Cabling Questions: Upgrade from Pixhawk1 to Avioni Hex Board with Orange Cube

ArduCopter
1

I am upgrading from Pixhawk1 to Avioni Hex Board with Orange Cube. On my Pixhawk1, I had a telemetry cable which went to serial 4/5 (external port) and allowed me to get telemetry data on my taranis radio. I’ve found a new cable for Pixhawk 2.1/Pixhawk 3/Pixhawk 4/Pixracer/Minipix which I think should be the one for the Hex boards: http://www.craftandtheoryllc.com/store/ct-telemetry-cable-for-frsky-radios/
All the Pixhawk 2.x telemety cables I see are basically the same.

The problem is, and reason I have not ordered one is because my Hex board does not have an external serial 4/5 port to connect to. I am very hesitant to take apart my brand new board and even more hesitant to go splicing in a cable internally, especially since I read that the Serial 4/5 port on the newest Hex board is already in use by the ADS-B. I am pretty unconvinced it would even work with two devices hooked up to the same port. If it were a daisy chain port, maybe, but a serial port I thought was for one device on one port is my understanding. I did see in the Ardupilot documentation that “due to space constraints two ports are on one connector.” on the Pixhawk1, so… maybe? Is there another way to connect a cable for telemetry data? Taking apart the Hex board just does not seem right.

The 2nd cabling question I have is: My power cable that came with the new board is too short. I have another one that is slightly longer (came with my power module sensor) but it is also just barely too short. I can’t seem to find any longer cables online. I have been searching for JST-GH connector cables, but not finding any long ones. Should I just splice it twice with a little piece of cable? Will this create resistance or throw off my power module’s sensor? I am hesitant to move my power module’s sensor because I don’t have a good place to mount it close to the board, but at the same time, I am hesitant to put two splices into each wire.

I have two GPS units; one I bought just recently, and the 3DR one which came with the Pixhawk1. For the first GPS, my cabling question is: My Pixhawk1 GPS cables are color coded and there are 4 wires coming from the gps’s, plus two more for the 12c port. On the new Hex board, the cables are not color coded, but it looks as if they are simply exactly reversed in their order of connection to the connector. Without color coding, I’m not certain about the two centermost wires. The red and black I am pretty sure would connect to red and black, but the yellow and green I don’t want to get backwards. Can just splice them all to their opposite positions from the Pixhawk1 and it will be correct? I don’t like the idea of just guessing it and hoping it’s correct. Can anyone validate? Picture below:

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Then there’s the 12C connection for the GPS unit. My GPS unit has only two wires coming out for connecting to the 12C port on the Hex board, but the new cable has three wires in use. I think I should be connecting the middle two wires to the middle two wires on the new connector, but no idea which cable to which side. This would mean two possibilities:

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Or another way entirely?

For my second GPS, the 3dr which came with Pixhawk1, I have six wires coming from the GPS unit, but only 4 wires to connect to on the new connector:

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Where do the extra 2 wires go, and which two are “extra?” For the 12C connection, I have 4 wires coming from the 3DR unit, but the new connector only has 3 wires:
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What do I do about this?

All of this has left me wondering: Is this one of those situations where if you upgrade one thing, you have to upgrade and replace everything around it? Maybe there are cables I can buy which save me the need to do all this splicing?

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Good day, i will attach you a link for the correct wiring
https://docs.px4.cc/en/assembly/quick_start_cube.html

Just in case of doubt you can contact me so i can help you …DIY require time and patient but is awesome

3

Thanks for the offer to help privately. However, I prefer to post the solution in the forum so that if others (or me, the next time I have to do this) ever needs to find the answer, it’s already posted for all. Patience is not something I am lacking in, and why I started this project in October (just before the cold season where I am.) I kind of knew it was going to be a long process of putting together, realizing I need a small part, ordering, waiting, installing, and repeating. Luckily I have other drones I can fly in the mean-time, so I am not worried about the time it takes. I know eventually I’ll get it working.

I have found a Chinese seller who sells a smart port to telemetry cable which has the option to connect to the external TELEM1 or TELEM2 ports, so my first issue has been solved (I think, when it arrives.) link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/FrSky-Yaapu-Telemetry-Converter-Cable-Pixhawk-X10S-X9D-QX7S-Smart-Port-X8R-X4R/153260155174?hash=item23af046126:g:SBsAAOSwkHFb68DC It looks like it has options which would be suitable for several different configurations, and also costs a few bucks cheaper than the other cable I was looking at, so it might be a good option for lots of situations.

For the power cables which are too short, I guess I will just have to splice in a little piece of wire. I still haven’t found any longer cables available, but if anyone knows of any, it would be helpful.

As for the GPS’s, I had an epiphany (thanks to some sleep) that I can use two diagrams:


&
https://docs.px4.io/v1.9.0/en/flight_controller/pixhawk.html

and compare the actual pinout from each. I will make my own diagram on paper in which I will trace down each pinout from the old style connector to the new connector, and use the labels on the diagrams to decipher which individual wire goes to each on the new connectors since both diagrams tell exactly what each individual pin is doing. I will post my diagram here when it’s working, for anyone else, since I see lots of people with questions scattereed about the forums about this and similar situations. I think my plan will work. One thread I found might prove to be helpful for this issue: Telemetry Wiring If I have to get new GPS units, luckily they are cheap.

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I have some updates. The new telemetry cable arrived, but I didn’t need it. It turns out, I can just rework the wires from my old one, and it seems to work fine.

As for the Craft and Theory cable, that one would’ve been just the same. It actually does not connect internally to Serial 4/5 (despite the instructional diagram on C&T’s page,) so if anyone wants one of those, you just need to connect to “Telem2.”

As for the GPS’s. The picture above where I used red lines to connect the wires is correct. Seems to be working.

As for the i2c connector, I still don’t actually know because I didn’t need ot use it on the Hex board.

If you’re having trouble figuring out which wires (because they are labeled differently for Pixhawk1 vs. Hex board with Orange Cube) use the process of elimination instead. That’s what I did.