, installed it in another solo, FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS and it seems to have worked. However I am getting a compass calibration error that I cannot calibrate. So wait for mission planner and reset the compass from there? Or just see if the connecter popped out while I was manhandling the bird? Have to say, following instructions worked.... who would have guessed?

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 17, 2017

You tried to calibrate and it wouldn't work? Using the stock leg compass or the HERE? If it's failing calibration try a few times. And make sure you're not in a bad area of magnetic interference.

IrishmanPDX · Jul 17, 2017

Pedals2Paddles said:
You tried to calibrate and it wouldn't work? Using the stock leg compass or the HERE? If it's failing calibration try a few times. And make sure you're not in a bad area of magnetic interference.

Stock compass, tried to calibrate lots of times and on different days. Removed rings and watch before hand. Will try calibrate in middle of garden this evening, but wondering how easy it is to pop off compass connection?

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 17, 2017

It can happen. If you can download a dataflash log and post it, that would be helpful.

IrishmanPDX · Jul 17, 2017

Thank you very much, I'd appreciate that! I'll get mission planner sorted this evening and then tomorrow I'll go post the log. In the meantime I'll try another calibration in the garden, see if that works!

XevetS · Jul 17, 2017

I actually tried to install this Twice on my custom SOLO Tarot 650 build, I know it's not a green cube but the stock solo cube just testing it out but had multiple problems, one thing I noted the pixhawk was inverted in mission planner and I had to set the AHRS to 0 (its normally pitched 180 degrees stock) I also had to rotate it 180 degrees, to have the pixhawk compass point in the correct orientation, even after doing this it would not calibrate correctly and I could not arm even in stabilized mode.

I'm quite sure it had to do with the stock cube, so yeah.. I did try though and I'm in no way saying this does not work on the green cube but just a heads up on custom builds..

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 17, 2017

XevetS said:
I actually tried to install this Twice on my custom SOLO Tarot 650 build, I know it's not a green cube but the stock solo cube just testing it out but had multiple problems, one thing I noted the pixhawk was inverted in mission planner and I had to set the AHRS to 0 (its normally pitched 180 degrees stock) I also had to rotate it 180 degrees, to have the pixhawk compass point in the correct orientation, even after doing this it would not calibrate correctly and I could not arm even in stabilized mode.

I'm quite sure it had to do with the stock cube, so yeah.. I did try though and I'm in no way saying this does not work on the green cube but just a heads up on custom builds..

It's inverted and all out of whack because the parameter file is for a Solo. If you're building a custom vehicle, it's going to require custom configuration. If you want to start another thread or message me, I can probably point you in the right direction.

XevetS · Jul 17, 2017

Hey thanks paddles, I had the custom build configured so that the Pixhawk, main board and HERE compass were in the stock positions exactly as on the solo, that's what got me kinda confused? Yes the compass param for the HERE was set at zero.. but for some reason the AHRS was inverted and 180 degrees out really weird? I went back to the ardupilot master and all is well now.. I was just testing to see if it would work.. As of now I'm heading in a new direction on this build, a Pixhawk 2.1 is in the future, thanks again..

IrishmanPDX · Jul 19, 2017

Pedals2Paddles said:
It can happen. If you can download a dataflash log and post it, that would be helpful.

So I finally managed to get MP working and connected to the solo. There's about 32 different dataflash logs on there, not sure which one is the most recent due to the fact all the dates on them are waaay off (took quite a long time to download them, also think it missed the last 2 or 3 due to battery running out). There's also a telemetry log. Let me know which ones to post and I'll get it done!

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 19, 2017

You shouldn't use MP to download dataflash logs. For exactly the reason you found. It can barely do it. Logs are on the solo and you can get them from the /log/ directory with WinSCP. But none the less, put a few the recent ones (by numbered file name) into a zip and post it or send it to me.

IrishmanPDX · Jul 19, 2017

Pedals2Paddles said:
You shouldn't use MP to download dataflash logs. For exactly the reason you found. It can barely do it. Logs are on the solo and you can get them from the /log/ directory with WinSCP. But none the less, put a few the recent ones (by numbered file name) into a zip and post it or send it to me.

No Kidding! What MP pulled was a whole bunch of files, some were 66mb in size, like I said, whole bunch of wrong dates on them. I just ran out, opened up WinSCP and did the download from the /log/ directory, took a few seconds! Hopefully pulled the right stuff, have zipped the most recent of each log and left out the older numerated file names (ie. kern is in there, but not kern.log.1, kern.log.2..).

Let me know what the diagnosis is, if I can have two birds ready to go that would be great, then I can concentrate on getting my original one back in the air. Thanks again for the help with this, it's truely appreciated!.

XevetS · Jul 19, 2017

IrishmanPDX said:
No Kidding! What MP pulled was a whole bunch of files, some were 66mb in size, like I said, whole bunch of wrong dates on them. I just ran out, opened up WinSCP and did the download from the /log/ directory, took a few seconds! Hopefully pulled the right stuff, have zipped the most recent of each log and left out the older numerated file names (ie. kern is in there, but not kern.log.1, kern.log.2..).

Let me know what the diagnosis is, if I can have two birds ready to go that would be great, then I can concentrate on getting my original one back in the air. Thanks again for the help with this, it's truely appreciated!.

Just analyzed your Solo Tlog and the solo seems to be inverted was this on purpose? If not on purpose you are having the same issues I had when installing. I had a frame issue, as in the wrong frame type was not selected also the pixhawk was inverted just like yours .. I stated this in my last post and Paddles got kind of irked but to his defense I did try installing this on a custom build...Hello Paddles you there?? take a look at his Tlog

Here are the messages/errors
PreArm: check firmware or FRAME_CLASS
PreArm: 3D Accel calibration needed
PreArm: Compass not calibrated
PreArm: Compass not calibrated
PreArm: RC Roll not configured
PreArm: check firmware or FRAME_CLASS
PreArm: 3D Accel calibration needed
PreArm: Compass not calibrated
PreArm: Compass not calibrated
PreArm: RC Roll not configured

IrishmanPDX · Jul 19, 2017

XevetS said:
Just analyzed your Solo Tlog and the solo seems to be inverted was this on purpose? If not on purpose you are having the same issues i had when installing. I had a frame issue, as in the wrong frame type was not selected also the pixhawk was inverted just like yours .. I stated this in my last post and Paddles got kind of irked but to his defense I did try installing this on a custom build...Hello Paddles you there?? take a look at his Tlog

So when I opened Mission Planner to get the logs originally, I did notice that the artificial horizon was upside down. However didn't realize this was a representation of real time data being received as MP was acting oddly at the time. I saw your post about the custom build and I was wondering (complete amatuer thinking here) if it was to do with the orientation of the Pixhawk. On the solo, it's mounted upside down on the mainboard, but wondered if on a custom build, if it was mounted on top of the mainboard and therefore it's orientation needed to be changed software side.

Either way, I'm not getting level calibration errors or anything, just constant compass calibration errors. Are the two related? Or is there an actual problem with the solo compass leg or pixhawk compass? Thanks for the insights though, really am trying to learn from all of this!