# Starling 2 Max doesn't report battery information

Source: https://forum.modalai.com/topic/4866/starling-2-max-doesn-t-report-battery-information
Category: Development Drones (https://forum.modalai.com/category/44/development-drones)
Tags: starling
Posted: 2025-11-12 18:12:42 UTC by Hunter Scott
Replies: 10 · Views: 1131

## Hunter Scott · 2025-11-12 18:12:42 UTC

Hello,

I have a stock Starling 2 Max that has issues reporting data from the battery. I first tried adding the battery0, InstantPower value display in QGC, but it started at about 6W before I took off and never changed. The other values in that display, like altitude, did change correctly. I tried reading out voxl-inspect-battery but just saw N/A for all of the fields. I verified that voxl-mavlink-server, voxl-px4, and voxl-vision-hub were all running. My esc-tools version is 1.9 and the 4 in 1 ESC is board version 44, firmware version 39.21, and bootloader version 184. The system image is version 1.8.04-M0054-14, voxl-suite is version 1.5.0.

When I run px4-listener battery_status , it says "never published". During later testing, the battery display disappeared from QGC, so now I can't even see what the voltage on the battery is. I think this may be a hardware issue with either the ESC or VOXL 2. What do you think?

## Reply by Eric Katzfey (ModalAI staff) · 2025-11-12 23:39:37 UTC

@Hunter-Scott Can you supply a px4 log file?

## Reply by Hunter Scott · 2025-11-13 18:31:48 UTC

Here's the log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1stxCxb1RBT4D_bQQzXKSdCcVKUDtqdxl/view?usp=sharing

I tried swapping in a Power Module board to read the battery data that way, but still saw that the battery_status was never published.

## Reply by Eric Katzfey (ModalAI staff) · 2025-11-14 00:24:06 UTC (in reply to Hunter Scott)

@Hunter-Scott The log you provided contained battery_status

## Reply by Hunter Scott · 2025-11-18 00:26:54 UTC (in reply to Eric Katzfey)

@Eric-Katzfey My mistake, I must have uploaded the wrong one. I went to capture another one today and I'm not seeing any log file get created after I fly. I verified that the px4-logger was running and ran px4-logger stop before removing power from the drone. I'm still unable to see any battery information and running px4-listener battery_status still says "never published".

## Reply by Eric Katzfey (ModalAI staff) · 2025-11-18 15:30:47 UTC (in reply to Hunter Scott)

@Hunter-Scott If you delete all logs then fly you don't see any log files afterwards?

## Reply by Hunter Scott · 2025-11-22 00:51:39 UTC (in reply to Eric Katzfey)

@Eric-Katzfey 
I removed everything in the log folder, restarted, and did a quick arm and disarm and then a quick ~5 second flight. The logs that appeared are attached.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B0klF8j9lnhJ8deYBedRbsjGmnCPjbYB/view?usp=sharing	
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qg1ukwoDxpKHZ7N6xCbN8W_yhpx_aDDN/view?usp=sharing

## Reply by Eric Katzfey (ModalAI staff) · 2025-11-22 18:21:20 UTC (in reply to Hunter Scott)

@Hunter-Scott When you swapped in the power module board did you update the px4 configuration file in /etc/modalai/voxl-px4.conf? In that file, how is POWER_MODULE set? For the power module it should be `POWER_MANAGER=VOXLPM`. For standard Starling 2 Max configuration it should be NONE. Can you stop voxl-px4 running as a service `systemctl stop voxl-px4`, wait a few seconds, then run voxl-px4 from the command line in non-daemon mode with `voxl-px4 -d` and let the startup script run through. At the command prompt type `ver all` and `qshell voxl_esc status` and then include all of the output here? In the log that you sent that did have battery_status, where did that come from? A different drone?

## Reply by Hunter Scott · 2025-12-02 20:32:00 UTC (in reply to Eric Katzfey)

@Eric-Katzfey When I swapped in the power module board, I did not update voxl-px4.conf. I tried changing POWER_MANAGER to VOXLPM and rebooted but still did not see anything publishing on px4-listener battery status. I set it back to NONE (since I think the ESC should still be able to read power data because I have battery->power module board->ESC input). Below is the output of the commands you requested. The log that had battery_status did come from this same drone. It had been working, but then stopped, and I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything. Could the VOXL 2 have a hardware issue? 

Command outputs:
https://pastebin.com/4FCVT6Vw

## Reply by Eric Katzfey (ModalAI staff) · 2025-12-03 23:15:06 UTC (in reply to Hunter Scott)

@Hunter-Scott Can you update to SDK 1.6.0? Then do the `ver all` and `qshell voxl_esc status` commands again and attach the output?

## Reply by Hunter Scott · 2025-12-12 00:44:19 UTC (in reply to Eric Katzfey)

@Eric-Katzfey I updated to SDK 1.6.0, which fixed the power display issue. I was still getting no valid local position preflight fail, but after I ran apt update && apt upgrade, things seemed to work.