Posts made by tangotoo

@modaltb thanks for the follow up. I'll see if I can secure a starling 2 soon.

I have an original Starling and am developing a platform around it. I noticed that the sensor package on my Starling is different than the Starling 2. Are the sensors offered on Starling 1 still recommended or should I base my design around Starling 2. I want to ensure I am not wasting development time or tuning if I'll need to reimplement the sensors. Thanks.

What is the estimated flight time of the Sentinel as delivered with the 5Ah battery? Totally understand there are a lot of variables in that equation, but just need an estimate.

I searched the docs/forum and was unable to find a method to clone a running and configured VOXL for backup. I was looking for a method to mount the voxl as a block device so I could dd the memory off as backup. Is there a method to clone the voxl in this manner? I saw the backup utility for the camera settings but I didn't see a complete system backup/image creation method.

Would like to get some ideas on what could lead to 2 PWM channels dying on what was a working quad when it landed. When arming for a second flight I noticed two motors weren't turning. After troubleshooting up the signal chain, I could confirm the output of PWM2 and PWM3 had no output no matter what setting/command was attempted. I flashed to PX4 in case it was an Ardupilot issue, but still have no output on PX4.

I can move to channels 5/6 with no issue, but I'm a little concerned that without identifying root cause I may be placing other channels at risk. Any ideas on troubleshooting steps, or things that could have caused it? There were no shorts that I could measure and the PWM and ESC are on the same ground reference.

Its working on a different android device, so I think its a kernel module issue on the S21. We can close this out.

@tom I've tried it on an S21 and Pixel 4 phones and haven't had any luck. If its a non-starter, that would be good to know so I can focus my efforts on a different solution versus trying to force the phones to cooperate. FWIW, I can flash/modify/sideload whatever is required to make it happen.

The objective is to bring up QGC on the device with the GCS link via uHard.

I don't know if its related to your problem, but I had a lack of communication issue between voxl-vision and my PX4 and it was due to an additional process, voxl-mavlink-server not running. You may want to check if there are any other supporting processes you need running first in order to bring up ROS. I'm not a ROS user, so I can't help too much in that regard.

I am having some trouble getting my Android devices to recognize the modem carrier. Can you provide guidance on connecting the standalone carrier to an Android host? The device works fine with Windows/Linux PC over USB.

Based on the documentation stating that the carrier added the LAN7500 controller for Android compatibility, I thought my device would recognize it. I contacted Microhard, and they were surprised it worked with Android at all... I know it must be possible since the Voxl is android at its core. Any pointers would be great so I can decide if it is even worth trying, or if I need to completely change approach. USB to RJ45 adapter is working with the phone, worst case I could try to connect directly to the ethernet port on the modem.

From the documentation, https://docs.modalai.com/microhard-usb-carrier/, USB DN1 and DN2 are both connected to the modem. I assume DN2 is responsible for the network connection, right? Just trying to collect information for USB enumeration/troubleshooting. I've noticed that sometimes the device shows up as NULL on Android, and sometimes as pmDDLxxx. I haven't been able to consistently determine what causes the state change.

@tom thanks. I was able to resolve the communications issue for 3.8 (mavlink-server is separate unlike the prior version).

@Alex-Gardner that did it! We definitely need to update the docs. I was going over all the Voxl Vision docs I could find and I don't recall seeing anything about voxl-mavlink-server.

A flowchart might be nice, I ran into a similar issue with Voxl Camera Streamer and the camera server service, but I figured that one out thanks to the docs.

@modaltb I couldn't get my VOXLFlight to communicate between the PX4 and VOXL in 3.8 (I have a post on thishere) so I had to downgrade to 3.6. But now I am back to the problem of the cdc_acm driver being used instead of the cdc_ether so the microhard isn't detected by the kernel. Any ideas on what I need to try to get the module to load an ethernet driver? I'm not sure if the productID changed and now a rule that you had in the past may not load the driver anymore. I've tried blacklisting the ACM driver, adding a udev rule, and rmmoding but I can't seem to get it to work.

Downgrade to 3.6.0-0.5 works. I see the message,

'''
PX4 Connected over UART with sysid 1
'''
when executing voxl-vision and QGC detects the stream. There is a bug in 3.8.0/or the procedures it appears. I upgraded because I was having issues with the microhard modem configuration in 3.6, I'll revisit that problem now. At least we can confirm there are no hardware issues, but the software issue with 3.8.0 remains.

Fresh reflash with deleted data partition of 3.8.0-0.7. Totally stock, using PX4 on FlightCore.
Executed

voxl-configure-extrinsics

, used setting 5 for voxl-flight
Executed

voxl-configure-vision-px4
systemctl stop voxl-vision-px4

voxl-vision-px4 -d

Still no output from telemetry, still hangs in the main loop with no threads updating.

=================================================================
loading extrinsics config file
starting geometry module
starting px4 monitor
starting px4 mavlink
starting udp mavlink
Adding manual QGC IP address to udp connection list: 192.168.8.60
Added new UDP connection to 192.168.8.60
starting px4 shell
starting fixed pose input
starting vio manager
starting tag manager
starting voa manager
starting control input pipe
Init complete, entering main loop

@Chad-Sweet I reflashed my flightcore to PX4 to support debug since PX4 is the supported FC firmware. Still no communication when executing voxl-vison-px4.

Couple debug questions:
Which tty device should be associated with UART5/TELEM2 on the VOXL? I was thinking I could use screen to check for any signs of life directly on the serial port. I'm going to try reflash of the VOXL-Flight image next. I don't really know what else to try.

I set TELEM2 in ardupilot to 921.6K and protocol to MavLink2. On the VOXL I'm not sure that voxl-vision is running correctly. voxl-vision-px4 -d just hangs at entering main loop. After reviewing the source, it looks like I am entering the main loop/sleep but none of the threads are reporting data. I can try an image reflash if needed but I just reflashed to latest while troubleshooting microhard issues.

Any guidance on how best to troubleshoot serial coms on VoxlFlight to verify they are operational would be great.

OK I think the error is that I did not have an extrinsics file. I ran voxl-configure-extrinsics with the starling-voxl-flight config and that has cleared that initial error. When I run voxl-vison-px4 -d (to get uart debug) I'm not currently seeing any output. I'm going to check on my configs to verify telem2 is sending uart as needed from Ardupilot.

Thanks for the follow up. After starting down the mavproxy path it looks quite cumbersome due to needing to add multiple python modules without the benefit of pip that likely don't have build wheels for the voxl arch.

Look forward to feedback on the voxl-vision method, I'll keep working at it.

I am currently using Ardupilot on my flight core, and thought I could use the voxl-vison service for the Mavlink relay to the GCS. However, the voxl-vision service is failing as below. Is this because I don't have any cameras currently installed.

If I only need the mavlink relay, should I install Mavproxy instead?

Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 voxl-vision-px4[3336]: follow_tag_id:              0
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 voxl-vision-px4[3336]: figure_eight_move_home:     1
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 voxl-vision-px4[3336]: en_tag_fixed_frame:         0
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 voxl-vision-px4[3336]: fixed_frame_filter_len:     5
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 voxl-vision-px4[3336]: en_transform_mavlink_pos_setpoints_from_fixed_frame:0
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 voxl-vision-px4[3336]: =================================================================
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 voxl-vision-px4[3336]: loading extrinsics config file
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 systemd[1]: voxl-vision-px4.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=255/n/a
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 systemd[1]: voxl-vision-px4.service: Unit entered failed state.
Jan 01 00:59:37 apq8096 systemd[1]: voxl-vision-px4.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

No problem. What I found was that the Microhards were in a Radio Off state by default. The slave unit on the USB standalone module was easy to access the web interface to configure, but since I couldn't get to the web interface on the master I used the telnet interface to configure the radio to on.

The new problem is wlan0 dropped out once I got the microhard at usb0 working. The interface is no longer present with an ifconfig on my system. Calling the wlan start function directly yielded a insmod error. So it looks like the system doesn't see the wifi module anymore? Any thoughts on this?