Seeking help for compiling ardupilot-solo 1.5.4

Hey

I’m working on getting Solo smart shots and the STorM32 gimbal controller to work together, and I in fact have it working for a Solo with a stock cube flashed with ardupilot-solo 1.5.3 (open solo: https://github.com/OpenSolo). However, the AP_Mount_STorM32 implementation sends new data to the STorM32 only every 1 sec when in MAVLINK_TARGETING mode, which leads to a not very smooth pitch behavior in the smart shots.

I don’t see any other solution than to do few simple changes in the code and to recompile. Unfortunately, I don’t get it to compile.

I understand that Solo and OpenSolo are not part of the ArduPilot project, and that in this sense I’m at the wrong place here, but I didn’t knew a better place to ask. I just hope that someone might remember something which might help me along.

Further info:
I’m on Windows and use the PX4 toolchain, and Eclipse together with make. I can compile ArduPilot3.6dev. However, when I follow the same procedures with ardupilot-solo I get an error

make px4-v2
…/mk/environ.mk:123: /c/Users/Olli/Documents/GitHub/ardupilot-solo/config.mk: No such file or directory
…/mk/environ.mk:125: *** ERROR: could not locate /c/Users/Olli/Documents/GitHub/ardupilot-solo/config.mk, please run ‘make configure’ first and edit config.mk. Stop.

This is maybe not surprising, given that arducopter 3.3 or ardupilot-solo, respectively (I think ac3.3 is the father od ardupilot-solo) has this old “compile system”, with the .pde files and so on.

I thus tried to run ‘make configure’ in a cmd shell, but this didn’t succeed.

I further noticed that for a successful compile I should not only have a config.mk, but also have the PX4 and Nuttx modules “somewhere”.

At this point I’m stuck and can’t piece things together.

Any help, hint, suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thx,
Olli

The opensolo stack is compiled inside a vagrant VM which does all the dependancies and prerequisites to compile everything, including the arduoulot-solo stuff. Have u tried it?

thx for the quick reply

no
I’ve looked at this vagrant VM thing a couple of times but it’s totally over the top of my head
it’s a limitation of mine, but I’m on Windows, and all this unixoid language doesn’t make any sense to me (and typically it just tells 10% of what is needed for a know-nothing to get through), as I said, my limitation

my hope was that since arducopter3.3 could be compiled on Win it might be possible also with ardupilot-solo (with not too many tweaks)

Looks like some info?

thx Mike
I’ve seen this, and honestly it are exactly these kind of reports which makes me think that I should not attempt this kind of things :slight_smile:

let’s see if something more win-ish comes up

I agree that GIThub in general seems to cause a servere limitation for all but the professional developer. I see more and more threads about average folks wanting to participate but blocked by the complexity of GIT. In compiling code and volunteering for updating documentation. It is a problem.

Having to run Vagrant in a VM adds a layer of complexity to compiling the old 3DR code.

Just for the record, the complete code package as-delivered from 3dr required Vagrant for the build system, which builds everything into flashable binaries for the controller and solo copter, pretty-much hands off ( when it works ). it’s a complicated system based on bitbake, recipies, dependancies, etc. …it’s not just about compiling the Ardu* that goes inside one of the Solo components. ( the pixhawk )., but it compiles the entire linux subsystem as well.

Right now this Vagrant VM is having some issues because some external internet-provided dependancies which is downloaded on-demand have been removed, becasue they were considered depreciated, but it’s a known issues, and we’re working to fix it.

thx for the clarifications

yes, I think I understood that the vagrant thing does it all (and that it is a complicated beast)

this was not my main argument for not going with the vagrant thing and why I’d like to be able compile ardu-solo independently, but from a practical means it would be extremely inconvenient if I would have to wait hours after each little code change, wouldn’t be very productive,

@DavidBuzz

would it be maybe an option that I suggest some code changes and you produce a .px4?

We are talking about few lines. So, maybe the effort to get me to compile this thing isn’t worth it. And these changes might go into a 1.5.5. (they could also go into ArduPilot master, but that’s another story)