My 1st Rover Project

For aircraft the extra imus certainly help. I think basically if you vehicle is worth more that £500 or so its probably not worth the potential vehicle loss using the cheapest possible flight controller. That being said there is not so much risk for a rover, on land anyway. Boeing don’t use Pixhawks off amazon for a reason.

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Jesus H Christ I had to start the whole thing all over again from scratch for the 101th time now.
Finally got it back to a normal state but now the thing won’t fix on the right location. If I face it one way it shows on MP that it’s facing a different way. So I recalibrated the compass again & still isn’t working. Can’t win with this thing🤬

I don’t understand why you are starting all over again each time you encounter a problem. Solve one problem at a time and advance, that’s how troubleshooting is done.

It’s a good point about value in the sky with regards to spending money on a Flight Controller. On the ground for what we* are doing I don’t think it much matters. I have a F4 FC that cost $29 running Arducopter and it works fine. But I wouldn’t use it for a gimbaled DLSR multirotor rig.

*Kenny’s application is a bit different than our wimpy Rovers. His can actually do some damage!

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Kenny-Yea I have used delays for Multirotor missions where I want it to actually reach the waypoint or as close as positional data will allow anyway. The SITL is really good for checking this kind of thing out. Spline waypoints, which we don’t have in Rover, can be more challenging in this regard too.

Mine is about $6000 (when new) but it doesn’t fly. :slight_smile: It can however run into a pond I have on my property, which would be very bad! I might try a cube eventually.

I have yet to play with SITL. I need to do that. Thanks again. Always something to learn on here!

Many people in the forums said that a solid red light means an SD card error. So I deleted all data on the SD card and reinserted it back into the pix. Still there was a red light.

I then recalibrated the compass about 4 times but still there was a red light even tho my compass settings showed green indicating good numbers for the compass. Haven’t explained that right but I think you know what I’m trying to explain.

What other reasons might there have been for a solid red light? In the future I will know what to do rather than restarting the whole process again, which worked in the end, but I’d rather find a more simple solution. My arms are pumped after twisting and turning my rover for the 100th time💪🏼

Found this on YouTube. He’s using a Piksi RTK.
Can I buy these to use on the pix achieve the accuracy this guy has?

I have no experience with RTK but that unit is supported. A good example of “Spinners on a Yugo” in your case if you understand the expression.

A Sd card error can cause that problem. You might try another one if the one you are using came with the FC. A Bad Logging error can often be seen with this problem. Again either in HUD or messages screen.

Yes your 100% right I’ve seen bad logging come up a a couple of times! Maybe I should buy a better SD card like you’ve said like a Samsung.
What’s the max capacity SD card the pix can take? 32GB or 64GB?

I have not read through this whole thread but noticed at the beginning you were using two different batteries. When you do this you can get some real weird problems if the two power areas need to communicate unless you have a common ground.

Don’t read this whole thread because you’ll get a headache like I’ve caused for the rest of the fellas in here, but they’ve all been amazing in helping me. Yes at the beginning I was but now I’m using 1 lipo to power everything. All seems to work except right now I’m having trouble with my rover pointing in the right direction in mission planner. It’s only slightly off but I’d like it dead on.

Also regarding the Pix 2.4.8 what’s the maximum capacity it can take on the Micro SD card? 16GB or can it take 32GB? Thanks

Post a log if you would be so kind.

Congratulations are getting it working. Welcome to the club. It is not easy getting one of these working and takes persistence.

I really don’t know what the upper limit on the SD card size is or if there is a limit. I have used a 16gb so I know that works.

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Will do David when I get the chance. I’m sure there will be things I’ve overlooked that will require some changes.
Once I’m 100% fully functional I’d like to try and tweak the setup I currently have to obtain the best possible accuracy for the rover on its auto course.

Thank you very much & yes persistence is required with these due to different vehicles all require different setup options.
It’s about tailoring the pix to suit the machine & there’s me thinking it’s a simple plug & play device😂 I didn’t know what I was in for but once it’s working it’s definitely much more rewarding!

When my rover ran its first auto mission this was my reaction:

Without tuning it properly you are far away from that. 16gb card is plenty in my opinion. try reformatting the card or upgrade to a better one. they are very cheap these days.

More tuning will definitely be required to get this working better.
I’ve ordered a 16GB Samsung SD card so I will use this from now on👍🏼

As others have said above… tuning, tuning, tuning. I had many frustrating days. Take for instance the day my mower just spun around and flew into our fence, breaking boards, and more sadly one of the actuators that move the driving handle.

I have done a lot of tuning of control loops my whole career in an industrial plant, but this was VERY different. It is a good bit more complex. The breakthrough for me was when I finally followed Randy(@rmackay9)'s tuning tutorials. Get throttle tuned a good as you can and then get steering tuned as good you can. THEN you still have navigation tuning to do!!!

Persevere! You’ll get there!

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And on the heading being off, my heading is NEVER spot on. The compass is the hardest thing to get calibrated, but the navigation takes that and GPS into account and it will steer well even if the compass is off some. If it is off 45 degrees or something like that, it has been my experience that you will have some trouble with turns (pivot turns in my case), but overall, the tracking will still be pretty good.

I am amazed with the way you’ve automated that beast of a machine, and here’s me with a little 1/10 scale rover pulling my hair out lol
You’ve done a great job with your project!
Well the compass is only slightly off and far from a 45 degree angle so it should suffice as you’ve suggested.

I really do think there’s something wrong with the SD card which came with the pix as I’m getting a red solid light allot. It’s fine for a while but then it turns red sometimes. I’ve ordered a Samsung 16GB so it should perform much better. It arrives today so will try that and see the results.

If it continues I will post a log for you guys to check out