Posts made by Vinny

Hi @serviceberry
I happened to stumble on your post here, sorry it looks like no one ever responded to you.
Is your HW still in error?
Can you confirm how you are powering the VOXL 2 mini, and if anything changed before this issue?
The two ICs you show that are smoking hot are interesting.
The one at 156C is the level translator for our I2C bus on the power connector.
Are you sure you have pins 1 and 2 as power, and not pins 3 & 4? If pins 3 & 4 were accidentally used to power the VOXL 2 Mini, this chip would indeed see the brunt of that issue.
The other chip heating up may just be secondary due to the other failure since that chip is downstream of this one for powering the board from the voltage impacted.
Looking forward to your response and sorry again no one responded (or did you submit a second case??)
Thanks!

@shawn_ricardo And one more point I wanted to make about the cable...
this is our solution which we know works well:
https://docs.modalai.com/cable-datasheets/#mcbl-00085
However, our only design that can power a doodle at full specs is M0130: https://www.modalai.com/collections/expansion-board/products/m0130-3?variant=48186331693360
and under that combination of HW and cable, we see no issues, so I'm not inclined to think there are any SW issues going on here.

Hi @shawn_ricardo
I was thinking a bit more about this and I'm even more confident it's most likely a ground loop issue. When you use a PC, it is plugged into the same wall-ground connection as the 5V power supply, so there is no ground loop between the PC and the Doodle (they share the same common ground from your house/lab/office). However, with our drones, that GND connection is isolated due to the battery. If you are using a bench power supply instead of a battery, then the ground has a (typically) isolated path to push through since most benchtop supplies are isolated from wall power to the load output for replacing batteries (i.e.: you need to NOT have the negative terminal shorted to Earth GND for battery powered electronics replacement supplies).
So, I'm even more confident you should try a power module fed by whatever supply is powering your Starling.
The other smaller thing I thought of could be related is turn-on timing. Some devices, Boson in particular (though I have not heard this with Doodle) are very picky with power up timing and will not enumerate if VBUS is too fast to rise, or if some devices turn on before their host. I'm curious if the turn on timing between the Doodle and the PC is less of a concern (likely the USB port is going into a hub internal to your PC), whereas with us on a Starling, it's direct to the Snapdragon (no Hub) and the timing of it may be more sensitive. The way to check for this is to experiment with turning on the doodle power at various stages (before Starling, after Starling, after Starling for a long wait, and even "with" Starling) and see if that makes a difference. If that changes things, then we have a timing issue that may be addressed by a SW enabled power supply based on when the enumeration is successful....
But, I'd still go with the power module as a priority, since that is what is needed anyway for flight. Might as well test as you will fly.
Keep us posted.
Thanks!

Hi @SKA
Alex's instincts are correct, we do not have a smaller plug in board for just tracking in a synce'd config. We only had an M0155 for one image sensor for a while, so your best bet is what Alex said and get the new M0188 for VOXL 2 Mini (VOXL 2 uses M0173, whereas VOXL 2 Mini uses M0188)
It's quite cost competitive for what it does!!
https://www.modalai.com/collections/all/products/m0188

Hi @shawn_ricardo
You are lucky that works on a windows PC. The USB cabling is in need of improving to work reliably. Please shorten the USB data lines, and ideally keep them twisted pair.
Our system does not buffer our USB lines on a Starling but I bet many full sized PC's do.
Also, we do not know the GND connections on doodle for power vs USB, but I bet we have a ground loop here.
The power supply for the drone and radio need to have the same ground at some point, and I cannot tell if that is done here.
Third, there is no way to confirm if the wall adapter is indeed providing 5V @ 3A since there is no USB bus to negotiate that current. Without any negotiation of a USB Host/Charger and a peripheral, you are most likely only getting 500mA.
The better test is to use a power module, like our V3 https://www.modalai.com/collections/cables-1/products/mdk-m0041-1?variant=46923853955376, and use that to create the 5V for Doodle using the same source that is powering your Starling. You'll eventually be trying to fly this right? Unplug from the wall adapter and try it the way you intend and I have a feeling things will be better.

Hi @dougmiller
If your VOXL 2 Mini is TrustZone Configured for UART over J10, then yes, there are 2 pins available as inputs.
https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-mini-connectors/#j10---external-uart
You can see GPIO_40, GPIO_46 and GPIO_64 are input capable.
GPIO_40 and GPIO_64 are able to be configured to do wake events in the SoC so they have extra configuration to route to a power manager. Depending on how you write your IRQ routine, that may or may not help.
Hope this helps!

Hi @yardy
Are you using the jumper blocks J14.15/J14.17 to JP1.10/JP1.12 respectively for QUP_19?

That will result in 3.3V RX/TX signals at J9 on M0144.

Just want to clarify so that SW is not chasing any red herrings.
Thanks!

Hi @Hung-Pham
All of our products are 0-70C, unless we state otherwise.
Thanks!
Vinny

Hi @JANG
The only time a power module is damaged is when a power supply is used to power the system and the motors are spun up, creating a voltage spike on the input rail that exceeds 28V, not a battery. So, this overall is very surprising to me.
You are welcome to use any 5V source for FCv2. It does not need much power (maybe 1-2Amps total) so our power module is overkill for a FCv2, but it helps by providing current and voltage readings to to PX4 or you FC SW of choice.

Hi @serviceberry
From a HW viewpoint (I am HW team) that sounds reasonable to use the hub the way you suggest. But I know for a fact from personal experience the Boson's are very dependent on VBUS rise times, and a very fast rising 5V supply may not allow it to enumerate properly. We have had an instance in the past where one particular VBUS port rose really fast, and the Boson did not enumerate until we slowed it down. It's one of those situations that may require testing to check. Our J3 10-pin host port has a nice moderate rise time that allows Boson to enumerate. So, when using a Hub, check the VBUS rise times compared to J3.
I do NOT expect J9 USB-C OTG port to work with Boson.
The Snapdragon SOC is very smart, and when in OTG mode, it will not provide more than 500mA to any device that enumerates as USB2 which I am lead to believe how the Boson enumerates. if the Boson could enumerate as a USB3 device and the drivers were all present in the Kernel for this, the Snapdragon will give it 900mA over VBUS letting it boot but I think this is a non-starter without the Boson being able to do that.
Our Boson kits use USB2 only and we provide 1A support to enable them to work without requiring enumeration to negotiate more current, hence why they work on the J3 ports and other expansion board ports that have more than 500mA: https://docs.modalai.com/expansion-design-guide/#usb-expansion-over-j3--j5

Hi @serviceberry
From a hardware perspective, this is not achievable with direct VOXL2 Mini power sources.
We do not provide enough 5V to power Qty-2 Bosons on VOXL 2 Mini. You will need a full sized VOXL 2 for this use case.
https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-mini-connectors/#power-inputoutput-important-note

Or, you will need to make a custom adapter that allows you to power your Bosons from a external power source.

Hi @JANG
I am surprised you burnt out your power module. It is a very capable and highly flexible design. I've never burned one out over years of testing.

https://docs.modalai.com/power-module-v3-datasheet/

Can you please elaborate more on what you are trying to do, I am not clear on your setup goals.
The power module is for all intents and purposes a DC regulator. It will take any (battery) voltage from ~5.5V up to 28V and create 5V to power VOXL 2, FCv2, or anything else at 5V up to 6Amps.
The module also passes this same input voltage (typically a battery) through so that other things can be cascaded off it like an ESC, more power modules, etc.

Hi @dan64
That is not the standalone Modem board variant and many other components are missing to make this work.
We do not currently sell the "standalone" version of the M0090 (5G) or M0130 (4G LTE), so sadly your efforts will hit a dead end.

Hi @dongsup-seo
It's a fair question but please provide some context for your concern.
Aside from the boot image needed (see link below), the design changes are largely transparent to the end user.
https://docs.modalai.com/m0054-versions/

Thanks
Vinny

Hi @voxltester
Please take a look at this old thread: https://forum.modalai.com/topic/1356/sentinel-drone-randomly-reboots?_=1673383475709

Let us know if that issue with J5 is what is happening.

It is unlikely you are pulling too much current in normal operations as you more than likely have a fault if you think the 5V is drooping.

Thanks!
Vinny

Hi @Alex-Kushleyev
That's correct, since we have not supported it or tried it, there is no elegant HW solution.
We've recently completed the M0172 adapter which breaks out a uCOAX on the upper group + 40-pin Molex (for ToF) on the lower group from a single camera group.
We have not made this product available yet for purchase, but looks like this:

If this is something that interests you, I encourage you to ask our sales team using the contact page about it (we should have a bunch in stock it just has not been a priority for us): https://www.modalai.com/pages/contact-us

@Alex-Kushleyev @ashwin

We are really only anticipating 1 ToF per system. Not sure if any SW efforts have even tried more than 1 and if it's not on our roadmap, it could take a while to support.

However, if a second one is needed it would need to be on a separate camera group on VOXL 2 (not VOXL 2 Mini, as there is not enough system current at 5V to drive two ToFs reliably due to their high current demands).

Hi @Jetson-Nano
Please see this cable page for more guidance.
https://docs.modalai.com/cable-datasheets/#mcbl-00085
Doodle is one of those applications which we give customers enough to start trying it, but we encourage a custom solution to fit your application(s).
Thanks!
Vinny

Hi @antenna-eng ,
@tom has you covered, I was just expressing my experiences with WSL in the hopes it helped.
Thanks!

Hi @dew54 ,
Are you willing to share your schematic with us? We always perform a courtesy review of any customer design.
What Alex said is true but there are some more subtle nuances because our Microhard design pre-dates Voxl 2. Everything was designed to be backwards compatible but a custom design can certainly step on some toes of the 5V network.
Let us know if you are willing to share and we'll email you to exchange the Sch.
Thanks!