ModalAI Forum

@Vinny Nice! thank you for the resources Vinny

@tom Confirmed, installing the normal way doesn't corrupt the apt repo..... THANKS!

@relevinsky The VOXL SDK projects aren't meant to be built on VOXL2 itself. We offer a few different docker images to build on a PC, voxl-qvio-server on VOXL2 is built using qrb5165 emulator: https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-emulator/#install-the-voxl-emulator-docker-image while some other projects are built using voxl-cross: https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-cross/#install-pre-built-voxl-cross

@Abdullah01 Hi, did you solve this?

Hi @jaredjohansen Thanks for reaching out. We recently wrote up this page to help: https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-thermal-performance/ As far as what components require the focus, it is certainly the QRB5165 module on Voxl 2 that will be the predominate power source. On one side, we have the LPDDR5 SDRAM, that tends to be the limiting factor. Although not the source of the heat, it sits above the CPUs so it is the most accessible for thermal dissipation. We suggest trying to make sure you have airflow flowing over this portion: [image: 1686178612211-1ccecfce-462e-4165-ba01-bf424f26f844-image.png] (Zoom in, the part that pokes through the PCB hole) [image: 1686178622397-46fad1d0-a6ac-47cd-b0d3-61aafc312f7e-image.png] The secondary side will also help, but not as much. This side has much of the internal power control ICs, but due to the relative mass, may not feel as warm, but the same mass and volume/area helps provide more area for airflow to work: [image: 1686178717417-6b0f30f2-c1d7-4b52-a5cf-acb6ffa100e2-image.png] We made a conscience decision on Voxl2 to place the B2B connectors J3 and J5 on that side exactly because of that concern. The expectation is that any plug-in boards will not impede airflow from being on the LPDDR side, thus leaving only small image sensor flexes to work around for airflow. Hope this helps!

@Jyotish-Kumar i have faced the same issue. the record pipe name has changed in dev branch, try to use hires_large_encoded or hires_small_encoded based on your resolution requirement. Can find more config parameters in /etc/modalai/voxl-camera-server.conf

@afdrus My best guess is 2-4 weeks

Hi @frafrat It depends on what you have plugged in to the Voxl2 board. It's easy to use an external power supply for a board only setup (no BLDC motors) and run your use cases and read back the current your power supply shows. We do not do this often since we make a development platform, and all customers use it differently. Moreover, we also do not feel the need to characterize an "idle" state since it is literally a 3rd or 4th order power consumption value compared to any simple actuation (motors or servos). The on-board LEDs are the dominate factor in idle, using about 5mA each at 3.3V and 5V. My supply, with running nothing and just having an ADB connection pulls about 0.4W, but 0.1W of that is LEDs and I'm positive the rest is power supply efficiency losses, and we do not enter any sleep states especially with keeping ADB up and running the default voxl-suite. It's likely faster for you to test your setup than to explain to us what your system is and how you wish to use it. I think one of our SW team members was exploring some of the sleep states, but we just never saw the need to really enter them. We have many tools in Voxl-suite to monitor running programs, so if you do this, I would recommend trying to understand what is running in "idle" and as you try to disable stuff, you can see the power consumption impact and compare against what functions you need to keep alive for your application. We cannot share the actual QRB5165 data sheet. Perhaps if you join the Qualcomm Developer Network, you might be able to get some more data directly from there. If you need further help, please ask.

@Vinny @Vinny said in GPS Not OK with VOXL2 PX4: Hi @kp-ng Eric has you covered with all SW. A small tip: From what I see in your picture, please understand that if you have WiFi and GPS antennas next to that very large power supply and no space between them, your radio link performance will be terrible. There is a good chance you will not pick up any satellites, and your WiFi link will disconnect often. For optimal performance, try to mimic the spatial separation that you would expect to see on one of our drone platforms. Thanks! ^Can you provide an example what the ideal routing for wifi antennae would be on the sentinel drone platform (specifically with the microhard modem carrier add-on)? I came across this post while trying to troubleshoot my own issues and realized that the way I have the antennae routed coming out the back of the flight deck puts one of them right next to the gps module because of how the modem is oriented.

@Aaky I sent the link. We have tried GPS position hold and VIO but not fusion. PX4 is supposed to have better support for that in 1.14.0 but we haven't tested it yet. We would love to hear how your testing with that progresses.

Hi @camcam The only I2S functions are on J5, but there is no ModalAI support for it. It has not been on our roadmap, and we only added it in for "Power Users" if they wished to try to develop with it. You would need to be a trailblazer at this point to try it both in HW and SW, and to enable the alternate functions within the chipset. We have zero experience here so we cannot help at this point. Hence why USB is the preferred approach. If you were on the Qualcomm Developer Network Forum, you might need to directly ask on there for assistance at this time. Here is the alternate function mapping for both I2S and SLIMBUS if you wished... these pins will be available on our new breakout board in the works (will be a couple more months before we have that ready). GPIO_142 = I2S_SCK GPIO_143 = I2S_DATA0 GPIO_144 = I2S_DATA1 GPIO_145 = I2S_WS GPIO_137 = I2S_MCLK/REF_CLK Alternatively, GPIO_142 = SLIMBUS_CLK GPIO_143 = SLIMBUS_D0 GPIO_144 = SLIMBUS_D1 GPIO_145 = SLIMBUS_D2

Hi @Dong-Liu OK thank you for the update. Once it has been updated to the latest image, I wouldn't expect that battery error to show up in the future.... if it does please let me know!

Thank you, then we will take a look into this. For now, a simple RC circuit works.

@Gary-Holmgren , oh yeah, I almost forgot about the issue of not being able to use the DSP uart ports while PX4 is running.. To work around that, you could potentially connect M0065 board to one of the UART ports that are actually connected to CPU and access it directly from linux use /dev/ttyHSx devices You can find the linux uart ports here : https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-linux-user-guide/#uarts - you will need an expansion board, but even something like M0141 or M0151 will do (which is probably the simplest). However, it sounds like maybe you are close to figuring out he pwm output via px4, so perhaps this is not needed, but you can keep it in mind. Alex

@kp-ng Do you recall the steps you took to fix your issue?

@Chad-Sweet Thanks for replying? Could you please provide an answer for the asked 4 points? What exactly needs to implemented ? Where to start ? I appreciate if you can elaborate more. Thank you.

@Mastermind This is the source for voxl-wifi on VOXL2 if you want to take a look: https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/qrb5165-system-tweaks/-/blob/master/scripts/voxl-wifi

Hi Josh, Did you test the VOXL 2 with FLIR Boson and FLIR Lapton? What is the configuration setup? Yes, please see https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-uvc-server/ For the other items, it may be easier to use an external flight controller. VOXL 2 has a different set of I/O than STM32 based flight controllers. In general, if it's not documented here, it will be a lot of work to implement