Hi all,
I just bought an FrSky Taranis for my quad copter and needed to get the Mavlink data up on the Taranis LCD telemetry display. So here is my solution using a Teensy3.1 as a converter between MavLink and the S.Port on FrSky X8R.
See attached file below...
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same here. I had same cheap clone.
I suspected 2 issues - first of all it was very inconsistent power drain wise. I do have (I think) a separate module you need to program minimOSD unit but did not get to it yet. I saw sometimes my amperage to jump up to 2A while disarmed having this minimOSD module on, I am not sure what it was but it was also affecting 5V stability on VCC core in APM, I did not try to fuel it up from a separate BEC, but it was odd.
From my empirical testing - I concluded minimOSD was never happy if it was left in 'listen only' mode. it would sporadically instantiate its metrics sets correctly if you had 3DR radio link established. but sometimes it would not do it. With teensy connected it would practically never start transmitting proper telemetry screen - it would go via initialize mode and then screen would disappear. that is when I unsoldered teensy connection to RX and soldered it back to minimOSD.
Long story short - I have finally condemned this minimOSD unit and removed it. I can probably see a value of it for a person who flies acro style with goggles, may be, and wants to see telemetry on the screen. For me - I find voice channel on taranis to be better and screen with teensy stats to be more than adequate.
If you want to keep it - I would recommend to pay extremely close attention to all power consumers if you feed APM from a generic 3DR BEC like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S0QMA5E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o...
it claims to be 3A capable at 5V, I believe it is a major BS and after 1.5-1.7A on 5V line it starts acting up badly. If you look into your telemetry logs into power section you may see wild fluctuations on VCC core voltage. At least it was my story.
As I installed a separate dual 12V - 5V BEC also:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NJGNHX4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o...
I tried to power up most other consumers from that one (by connecting this 5V power line into APM input port 1) , also used ferrite coils on those power lines, it helped very well with VCC issues (to some degree) but I think not ideally, and, also, it is not capable of 3A. It is decently stable up to 2.3A somewhat.
Next step was a 'duh!' moment as I realized I did not take out GoPro battery from a camera while it was plugged into 5V line with USB cord and charging amperage for camera alone would spike to 3.7A sometimes, all measured while disarmed. I adjusted that and I see now that GoPro alone sucks in 0.8-1A while it is transmitting FPV stream, activating recording at same time adds .1A somewhat to that.
Teensy board is at 0.2A somewhat, never fluctuates. After all that I started measuring minimOSD effect I stated above and it happened to be wildly inconsistent, so it got removed and ALL my issues got fixed - gimball stopped shaking and not able to hold position, recorded in camera interference gone, VCC alarms of voltage fluctuations - gone. It is possible I have bad module, or may be it was programmed wrong, I do not know, but it was the reason of whole drone system malfunction, pretty much, seemingly from 5V line overload - as it feeds by default from the telemetry port.
Last test worth to try would be to power up minimOSD from a separate 5V BEC line while merging grounds from that other power feed and one from the telemetry port but I just got mad enough at it not to go any further.
I got to conclusion that original telemetry port was tested and designed to sustain a single consumer - 3DR radio and it pretty much puts current drain from that feed to the max.
When we start adding anything to it - Teensy and MinimOSD - it just destabilizes whole platform.
Do you mind listing the requred params here please - just to doublecheck if I made a mistake with them.
I did not yet got to pixhawk, it is in the box next to me, finally arrived - a very nice little unit:
http://www.auav.co/product-p/auavx2_6.htm
but I got too much work to do now and until I am done with Armattan on APM I will not start on Tarot on this PX clone, I will get to it in a week or 2.
v3.3 is still in beta but close to a "stable release". There is a separate discussion for beta testing, I saw a post there stating there are (might be) problems with Tensy/Lua with 3.3 but not with 3.3 itself - thus I posted here.
I believe the recommendation to connect your telemetry radio to Telem1 that is high powered / so for your second problem try to switch port it may help.
can I use teensy 2.x instead of teensy 3.1?
yes,
using software serial is the key, on pro mini and teensy2. code for pro mini is located here.
https://github.com/wolkstein/MavLink_FrSkySPort/tree/s-c-l-v-rc/Mav...
see README.md on page for infos and board dependent settings.
/g
wolke
thanks again my friend! I am still waiting for my teensy. maybe I could try the pro mini for now. by the way, pro mini has a 5v 16Mhz version and a 3.3V 8Mhz version, which would work for the setup?
My understanding is the 5V 16mhz version but maybe both work. Wolks github repository has more details on connecting one up. The Arduino Pro Mini I believe will do everything except the 6 cell cell monitoring using the resistor dividers.
Yes, I ordered both versions to play with and they both work (with 5v power provided). At least, they pass Flight mode to my Taranis. Today I'll try to flash latest Wolks' firmware (hope there's enough memory).
There is an issue with my Pixhawk though: it seems no telemetry is output on port 2 (Telem2). Neither SPort convertor, nor my OSD show nothing but Flight mode. OSD shows more data if connected to Telem1. What could this be?
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