[Not Quite Solved] TF-Luna (Or any Rangefinder ?) creating bad connection between Air and Ground units ( Mavlink ?)

Yes tested with CTS-RTS as mentioned above , it did not solve the issue.
I’m running V2.0

So there is a way to reduce the data the Luna’s send over Mavlink Sik Radio
It’s in the planner Tab of mission planner under sensor rate.

Mine was 8 = 64Hz , reduced it for test to 1 = 8Hz.
8Hz is still 8x100 measurements /sec/Luna.!!
Other sensors like esc’s in my case are also affected by changing this setting .

Reducing the 100Hz of the Luna’s to about 10Hz could be an option to not block Mavlink traffic.
But it’s a shame to compromise on what the Luna’s are capable of just to un-block the Mavlink data stream.

I tested a direct serial connection between Pixhawk Telemetry 1 and PC-Mission-planner.
To my surprise this gave the same results as Sik Radio.

So one could say , the Luna’s just produce to much data for Mavlink Telemetry ports apart from the Serial0 (don’t know why other then less devices active).

As a solution i would like an option where one could set amount of packets being sent per sensor or some kind of divider "send 1 of 100 (rangefinder) measurements ".

Any help here on that ?.

Could you test your setup on sensor rate 8 ? on USB . ( planner TAB in mission planner ).
Ill think you get an easy 64Hz there,

Yes, and it is on a serial port … sensor rate set to 9 and fluctuating between 60 - 72 :wink:

1 Like

@ppoirier , Is this Wifi -Serial or Cable PC-serial ?

Câble, because you wrote it didn’t work

@ppoirier,
Something’s coming i found the (my) solution !.
I already send 2 Luna data with lightning speed over 915Mhz Sik Radio. :slight_smile: Its surprising and cant explain it completely.

Oh… interesting !
Standing by for more :slight_smile:

@ppoirier so here it the solution for me (s)

As my serial cable link was as “bad” as the SIK air links 433Mhz ,915Mhz and 2.4Ghz i started to suspect my serial port Telem.1 .
I switched from 1 to Telem 2 and most of my airspeed problems where gone , i can’t really say why …port settings are the same apart from the serial pass settings.

After this “huray” moment i ran into a different problem .Regarding the luna’s Below the settings that worked on USB-> Pixhawk previous.
image

On Telem.2 this did not work , RNG3 &7 where mixing up all over…an where only one at a time could be seen on Mission-planner and an alarm "sensor x not found sounded on and on ( even sensor that i saw moving on screen)

So next thing i did was giving the sensor with the well know Arduino script again new addresses.
But this time clockwise 16->18>20 ( more logical ).
Still the same problems existed .

Last option was for me to try to change the order in Mission-planner so RNG1->16 RNG2-18 and RNG3->20 and point these in the right direction…

This is the result !,3x Luna’s on 100Hz and on 915Mhz , 57600 bps , airspeed 64. ( so some room left to improve ).
However i’m more leaning towards reducing some of the Hz of the Luna’s.

@ppoirier ,
@DonLakeFlyer
@rmackay9
there is still one issue.
The directions (mounting place ) in Mission-planner and Qground-control aren’t the same !. This can have huge consequences on where the drone wants to avoid the collision ?!.

1 Like

Just to make sure…
All the Luna’s have unique addresses from ALL other I2C devices on the same bus. Including non-Luna devices, right?

Hello Oeble, so the problem of bad connection is solved? What was the main reason of this issue?

Hi ,
Yes in m case yes. No conflicts with Pixhawk 4 GPS/Compass and ext. Pixhawk LEDs. all works .
This is including the luna’s all on I2C Bus.

Hi Ibrahimqazi,

i’m not sure why , but my Telem 1 & 2 ports act different . I,m not an expert on the Pixhawk board internals and could not find on the internet why they act different . The only this i see is This,

But it does not ring a Bell :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

got it thank you for the information

@ppoirier
So New/Old issue again.

After connecting the TF-Luna’s and the switch the sik 915Mhz to Telem 2 the lunas work fine.
Since i now have to use Telem 1 for minimosd , i noticed that the slow speed is still there on Telem 1.
This means telem 1 cannot be used , Telem 1 updates values/data every 3 or 5 minutes.

The strange thing is that changing settings ( the SR ones ) does not make a difference.

Question ,
1-what is the exact difference between Ports Telem 1 & 2 ?.

I have seen that Telem 1 does only 400 bps on 4 Lidars.
Telem 2 does 2000 bps .

2- How to change these settings ?.

Regards O.

I would suggest you go on dev channel on discord and explain issue with a log file ready to upload

Yes ,

Seems to be a bug ?.
4 luna’s on Telem 1 = 400bps on 2 Hz.
(would be 2000 on 10 Hz )

Thats (2000) what Telem 2 does now , even when bringing the Hz down . Seems to be not working.
At least i know the difference now between 1 & 2.

The 2000 is way to much.

PS where and how to raise this issue ?

Visit this one:
https://gitter.im/home/explore

https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/ardupilot-discord-server.html

Or open issue on github

To end this discussion ,
what worked for me at the end.

As The developers don’t seem to care that much , I got my drone working by doing this.

0-To get my Mavlink 915/433 sik radio working i moved it from Telem 1 to Telem 2.
1-To get fast working telemetry on goggles and VTX i moved my OSD telemetry from Telem-1 to Serial 4. (Telem-1 cannot be used somehow )
2-To give devices time to boot i changed BRD_BOOT_DELAY,0 to 20ms
3-To reduce the (4) Luna’s data load i have two new compiled arducopter firmwares with the lunas on 10Hz and on 25Hz /Luna.(to decide which one to run later )… ! the ardupilot driver resets luna’s every boot ! .

4-Also took out a failure in the TF-Mini I2C -driver @ the same time.

this line-----------const uint8_t CMD_SYSTEM_RESET[] = { 0x5A, 0x04, 0x04, 0x62 }; is wrong(=Trigger detection)
Should be — const uint8_t CMD_SYSTEM_RESET[] = { 0x5A, 0x04, 0x02, 0x60 }; (=system reset )

I hope this help some of you.