Last weekend I took my scale-fuselage TRex500 to the field after not flying it for a few months. When I powered it up I got a few beeps from the Matek H743WING controller but it failed to proceed to the point where the main and tail servos are cycled over their range.
Today I tried to hook it up to MP to find out what the problem is, but after timing out Mavlink failed with a “Heartbeat not found” message. I then tried QGC but it also failed to connect. Both MP and QGC identified the connection port as 10 or 11 – I tried both, plus the Auto option. The strange thing (to me, at least) is that I was able to use MP to update the heli’s firmware without any problem, but still unable to connect.
Does anyone have any thoughts about how I can get to the bottom of this, please?
Also, moderators, is there a better sub-forum for this topic?
Thanks Ferrosan. The idea of re-flashing with STM Cube had crossed my mind, but MP successfully (so it said) flashed the latest firmware, so isn’t that the same thing? Just to make sure I tried it again, and MP then reported that I already have the latest firmware installed.
The LEDs are difficult to see because of the scale fuselage, but I think I could see a steady red and blue LED. Looks like whatever happens I’m going to have to remove the fuselage, so I’ll do that before reporting back.
Ok, I’ve just got around to starting the task, but I’m not sure I remember how to use STM Cube programmer
I’ve updated STM Cube programmer to the latest version and plugged my board into a USB socket. If I select USB as the input I get a ‘No DFU detected’ message. If I select UART as the input it offers me COM10 or COM11 but when I click on ‘Connect’ with either of them I get ‘Error: Activating device: KO. Please, verify the boot mode configuration and check the serial port configuration. Reset your device and then try again’.
That’s with the board still connected in the heli. I’ll now remove it from the fuselage so I can disconnect the peripherals, and try again the MP and STM Cube programmer.
P.S. Got the heli out of the fuselage and checked the H743 WING with all peripherals disconnected, and it still won’t connect to STM Cube programmer or to MP. All three LEDs on steady, and DVM shows 5.14v at servo connections.
Boot the board with the push button pressed, that’s DFU mode. You should be able then to connect stm programmer to it. Then you open the previously downloaded FW and hit “download”( check the box” full chip erase”).
Thanks Ferrosan, I’d forgotten about the button. Anyway it seems to have not helped
I followed the directions in the Ardupilot wiki and STM Cube programmer did what was described in the wiki, and my Matek board was able to connect to MP and appeared to be behaving correctly – i.e. the image moved as I moved my heli. Then I updated the firmware to 4.6.3 using MP, which seemed to go without a hitch, but after that I can’t connect to MP and, when I connect a power battery the board does not initialise. No loud chimes and no servo-testing movement, and all three LEDs on solid.
Guess I need a new board. But why? The heli has just been sitting in the garage since its last uneventful flight a few months ago.
Before updating to 4.6.3 , which FW did you upload with the Cube Programmer? Did you just connect with USB to MP to perform the check or also checked actuators and everything?
I’m asking because it’s important to go one step at a time (and check everything )to properly debug the issue
I flashed stable 4.6.3 Matek H743 Heli. I then connected via USB to MP with all peripherals still disconnected. Tomorrow I can re-upload with the Cube programmer, following the link Yuri_Rage had posted, and then immediately check operation in the (blades-off) heli with everything connected.
I’ve followed the directions in Yuri_Rage’s link, and the download of arducopter-heli_with_bl.hex completed and was verified. After disconnecting I powered up with the flight battery and checked responses to Tx input. The left collective servo responded to rudder input, but no other servos responded to anything. I take it that’s because my servos 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 are assigned to outputs 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 on the Matek board, and need reprogramming after the STMCube programming.
I then connected to MP successfully and navigated to Compare params so that I could revert the setup back to what it was during my last flight. That seemed to complete successfully though some parameters were reported out of range or read-only. Having done that I checked with a flight battery again, and no response from Tx commands.
I then tried QGC but it woudn’t connect, but it would reprogram it with the latest Arducopter. After that it still wouldn’t connect to QGC, but I was able to connect to MP and it showed that QGC had installed the quad firmware. I then used MP to install the heli firmware, which it did successfully, but after that it wouldn’t connect.
I then used MP to install tricopter firmware, after which I was able to connect. So I then used MP to install heli firmware, and again I was able to connect to MP, but not to QGC. I then disconnected USB and connected the flight battery, but no response from Tx inputs, and the three LEDs which had been flickering went on steady.
After another cycle of install tricopter firmware – check able to connect to MP – installl heli firmware – check still able to connect to MP, I then used Compare params to revert back to previous setup. This time Tx command resulted in 2 collective servos responding to rudder control, but when I subsequently tried to reconnect to MP it failed with all three LEDs on steady. After typing this paragraph a while later I noticed the LEDs were flashing again (the Matek had been left plugged in to USB) so I tried to connect to MP again and was successful. But then when I plugged the flight battery in again, the 3 LEDs went steady.
Whatever the diagnosis and/or cure for this behaviour, I don’t think I can have confidence in this setup again, so a new board is called for
I have recently (~2months ago) had trouble flashing Ardupilot on my Matek H743 board with locally built firmware, for some reason my MP doesn’t want to connect to bootloader (quickly enough). Flashing with binary images works.
IIRC after flashing with MP the board didn’t reliably get up but it would after flashing with binary file at the correct offset using STM32CubeProgrammer.
I have no problem connecting to my other two H743WING helis with MP or QGC on the same computer. A new board is on order. There’s no way I can justify the risk of keeping this one in a nice heli, even if I was able to configure it fully.
