@DronAlan Hi there, when the camera was rotated 180, you'll have stable take off behavior, but any XY movement would cause the drone to 'fly away' quickly.

Taking a step back with your concerns on physical mounts:

1. checking camera orientation:
   a. bring up the front camera in portal: it should be upright orientation, e.g. top of the camera image should be from the top of the drone itself ("tops are aligned").

2. Since you are using qvio, only 1 camera is supported. Ensure in /etc/modalai/vio_cams.conf has tracking_down disabled, It's a safeguard if qvio is accidentally using that camera (would would lead to a orientation problem).

As for IMU, the voxl2 unit should have the USB-C port facing the bottom/ground side (and WiFi dongle on the top side). Let's force reset the imu calibration. If you run on the drone voxl-calibrate-imu and follow the directions, will reset the imu.

Let's check these items. If they all pass and still presents the orientation problem, then it's worth moving to the SDK1.6.3 to take advantage of the advanced config installer.

@wilkinsaf

I did the following and was able to get it

1. installed arducopter 4.7
2. disabled serial2_option for mavlink forward
3. configured compass
4. configured acceleromter
5. turned off GPS_AUTO_CONFIG
6. set SERIAL3_BAUD to 115200

https://www.loom.com/share/b96c3edd2286477ea294ddbd262dc31e

We are seeing some oddness when it comes to running Ardupilot on the Starling 2 Max.

We are unable to get really any GPS satellites, and the driver seems to be acting a bit weird.

1. We are able to get this working fine on PX4 - we run this pretty consistently. So, doesn't point to wiring

2. We tried Arducopter 4.6.3, 4.7, and 4.8 - we had the best luck on 4.7. But, even on that version weird things happen - like GPS_RAW_INT showing up with a lat and lon, but showing no visible satellite:

3. when indoors, only v_acc is updating...which feels odd: https://www.loom.com/share/3379c1aafcd74c95aa65e7f3af09a488

Any thoughts / ideas on where to look would be super. Thanks!

@RyanH ,

Sometimes there is small pieces of random magnetic debris that gets stuck in the motor.

First, you could try using compressed air to clear out the motor.

Additionally, It could help to spin the motor up and down using voxl-esc command line tools a few times to clear it out (without prop is best, just for safety). Spinning the motor without prop a bunch of times could get the debris dislodged and actually broken up by the moving motor parts, so that the debris is no longer large enough to cause a problem. Reversing motor spin using voxl-esc test tools can help dislodge the debris (you can commend negative power/rpm).

You can find useful info regarding motor testing here : https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-escs/faq/

Alex

@RyanH

T-motor has been banned in the US, so we can't purchase those directly any longer and have moved to a different motor for the product

this might be a good place to purchase a replacement motor https://www.amazon.com/TYXTTGY-F2203-5-Brushless-Motor-Cinewhoop/dp/B0F21NFKKW?th=1
it looks to have the same specs as t-motor

@Dan-Jennings I'm also guessing that the driver may not be detecting the hardware so is not able to get the data for the battery_status. Have you tried swapping some other hardware to see if the problem is associated with a particular unit?

@RyanH You don't need to fly the drone to get a log. Perhaps take off the props, arm it, throttle it up a few times, then disarm.

@RyanH I'll let another of my associates comment on the purchase of a new motor. But can you also share a px4 log file from such a flight. It would be helpful for us to take a look at it.

@MikeR Does your commando 8 have an orq ghost transmitter module connected to it? If it doesn't then it is likely using ELRS which is not compatible with a ghost receiver.

You'd need a orqa transmitter like this one: https://shop.orqafpv.com/products/orqa-orqa-fpv-ctrl-radio-controller

Maybe your other drone had an ELRS receiver on it?

@groupo , thank you for the feedback and offer to help. Yes, please send us an email with some more details and we can discuss if there is an opportunity to collaborate.

Alex