Posts made by Sam Kiley

I did wget from the voxl2 over wifi to get the package in / directory. dpkg -i on that results in this error:

voxl2:/$ dpkg -i voxl-mainline-px4_1.16.0-1.0.2-202505070835_arm64.deb
Selecting previously unselected package voxl-mainline-px4.
(Reading database ... 105523 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack voxl-mainline-px4_1.16.0-1.0.2-202505070835_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking voxl-mainline-px4 (1.16.0-1.0.2-202505070835) ...
dpkg: error processing archive voxl-mainline-px4_1.16.0-1.0.2-202505070835_arm64.deb (--install):
trying to overwrite '/data/px4/etc/extras/actuators.json.xz', which is also in package voxl-px4 1.14.0-2.0.94
dpkg-deb (subprocess): decompressing archive member: lzma write error: Broken pipe
dpkg-deb (subprocess): cannot copy archive member from 'voxl-mainline-px4_1.16.0-1.0.2-202505070835_arm64.deb' to decompressor pipe: failed to write (Broken pipe)
dpkg-deb: error: <decompress> subprocess returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
voxl-mainline-px4_1.16.0-1.0.2-202505070835_arm64.deb

I currently have voxl-ardupilot and voxl-px4 stopped and disabled.

Any ideas on this?

Eric, Thanks, yeah I suspected that it was some sort of version thing with px4 where they support it now.
Could you explain what the difference between mainline px4 and what I probably have loaded? or is it just because the VOXL SDK 1.4.1 is slightly behind?

Thanks

I am using the Holybro F9P Ultralight with the starling 2 max but am not able to get gps data from the F9P. This is in relation to this post, trying to get around the self-jamming gps issue on the voxl2 with modem stack:
https://forum.modalai.com/topic/4226/starling-2-max-no-gps-data/44

I have voxl-px4.conf GPS set to auto, so then it runs px4-qshell gps start.
When I look at the px4 logs, I see this being repeated:

May 02 20:57:54 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: u-blox firmware version: HPG 1.51
May 02 20:57:54 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: u-blox protocol version: 27.50
May 02 20:57:54 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: u-blox module: ZED-F9P
May 02 20:57:54 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: GPS UART baudrate set to 115200
May 02 20:57:54 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: Got ack to initial CFG_VALSET!

There is never outputted this line: (Which form other forum posts seems to indicate a real successful connection):
INFO [uORB] Advertising remote topic sensor_gps

Also, my px4-listener sensor_gps says:
voxl2:/$ px4-listener sensor_gps
never published

and then px4-qshell gps status outputs in the logs:
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: qshell gotten: gps status
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: arg0 = 'gps'
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: arg1 = 'status'
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: Main GPS
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: protocol: UBX
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: status: NOT OK, port: 6, baudrate: 115200
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: sat info: enabled
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: rate reading: 0 B/s
May 02 20:57:33 m0054 voxl-px4[1746]: INFO [muorb] SLPI: Ok executing command: gps status

I also went into the u-center with the F9P and made sure that ubx was a protocol for in/out.

voxl-ardupilot doesn't have any issues connecting, so wondering if this is just a px4 gps driver issue specific to the voxl setup. I am on voxl-suite 1.4.1
Any advice on this? Thanks for any info

Hello, we purchased some standalone voxl2's + 5G modem carrier boards with quectel modems in the past. I forget exactly, but I believe we received these Quectels from Modalai when they were sold together on the website (i might be remembering incorrectly).
More recently, we purchased the Starling 2 Max and the 5G modem boards (without a modem). We plan to use some Quectel RM502N-GL like we have in the past. Today, it was discovered that the old 5G carrier boards detect the quectel on lsusb, while the new ones do not at all. I narrowed it down to the new 5G modem carrier boards and even have the following photo showing resistors are different. Do you know if there is a compatibility change that wasn't made clear on the website?
The board on the left works with quectel

@Eric-Katzfey

Let me know what you figure out. Is your 3D filament something like Onyx, that has some sort of carbon in it?

probably around 8 satellites on average. Sometimes going up to 10. I also had difficulty getting any satellites after a reboot a few times. It took multiple minutes to see anything at all.

Alright, I will look into the parameter sets. Could you point me in the direction of those parameter sets and how you typically swap them on the starling? I think I saw a post about something like that on this forum.

I will also post a screenshot of my GPS error for your reference, as I do think its error is much higher than it should be. 15 ft might have been an understatement.

thanks

Thanks for the EKF2 information.

I did end up finding the voxl sdk calibration for the IMU and Gyro. I also was able to use a different wifi dongle that didn't not have a connection issue when I flipped the drone upside down, so I could then do the compass calibration.

Regarding the GPS, what I am seeing if the warnings, but also they are warranted, given that on QGC I can see my phones GPS location and the drone is almost always 15 or more feet away from the correct location. Should I expect at least accuracy within 2-3 feet with the Starling's GPS or no?

And then regarding the position mode failing and forcing the drone to climb, I think when this happens the qvio is at 1% quality, but shouldn't the IMU+GPS+barometer be able to override this? I assume that is sort of what the EKF is aggregating together, but I am not very knowledgeable on this.

Thanks
Sam

I am trying to setup a Starling with the 5G modem breakout board attached and then using the USB jst->usbA dongle to use the original Alfa wifi dongle.

What I am seeing, even when completely removing the 5G modem and the Wifi dongle is that I always get GPS vertical and Horizontal Pos Drift too high errors. I tried remove RF components from the starling, such as the 5G modem and Wifi to fix the error temporarily, but the GPS is still basically useless. What sort of Error should I expect to see with this GPS module on the starling?

Also, are there any compass, gyro, accelerometer calibration steps I can take. I tried doing to QGC calibration over Wifi, but the Wifi would also stop broadcasting on the starling, which is a whole different issue. I would stick with just QVIO, but even that has a bug where I cannot overcome the desire for the starling to increase altitude, so I have to go into manual mode or use the kill switch.
Lots of question in one, but all my attempts to resolve issues just revealed more issues.

-Sam

We crashed our RB5 Flight a while ago and are only getting around to trying to fix it now. It impacted the ground pretty hard right over the ESC, and the ESC isn't beeping or indicating with LEDs when powering up, so I suspect that is the problem. Everything else on the drone works fine.
I see this https://www.modalai.com/products/voxl-esc?variant=44353436614960 online and am confused on the specific version we need for a replacement.

Standard M0117
Disable Regen M0117
Standard M0134
Disable Regen M0134

Out drone serial number is M2100000CUH. Our current ESC simply reads ESC Rev B 2020

Also, what does Disable Regen mean?

Thanks for any helpESC Rev B 2020

I'll be using a private 5G network, and I can't do static IP's for my devices, sadly. Maybe I didn't understood what the RB5 SDK was doing, but I am curious how, in some of the docs, it says that qgc will find the device if its on the same network. Is there a broadcast mode I can be in, since my network will be secure?

We have the Qualcomm RB5 flight drone and when it had the RB5 SDK, we would connect to the drone automatically with qgroundcontrol when that qgc device was on the same network. After updating to VOXL SDK for other reasons, I have to either enter the qgc IP or connect via the qgc app in comm links. for my scenario, I cannot guarantee a static IP of the drone, even with staticip service, so I would like the rb5 SDK functionality with autoconnecting. Is this possible?

Thanks

I commented those out and it seemed to flash correctly. I might have lost the cam cals forever, since I couldn't pull them before flashing (adb didn't work), but I can survive with that.

Adjacent question: Have you ever seen issues connecting with connecting with the quectel-CM command that is used in rb5-modem? I had a different ticket where the new version of quectel-CM fixed the connection issue, but its almost like when the old quectel-CM fails once, it will never work again after that. Trying to figure out why it fails the first time.

yeah, we have another drone with voxl sdk on it and I agree of course. I am trying to diagnose an issue related to the quectel modem, and would like to use rb5 sdk and image since our past code seemed to work correctly on that, but then broke after upgrading to voxl sdk.

Re: Request backup files for system image re-flashing

I followed the above docs as well as https://docs.modalai.com/Qualcomm-Flight-RB5-QDL/, but am getting stuck after flashing with QDL. After this flash, the adb is not being enabled, so I need to flash the new 9.1 image with Fastboot, but that fails due to the following error:

Seemed like all paths fail due to some error.

Are you able to provide the source for that new version of Quectel-CM or it is just pulled form here? https://github.com/kmilo17pet/quectel-cm

Would like the source ourselves for another program we are running that interfaces with the quectel modem.

That fixed the instability issues! Thanks!

Yes, I believe I found that AT command doc in another forum thread. I can take a look. Do you see anything out of ordinary in quectel-CM in the above? There are also other command options for voxl-modem that seem useful, but not sure about if they are helpful for my situation or not.