Hi all, we have been readying out boat to use torqeedo motors. A couple of weeks ago our Japan drones TTL adaptors arrived and I had one connected to an old pixhawk on a bench setup and ran a single motor test successfully on current 4.5.1 firmware. All the parameters in the guide were changed and all the TRQD parameters came alive in the full parameter list.
This is where I should have backed up the parameter file for future use as my bench pixhawk is used all the time for other testing…
Jump forward a couple of weeks and I traveled up to base to do a full setup on a dev firmware and the TRQD parameters have not populated in the parameter list like last time on either 4.5.1 or the 4.6.0dev firmware. I seem to remember there been another parameter change that caused the TRQD parameters to populate but I cannot think of it and was hoping someone else may have experienced the same issue. FRAME_CLASS is set to boat and the correct serial parameters for Torqeedo have been set. The TRQD_TYPE parameter needs to be set to “Tiller” to function and without that parameter active I cannot continue testing
The torqeedo parameters should all appear once the TRQD_TYPE parameter is set. If you don’t see the TRQD_TYPE parameter at all then the issue is probably that the board is a lower end board (e.g. 1M flash board) and so many features are disabled (we have a Firmware Limitations wiki page here for what it’s worth).
You can get around this issue by creating a custom firmware using the custom build server.
Click on the Add Build on the top right
Set “Select Vehicle” to “Rover”
Set “Select Branch” to “Rover 4 5 stable”
Set “Select Board” to the board you’ve got
Open the “ESC” section and make sure that “Torqeedo Motors” is selected
Click the “Generate build”
Within a few minutes it should generate an .apj file that you can download and the upload to the board using Mission Planner’s Setup, Install Firmware screen’s “Load custom firmware” feature.
By the way, each board has a bootloader on it which the ground stations use to determine which software should be loaded onto the board.
If you’re using the classic Pixhawk (aka Pixhawk1) then there were actually two varieties, one with a 1MB flash and another with 2MB of flash. Some 2MB boards have the older bootloader on them meaning they’re incorrectly identified as having the 1MB limit. If this is the case then you may be able to download the Pixhawk1 Rover firmware for the 2MB boards, upload it using MP’s “load custom firmware” and then update the bootloader and from then on the GCSs will correctly identify it as a 2MB board and upload the full firmware.
Hi Randy, So now that I have updated the boot loader, the pixhawk is definitely 1-M with 1mB only flash.
Before I could load Pixhawk 1 firmware (and depending on what firmware I was trying to load, mission planner or QGC would choose either a 1 or a 1M) but I would get nagging errors.
At 1 point I had a Pixhawk 1 firmware with TRQD parameters available and was stable however I was never able to repeat that.
I was able to use the firmware builder from the link you provided (thankas) and yes I was able to get full TRQD params on the 1M build.
So all this brings me back to the 4.6devTorqeedo firmware you provided with duel Torqeedo support which I am ready to test. I notice that the latest dev firmware flashable via QGC & MP is also v4.6
Does this have the dual Torqeedo support built in as well? That way I can flash another autopilot we have kicking around to test as I think the pixhawk in the big Rover may also be a 1-M but I will know that definitively by tomorrow when I am back up at base. Thanks.
Thanks so Much Randy, Its all loaded and ready to test tomorrow. I see the default TRQ_Servo 1&2 are set to 70. I assume I need to change them to 73 & 74 to get differential thrust?
We re hoping that if this all pans out we can move post testing to a better cube autopilot with a can GPS as it frees up 1 serial port at least. The Red pro is looking like a great option with the ethernet port connection. Cheers.
Multi-Torqeedo support is in “latest” now so you can also use the custom build server to produce a binary for the Pixhawk1-1M board that includes Torqeedo support.
Thanks Randy. I tested the 1-M firmware ware earlier in the week on the bench and the 2 motors all seemed to operate correctly with differential thrust. I was unable to get the motors to turn under the Motor test tab in mission planner but once I connected a radio and receiver and armed the system it functioned fine. As it turns out the old pixhawk is a V1 with 2mb flash but we have the original version of your firmware to use for that.
My employer got all excited and has ordered a cube upgrade with a GPS with CAN connectivity so we will be upgrading that in the near future. Thanks so much for your help.
BTW, for anyone reading this thread, I want to add support for the larger Torqeedo motors that use CAN. I can write a driver but I don’t have the hardware to actually test it so if someone out there has the hardware and is willing to help me test, reply below or send me a PM.
