Upgrading to Orange+ Cube and other debacles

[psybersapien]

A few years ago I updated my 3DR Solo and Controller to OpenSolo 4. The Solo had a stock Cube and I recall doing a bunch of manual SSH's to get the Solo updated. Eventually it all came together and I had the Solo flying.

Fast forward to the present and I decided to do brain surgery on my Solo to replace the stock Cube with an Orange+. The pre-requisite of everything working before beginning was satisfied.

The Solo had OpenSolo 4 and a prior version of ArduCopter (I don't recall the version). So, I simply replaced the cube. The Solo powered up but was stuck with 4 green lights.

I tried a factory reset to no avail.

I suspect I got into trouble simply swapping the Cube so I put the original stock Cube back into the Solo and performed a factory reset on both the Solo and the Controller. At that point the Controller, the Solo and Solex were all connected and I seemed to be in an initial state.

I then updated to Controller to OpenSolo 4 using Solex. That worked great.

The Controller was still connected so I updated the firmware on the Solo, which now has the stock Cube, with the Solex firmware package titled "Open Solo 4.0.0 Clean install GREEN CUBE (Copter 4.5.3).zip". The Solo powered up but was again stuck with 4 green lights.
I suspect my mistake in this case was applying GREEN cube firmware to a stock Cube due to firmware incompatibilites.

Now both the Orange+ and the stock Cube power up but stop at the green lights. Factory reseting either one doesn't help.

On to my questions.

(1) Can I get my Solo working again with the stock Cube and original software? Again, a factory reset doesn't help as of now. I'll even SSH to manually do whatever is necessary. I just don't know what to do.

(2) Is it even possible to update the stock Cube to an Orange+ Cube? I embarked on this because information I read indicated an Orange+ Cube is 100% backward compatible with a Green Cube.

(3) If the update is possible, any suggestions for doing things differently than described in this article with update instructions?

 

[psybersapien]

A few years ago I updated my 3DR Solo and Controller to OpenSolo 4. The Solo had a stock Cube and I recall doing a bunch of manual SSH's to get the Solo updated. Eventually it all came together and I had the Solo flying.

Fast forward to the present and I decided to do brain surgery on my Solo to replace the stock Cube with an Orange+. The pre-requisite of everything working before beginning was satisfied.

The Solo had OpenSolo 4 and a prior version of ArduCopter (I don't recall the version). So, I simply replaced the cube. The Solo powered up but was stuck with 4 green lights.

I tried a factory reset to no avail.

I suspect I got into trouble simply swapping the Cube so I put the original stock Cube back into the Solo and performed a factory reset on both the Solo and the Controller. At that point the Controller, the Solo and Solex were all connected and I seemed to be in an initial state.

I then updated to Controller to OpenSolo 4 using Solex. That worked great.

The Controller was still connected so I updated the firmware on the Solo, which now has the stock Cube, with the Solex firmware package titled "Open Solo 4.0.0 Clean install GREEN CUBE (Copter 4.5.3).zip". The Solo powered up but was again stuck with 4 green lights.
I suspect my mistake in this case was applying GREEN cube firmware to a stock Cube due to firmware incompatibilites.

Now both the Orange+ and the stock Cube power up but stop at the green lights. Factory reseting either one doesn't help.

On to my questions.

(1) Can I get my Solo working again with the stock Cube and original software? Again, a factory reset doesn't help as of now. I'll even SSH to manually do whatever is necessary. I just don't know what to do.

(2) Is it even possible to update the stock Cube to an Orange+ Cube? I embarked on this because information I read indicated an Orange+ Cube is 100% backward compatible with a Green Cube.

(3) If the update is possible, any suggestions for doing things differently than described in this article with update instructions?

Looks like my last message was lost. I wanted to mention I'm using Solex 2.3.8 and none of the firmware packages in the update instructions linked above were available in Solex.

 

[jonbrotherton]

A few years ago I updated my 3DR Solo and Controller to OpenSolo 4. The Solo had a stock Cube and I recall doing a bunch of manual SSH's to get the Solo updated. Eventually it all came together and I had the Solo flying.

Fast forward to the present and I decided to do brain surgery on my Solo to replace the stock Cube with an Orange+. The pre-requisite of everything working before beginning was satisfied.

The Solo had OpenSolo 4 and a prior version of ArduCopter (I don't recall the version). So, I simply replaced the cube. The Solo powered up but was stuck with 4 green lights.

I tried a factory reset to no avail.

I suspect I got into trouble simply swapping the Cube so I put the original stock Cube back into the Solo and performed a factory reset on both the Solo and the Controller. At that point the Controller, the Solo and Solex were all connected and I seemed to be in an initial state.

I then updated to Controller to OpenSolo 4 using Solex. That worked great.

The Controller was still connected so I updated the firmware on the Solo, which now has the stock Cube, with the Solex firmware package titled "Open Solo 4.0.0 Clean install GREEN CUBE (Copter 4.5.3).zip". The Solo powered up but was again stuck with 4 green lights.
I suspect my mistake in this case was applying GREEN cube firmware to a stock Cube due to firmware incompatibilites.

Now both the Orange+ and the stock Cube power up but stop at the green lights. Factory reseting either one doesn't help.

On to my questions.

(1) Can I get my Solo working again with the stock Cube and original software? Again, a factory reset doesn't help as of now. I'll even SSH to manually do whatever is necessary. I just don't know what to do.

(2) Is it even possible to update the stock Cube to an Orange+ Cube? I embarked on this because information I read indicated an Orange+ Cube is 100% backward compatible with a Green Cube.

(3) If the update is possible, any suggestions for doing things differently than described in this article with update instructions?

You can restore the Stock setup with the firmware and instructions found here.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/open-solo-4-96976821

Choose the appropriate.APJ file for the Cube you are flashing.

Be aware that as of the date of this post,
If you are using a BMSOne it is not compatible with CubeOrangePlus. That is being addressed and hopefully can be solved soon.

 

[psybersapien]

@jonbrotherton Thanks! I'll take a closer look this coming week and let you know how it goes.

Regarding the Orange+ upgrade, do I get a Solo with a stock Cube updated to ArduCopter 4.5.3 first? Then replace the Cube and apply the correct firmware in Solex?

 

[jonbrotherton]

@jonbrotherton Thanks! I'll take a closer look this coming week and let you know how it goes.

Regarding the Orange+ upgrade, do I get a Solo with a stock Cube updated to ArduCopter 4.5.3 first? Then replace the Cube and apply the correct firmware in Solex?

No you just install the Cube you want to fly and flash it with the proper files from the Patreon post following the included instructions.

 

[psybersapien]

Got it. I'll pay closer attention to the firmware update. Thanks again!

 

[jonbrotherton]

Got it. I'll pay closer attention to the firmware update. Thanks again!

Once it is back in flying condition, the best way to update in the future will be in Solex or SidePilot, without having to take anything apart. Instruction for that are here. Install Open Solo

 

[psybersapien]

Update: I'm putting this change on hold for now.

I wasn't successful connecting to either the stock cube or the orange+ cube from Mission Planner. The USB connection from the same laptop works when connecting to a flight controller running Betaflight and I didn't feel like troubleshooting Mission Planner and/or USB connections.

@jonbrotherton Thanks again for the help and I'll likely revive this effort during the doldrums of next winter.

 

[jonbrotherton]

Update: I'm putting this change on hold for now.

I wasn't successful connecting to either the stock cube or the orange+ cube from Mission Planner. The USB connection from the same laptop works when connecting to a flight controller running Betaflight and I didn't feel like troubleshooting Mission Planner and/or USB connections.

@jonbrotherton Thanks again for the help and I'll likely revive this effort during the doldrums of next winter.

When you get back to it you should try removing Mission Planner and reinstall it. If the cable is working it is likely a driver issue. Also I have found that the Cube Orange Plus needs to be powered up externally to connect properly via usb on my windows pc.