Pixhawk, PPM module and RC receiver power up issue

ArduCopter Copter 4.0
21

AFAIK all the 2.4.8’s have 2Mb of flash. Those boards came out after all the hoopla about the 1Mb version. But you should post the messages screen to see if it’s fmuv2 or fmuv3 loaded because by default these all seem to load the former. BTW-fmuv3 will run on these boards and it will make some features available that are not in fmuv2.

There is one way you can tell from Mission planner when you attempt to load firmware.See the “found board type” note? It indicates flash here for the board and now will not a load a version that doesn’t fit. This is a 1Mb board.

Flash
Flash1154×455 85.3 KB

22

SRXL2 is now in master, so if you can tell me precisely which board I am happy to do a build.

23

Thanks Andy,

I upgraded the AR620 with the latest firmware but I’m trying to find the actual board version information. I cannot access it from the “Install Firmware” page in the Mission Planner as shown by Dave.

I’m including the look of my mission planner screen

missionPlannerScreen
missionPlannerScreen1920×1040 179 KB

Thank you

24

What do the messages show when you boot the board? Messages tab under the HUD. Select it before connecting and post a screen shot before the needed info scrolls away. You should update Mission Planner to Latest Beta from the Help screen.

25

Thanks Dave,

I upgraded Mission Planner and here is the screenshot of the messages log. I hope this is the messages you meant.

missionPlannerScreen
missionPlannerScreen823×1043 199 KB

26

Pixhawk 1, there you go!

27

Great! If I upgrade the firmware with Andy’s update to use the SRXL2, how would I connect the AR620 to the Pixhawk?

Thanks

28

It’s the port labelled “data” on the AR620. You need to connect it to a free UART using the TX pin/+/gnd
And set SERIALn_OPTIONS=4 SERIALn_PROTOCOL=23 when n is the serial number.

29

Should I separate the +/grd pins from the signal 1/data? (see picture for the pins distribution on the AR620.

I noticed that the programmer seems to power up the AR620 using the +/gnd pins on the same bus where the pin 1/data is located.

image
image750×750 110 KB

Thank you

30

Wire up to 1/DATA only so +5v->+ GND->-, TX->S

31

Thanks Andy. What baud rate should I use?

32

115k although I don’t think it actually matters

33

Andy,

I’ve updated the firmware with the one you supplied. I wired the AR620 as you indicated using the +, gnd and signal for the 1/data port and the other end on the Serial UART#4 on the board.
serial2
Shown in the picture as #9.

Here is the wiring I followed:
serial4
I used pin 1 for VCC, Pin2 for the data on the AR620 and pin 6 for GND

I changed the parameters with the following configuration:
params1

Do you think it makes a difference which serial port I used since normally #4 is used for GPS? Should I used the Serial port #5 instead?

The device is power up but when connecting to the mission plan, I get no movement on the bar during the radio calibration.

Thank you

34

Pin 2 on that connector is Tx , you need Rx or pin 3. Signal pin from the Receiver to the Rx pin on the UART.

35

Sorry @dkemxr, in the case you are wrong (not often!) - half-duplex requires that you connect to the TX port on the UART.

@trigger does MP think the radio is connected at all? Can you send a picture.

36

Ah OK, got it! Thanks for the correction Andy.

37

If you have an F7 then you can connect to the RX and swap the pins, but not on an F4.

38

This is the screen I get from the radio calibration after I power up and connect using MP:

radioCal
radioCal1003×541 50.4 KB

When I try to do the calibration I get the following message:
radioCal1

I imagine because it can’t read anything from the radio.

Also, here is the release note from Spektrum regarding the latest firmware update on the AR620:
Version 2.39 (April 17, 2020)

  • Improved Bind reliability
  • Change to provide RSSI % range and dBm over SRXL Channel Data
  • Fix bug in RF reception in EU mode that caused invalid RSSI reporting and increased fades in some radios (thanks chris_0815)

Does this means that the AR620 may support SRXL but not SRXL2?

Thank you

39

These bugs were reported in the SRXL2 thread on rcgroups, I suspect the SRXL comment is a typo. So I have no reason to believe it does not support SRXL2. Someone else is reporting issues similar to you with an RX that definitely supports SRXL2, so it may be something else.

Are you able to run mavproxy?

40

I’m downloading it now. So I should